Regeneration and Renewal
gave this
title as a Key Read recommendation. The reviewer states: “This is an
educational read filled with examples for anyone involved in community
work.
Janet Butler,
Chair of Family First, in her Foreword wrote: “This book not only charts
the history of Family First and its work over the past forty years: it
also puts on record the work of thousands of people involved as tenants,
service users, staff, volunteers, students and trainees in a myriad of
different, often imaginative and successful ways. All of them have
worked towards the common purpose of finding local solutions to local
problems and needs.”
Ruth I Johns was asked to
research and write this book. Family First has been on the front line of
social change for 40 years. Set up to challenge prejudices and tackle
problems of the 1960s, it created innovative practical opportunities for
families and individuals: in housing, child care, neighbourhood centres,
learning skills, access to furniture and clothing and – above all –
self-determining a positive future.
Family First has always been a
local organisation helping local needs. Its proven work has also altered
attitudes both in the UK and abroad. Its early housing project for young
lone mothers was called a ‘revolutionary idea’ by the Home Office.
Family First’s holistic
approach enables flexible practical help whether an individual is a
young lone parent; a 60-year-old who left a long stay psychiatric
hospital to live ‘in the community’; someone unemployed for many years;
a young person leaving statutory ‘care’, or a parent desperate because
of a family trauma.
Like many small ‘appropriate’
organisations, Family First has faced increasing bureaucratic
regulations and an ever-changing barrage of policy impositions which
favour the big players. This book – an historical case-study – shows how
it is becoming more difficult to deliver the holistic help people need
in order to become self-responsible, and to escape being defined as a
tick-box category.
The Gulbenkian Foundation asked
Ruth I Johns to write an earlier book about Family First. This covered
its first ten years: philosophy and practice. See Backlist section. |