How do you solve a problem like Maria? Family complexity and institutional complications in UK social work

This paper is based on one part of an international comparative project, funded by NORFACE (New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Co-operation in Europe ‘Welfare State Futures’), involving eight countries: Bulgaria, Chile, Ireland, Lithuania, Mexico, Norway, UK, and Sweden. The Welfare State Futures programme seeks to stimulate multi-disciplinary and comparative research to ‘rethink’ welfare states by asking and answering fundamental questions about how they are designed, delivered and experienced in the 21st century. The broad research questions addressed are: if and how social workers’ conceptions and/or definitions of family impact on the way social workers engage with complex families; If and how social policies that frame social work context impact on the way social workers engage with complex families. Discussion here draws on data from 24 focus groups held in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.