ABSTRACT
In this chapter I aim to show how family centres could (and in some cases do) realize their promise of supporting parents in the care of their children where they are in need, promoting better childcare in families and communities, and empowering their users. That is to say, I shall examine ways in which family centres could promote responsibility and autonomy in parents – not by the deterrent principle which increasingly underlies the British income maintenance and social services systems, but by listening to users’ needs, providing services which meet them, and adopting the conclusions of the vast body of research on the relationship between poverty and the quality of family life. It is my intention to review some of this literature to provide a framework which legitimates family centres and social services which link the personal and the political, the private and the public, rather than – as has too often been the case – focusing on the personal without attention to its social, gender, or cultural context.
