Introduction
Within typologies of welfare states, the French welfare state has been described as belonging to the Corporatist-Conservative classification, which involves a high level of welfare spending and tax financing, and has a relatively high level of cash support for families (Fagnani, Reference Fagnani2012). Further, Martin (Reference Martin2010) argues commitments to universal family support measures in France have, in recent decades, been revised, with a much stronger emphasis on selective measures targeted at specific children and/or youth and their families, or socio-economically disadvantaged families. For example, family policies are more targeted at lone parent families or parents with disabled children. The relationship between the state and ‘the family’ has come to be underpinned by the following principles. On the one hand, principles of parental, family and child responsiveness, empowerment and universal support are important. Notions of ‘parental involvement’ emerged in the late twentieth century, drawing on ideas of empowering service users and supporting parental strengths to improve parenting. On the other hand, more overt stigmatising discourses have become increasingly significant, justifying ‘corrective’ targeted interventions incorporating state surveillance of, and more authoritarian interventions for, vulnerable families (Neyrand, Reference Neyrand2012). This article examines the policy–practice tensions arising from these dual dimensions of family support policy and practice in France. The article first considers the development of legal provisions and second analyses family support practice and parent–practitioner relationships within two high-profile service initiatives for high-need families. The discussion then examines state support, state regulation and parental involvement as features of frontline practice and professional–family relationships.
The policy and service context in France
Family policies often incorporate universal and targeted family support, child and family services and family-orientated state interventions. Measures include financial support (allowances and tax reductions) and heavily or entirely state subsidised universal services for parents and families with children. Examples of universal provision in France are consultations and medical support for pregnant women and infants provided by PMI services (Protection Maternelle et Infantile ‒ Maternal and Early Childhood Care) (Join-Lambert Milova and Sohre, Reference Join-Lambert Milova and Sohre2012: 112), childcare services for young children in crèches, and holiday activities for children and young people subsidised by local authorities. Since the 1980s, the universal service system has expanded due to increasing state investment in formal childcare facilities, an expansion which is often seen as the main explanation for the increase in the French birth rate in recent years. France now has one of the highest birth rates in Europe, standing at 1.99 children per woman in 2013 (Eurostat, 2015). The childcare sector has also become more professionalised, with higher levels of qualifications more common across the sector, from home-based child-minders to heads of crèches.
Targeted support includes programmes and services for families with vulnerable children, such as those that seek to reduce school ‘drop-out’ or exclusion, those that provide support services for children with disabilities and child welfare and child protection services. These programmes and services are often represented as designed to address gaps in the ‘social ecology’ of disadvantaged and vulnerable families, when communities and wider family networks are viewed as unable to provide sufficient or appropriate support (Dolan et al., Reference Dolan, Pinkerton and Canavan2006).
Several recent policies have substantially developed targeted measures and services (Fagnani, Reference Fagnani2012). There has been much emphasis on support targeted at specific categories of families and children. For example, PMI services have been required to concentrate more on women with specific needs and social, economic and psychological vulnerabilities (Jourdain-Menninger et al., Reference Jourdain-Menninger, Roussille, Vienne and Lannelongue2006: 4). Further, in October 2014, the Assemblée Nationale (National Assembly, French Parliament) enacted legislation to amend basic financial family allowances, moving from universal provision for all towards differential allowances dependent on household income. This legislative change was premised on the need for budgetary cuts to universal entitlements and prioritising the needs of poorer families. However, there is still a clear distinction between those universal public policies, which target all families ‒ although, due to recent changes, to different extents ‒ and the more specific family support policies exclusively targeted at vulnerable groups such as families with disabled children or families where children are at risk of school exclusion. Social workers supporting families can work in two distinct organisational contexts, mainstream universal services such as the CAF (Caisse d'allocation familiales – Benefits Agency for Family Allowances), PMI or municipal centres, where they will help those families who ask for support; or in social services targeting specific groups of families with issues, namely those concerned with child protection, supporting disabled children or working with young offenders, all areas governed by specific laws.
Alongside these universal and targeted services seeking to support the family group as a whole, family policies also include a growing number of services and support measures targeted at parents seeking to enhance their parenting capacities. While Boddy et al. (Reference Boddy, Statham, Smith, Ghate, Wigfall and Hauari2009) highlight some distinctions which have been made in the English context between family support and parenting support, they illustrate how different European contexts conceptualise or deliver parenting support in alternative ways, and highlight the importance of policy and practice dialogue and learning across Europe. Their European review of parenting support services looked at support and services targeted at parents, or parents and children, which sought to meet parental support needs and enhance parenting skills (Boddy et al., Reference Boddy, Statham, Smith, Ghate, Wigfall and Hauari2009: 12).
