Helping people to help themselves : policy lessons from a study of deprived urban neighbourhoods in Southampton

Williams, C.C. and Windebank, J. (2000) Helping people to help themselves : policy lessons from a study of deprived urban neighbourhoods in Southampton. Journal of Social Policy, 29 (3). pp. 355-373. ISSN 0047-2794

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is draw out some policy lessons from a study of self-help activity amongst 200 households in deprived urban neighbourhoods of Southampton. Commencing with a critique of the popular prejudice that promoting self-help should be opposed in case it leads to a demise of formal welfare provision, the paper then interrogates the empirical evidence to understand and explain the nature and extent of such work in deprived neighbourhoods. Finding that self-help is a crucial component of household coping practices, but that no-earner households are unable to benefit from this work to the same extent as employed households, the paper proposes both bottom-up and top-down solutions to tackle the barriers to participation in self-help amongst unemployed households. In particular, it calls for a modification to Working Families Tax Credit and the creation of Community Enterprise so as to recognise and value much of the self-help activity that currently takes place but remains unrecognised and unvalued.

Item Type:	Article
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2000 Cambridge University Press. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics (Sheffield) > Political Economy Research Centre (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > University of Sheffield Research Centres and Institutes > Political Economy Research Centre (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of Modern Languages (Sheffield) > Department of French (Sheffield)
Depositing User:	Repository Assistant
Date Deposited:	19 Sep 2006
Last Modified:	08 Feb 2013 16:50
Published Version:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047279400006024
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1017/S0047279400006024
URI:	http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/1586

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