Poverty and Community Care

Abstract

In this chapter, I begin with a brief justification of the premise that the management of poverty by the social security system is oppressive in nature and practice. The argument I suggest is that poverty on a large scale forms the inescapable background to the work of community care practitioners. Indeed, I suggest that, in some important ways, the typical working practices and frameworks of community care — purchaser-provider splits, assessments, community care managers and so on — make these factors all the more acute. Having established this essential context, I then go on to consider ways in which social welfare services might respond, suggesting a model and a set of working practices which, it is argued, provide a defensible and worthwhile way of working, even in these troubled times.