In France, parenting support has become a substantive part of family policies, based on notions that supporting parents is a way of strengthening families in their child-raising roles. Across universal and targeted services though, and all social work practice with families and parents in France, a central concept underpinning practice is that of ‘accompagnement’, which means to ‘go alongside’. The emphasis on responsive needs-based family support (rather than parenting education or monitoring) is one of the likely reasons why, unlike other European countries, formal parenting programmes are rarely used in France (Boddy et al., Reference Boddy, Statham, Smith, Ghate, Wigfall and Hauari2009: 7).
Parenting support developments
At the end of the 1980s, the notion of ‘parenting support’ (soutien à la parentalité) was introduced, at a time when parents, including those in the most vulnerable circumstances, such as the users of social services, were prompted to exercise their full citizenship roles (Pioli, Reference Pioli2006). Sociologists view these social policy developments as associated with several wider societal developments. Thus, changes in family formations and types, with more children raised by single mothers, separated parents and/or step-parents, gave rise to policy concerns about problems and vulnerabilities for children. Another factor was the international context, where the end of the 1980s saw the ratification of the UN Convention of the Right of the Child, and a focus shifting away from the adults’ perspective towards children's needs and rights. Finally, the political discourse since the beginning of the 1990s has been more critical of parents and more prescriptive about parenting, with some politicians referring to parents ‘giving up’ on their children's upbringing, not teaching children appropriately in terms of social values, and not sufficiently supporting their children's school education (Neyrand, Reference Neyrand2012: 51). For instance, this argument was used by right-wing politicians when introducing benefit cuts for parents of young offenders (Chemin, Reference Chemin2010). In contrast to these political statements, though, some research studies have found vulnerable parents are very concerned about their children's achievements, although they may not have knowledge and competence in relation to helping children to achieve highly across the school curriculum (Périer, Reference Périer2005).
The new forms of support are concerned with the responsibilisation of parents. An illustration of this are the REAAPs (Réseaux d’écoute, d'appui, et d'accompagnement des parents ‒ Parental Consultation, Care and Social Support Networks), which were introduced in 1999. The focus was particularly on initiatives aimed at creating and strengthening bonds between parents and their children. These networks sought to provide peer and professional advice, guidance and support for parents and carers. The aims were to build parenting knowledge and ‘competences’, providing parenting support and education. REAAPs, however, were also strongly about self-help among parents and communities, illustrated in the following statement in a circular of February 2006:Footnote 1
REAAPs must ensure that parents bring up their own children, based on their own know-how, but also their capacity to help each other in order to regain confidence in their ability to fulfil this parental role.
Key aims and activities for REAAPs included:
Co-parenting and help for parents in conflict with their partners or in the process of separation; activities involving fathers; facilitating the development of ties between families and the school.Footnote 2
They were also aimed at raising parental awareness of the importance of regular attendance at school.Footnote 3 These foci were informed by the concerns about parents ‘giving up’ on their children's upbringing and education mentioned earlier. An additional focus was to better promote both mothers’ and fathers’ responsibilities, and to encourage greater paternal involvement in ‘everyday childcare’ and parenting.
Parental participation in REAAP activities is voluntary. These networks are intended for all parents, without targeting any specific group, even though different activities focus on different kinds of concerns. There was recognition that all parents may find themselves confronted by difficulties for which they may seek community or professional support. According to Pioli (Reference Pioli2006), the underlying idea in these policies is that parents need more state support and guidance to enable them to exercise both their rights and their duties as parents. REAAPs are an illustration of parental responsibility policies and initiatives that have also developed in the UK. Bond-Taylor (Reference Bond-Taylor2015: 7) highlights some of the critical issues arising from emphasising parental and family responsibility for children's, youth and social problems when individual and parental agency may be limited:
The ways in which empowerment strategies and responsibilisation strategies may collide need further consideration, particularly where services hold individuals responsible for problems which they do not have the power to influence, or where their capacity to exercise such power is severely limited.
As found in other European countries, parenting support programmes like REAAP have encountered difficulties engaging particular groups of parents, including fathers and parents from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds and minority ethnic communities (Boddy et al., Reference Boddy, Statham, Smith, Ghate, Wigfall and Hauari2009: 6). Partly in response to this, more targeted parenting support initiatives have been developed, including the PRE (Programmes de Réussite Educative ‒ Programmes for Educational success). These programmes were introduced as part of legislative developments concerned with issues of employment, poor housing and equality of chances for all citizens. They are targeted at geographical areas highly affected by socio-economic problems.Footnote 4 The PRE framework involves the financing of territorial partnerships by the state for primary and secondary school children who show signs of ‘fragility’ (vulnerability to educational underachievement and problems due to special needs, behavioural and health problems or cultural factors). Under the framework, specific ‘support’ was proposed for parents – this will be described in more detail below. The idea was that different institutional actors combine their interventions to better support children and young people identified by schools as having difficulty in school. This structure has the specific effect of simultaneously targeting individual children and parents and given territorial areas.
The professionals involved were often teachers, social workers and representatives of health-care services. It was proposed they should collaborate within a specified territory so that professionals can work more effectively as a team ‘around the child and family’. Previously, these professionals had worked independently with children and families. According to Jossy-Rissoan et al. (Reference Jossy-Rissoan, Glasman, Berthet and Kapko2006: 2), PRE initiatives have had some impact in this regard, particularly in respect of partnerships between schools and social workers:
Educational Success Programmes have shaken up the borders between education and social work, boundaries that had limited intervention by the national education system, child welfare and local authorities . . . and those defining the areas of competence of different professional groups.
Within the framework of these structures, when the partners determine that a child is in difficulty, they develop an individualised support plan that is then proposed to the child's parents. The law requires parental approval for providing such support. The intervention programme must make it possible to work with the children's ‘fragilities’, including when these problems are linked directly to schooling. Interventions involve both the children and their parents. As we will see below, parents who want their child to be supported for school problems also need to be willing to talk to practitioners about a wide range of, sometimes sensitive and personal, issues related to parenting, family relationships and family life. Parents disclose confidential information about themselves and, in return, hope to receive the support they seek for their children. This information can then be used and shared by the practitioners in order to assess the family's situation and the need for various kinds of interventions. So, while different institutions collaborate to support vulnerable pupils, these programmes take a different approach to the more self-help and professional–parent partnership approaches which characterise universal services in France. Professional-led referrals, assessments, information gathering and sharing, support planning and service decision making are much more prominent. The surveillance and social control of parents and families is prominent too.
Another illustration of how the logics of control and support co-exist can be found in two laws implemented on 5 March 2007.Footnote 5 The first reconfigures child protection law, notably by giving more rights to the parents of vulnerable children as service users in need of support. One of the changes introduced was greater use of day care services (Breugnot, Reference Breugnot2011). Day care services with a child protection remit work closely with other institutions, such as schools. The service, which was empirically examined in the study discussed below, was for primary school children at risk of school exclusion. However, the reasons why children were directed to these child protection services by school social workers were primarily concerns about parenting or family relationships or circumstances. Day care provision was seen as preventative in order to: (a) provide quality childcare to young children; (b) promote improved care of young children in family households via parental engagement activities; and (c) to counter poor care in the family in order to reduce the need for an out-of-home placement. The service, described in more depth below, opened in 2006, at a time when there were very few similar services in France. From the few studies published so far about these new structures and services in France, findings suggest parents are more involved with daycare services than with any other kind of service in the child protection system (Join-Lambert, Reference Join-Lambert2012).
The second law from 5 March 2007 sought to prevent youth offending. It introduced new measures and requirements targeted at parents whose children have high absenteeism rates at school, or whose behaviour, in legal terms, involved disturbances of the peace.Footnote 6 For example, local authorities could seek court orders to mandate parents to participate in parental training and education programmes (Hamel and Lemoine, Reference Hamel and Lemoine2012: 156). This illustrates how parents are being held responsible for their children's behaviour, and specific parenting practices are being prescribed.
From the end of the 1980s, the notion of ‘parents’ participation’ also became widespread: the notion was evident in laws on education (1989), early child care (2000), institutional child care (2002), children with specific needs (2005) and child protection (2007). These laws create a duty for institutions to involve parents in service decisions, to give them more rights as service users, especially highlighting the right to being informed, but without clearly indicating how this involvement is conceived or should be practiced (Join-Lambert, Reference Join-Lambert, Bergonnier-Dupuy, Join-Lambert and Durning2013; Boddy et al., Reference Boddy, Statham, Danielsen, Geurts, Join-Lambert and Euillet2014). In some places, such as schools or residential settings for children with special needs, parents are now represented in ‘councils’. These allow, more formally, for parents to receive information, be consulted and to participate in service decisions, as required by law. However, studies have found parents feel they have little power and influence when it comes to individual or collective decisions regarding their children in comparison to social workers (Barbe, Reference Barbe2006). Although parents’ rights have been emphasised by laws since the 1980s, there remain significant power imbalances between professionals and parents, because parents can feel dependent on support and assistance provided by social workers. Another key issue is that parents often feel their cultural and social background is stigmatised in ways which mean that professionals do not value and listen to their viewpoints (Fablet, Reference Fablet2008). This means, for instance, that professionals are the ones who determine how and when parents are allowed, and expected, to ‘participate’ (Sellenet, Reference Sellenet2010).
These developments in, and notions of, parental support and participation encompass support as well as responsibilisation, education, surveillance and social control. However ambiguous these notions might be, they are part of the official tasks of many professionals working with an increasing range of target groups involving ’children at risk’. This article now turns to examine how professionals and parents conceive and manage these issues and ambiguities with reference to two studies about two different types of services: the programme de réussite educative (programme for educational success) and the accueil de jour (day care service).
The studies
The analysis of parent–professional relationships in multi-agency support for high-need families considered below draws on two empirical studies about two services which targeted children with school difficulties and their parents. The first study was conducted from 2007 to 2009. It examined four local PRE initiatives which were located in a relatively large and deprived town in northern France, two middle-sized towns near Paris (one highly economically deprived and ethnically diverse, the other one a small and quiet town with an average level of social issues), and a small town in a rural area in western France, which was less deprived and diverse but facing a jobs crisis due to the closing of a factory. The purpose of the research was to examine parenting and family support for children and parents, and to evaluate the role of family-focused support and interventions in alleviating children's difficulties at school. The study included the collection and analysis of official documents and reports on the activities of the four local PRE services. It also involved undertaking sixteen interviews conducted in the four territories, eight with professionals (a PRE coordinator and a leading professional in each town), and eight with individual parents or parental couples whose children were involved in the programs. The professionals were ‘éducateurs spécialisés’, who receive a three year training focussed on working with with vulnerable children and families (Boddy and Statham, Reference Boddy and Statham2009: 7), and other less qualified professionals who had experience of working with vulnerable children. The parents were three couples and five single mothers, whose children had been excluded from school or were facing severe difficulties. With regard to their occupations, all of the parents could be described as working class or lower middle class. The qualitative documentary and interview data were analysed thematically. Key foci when analysing the interview data were parent–professional relationships, the perspective of parents and professionals about the support offered to children and parents, and the extent of parental participation in these services and with the professionals involved.
The second study was carried out between June 2007 and September 2008. It examined a Service d'accueil de jour éducatif (daycare service) in Paris. As with most child protection services in France, the daycare service was established and delivered by a not-for-profit association which specialises in child protection services. At the time the study was conducted, the team involved six professionals including ‘éducateurs specialisés’, a teacher who specialised with troubled children, and a psychologist. The service was provided for up to eighteen children, aged six to thirteen, who were referred by schools due to poor behaviour within school. The study sought to examine the perspectives of children, parents, professionals in the service and professionals in partner services in order to understand (a) what were their initial expectations about the service, (b) what was their experience of the intervention, and (c) what were their evaluations of the ‘impacts’ of the support and service. The study collected and analysed several types of qualitative data, including documents and documentary analysis of three reports and thirty-eight case files. The reports were written by the head of the service every six months and included a range of data, including the numbers of children receiving the service, for what duration, the services to which they had been directed after the end of their stay at the day care service and the activities carried out by the team. Each of the case files included the documents, reports, notes, and other written information about a specific child. The study also involved undertaking thirty-one interviews: thirteen with parents, eight with professionals, two with children and eight with managers or professionals in partner agencies of the service (schools, health services and the child protection service). Nine parents (one couple, seven mothers, one father) were interviewed during the early stages of receiving the service, four of whom were interviewed a second time after a year. They all had children at risk of school exclusion, and could be classified as having a low income, living in precarious economic situations with low paid and insecure jobs or were receiving benefits. Another source of data was ‘follow-up books’, originally developed by Rousseau (Reference Rousseau2007). These were used for staff to record all actions taken with three of the children and their families during nine months of the study. Staff were asked to record and write about all aspects of their practice and interventions, whether they were oriented towards the children, their parents and siblings, or professionals from partner agencies. Additionally, five activities involving professionals, children and parents were observed. This included playtimes with the group of children, a Christmas teatime with children and parents, and team meetings. A thematic analysis of interviews and observations and a quantitative analysis of the types of interventions mentioned in the follow-up books were subsequently undertaken (Join-Lambert, Reference Join-Lambert2012: 76).
The empirical findings and comparative discussion
Reasons for getting support
In both services, the children were referred to the service by schools due to teachers and school staff having concerns about their behaviour, and/or because the children were at high risk of school exclusion. The criteria for families to be supported were similar in both kinds of services; in addition to poor behaviour at school, there were concerns about family problems, and adversities such as poor child health, socio-economic problems and housing problems. However, in the case of the daycare service, families were only involved when a child protection issue had been identified by social workers, leading to a contract between the parents and the ASE (Aide sociale à l'enfance – child protection services) or a court decision.
The parents’ views on the reasons for participating in the services were mainly focussed on the child's difficulties at school and the hope that the service's support would help the child to do better at school. Many parents also mentioned the tensions or conflicts they experienced with their children over the issue of homework: ‘it ended up making us both angry because she couldn't manage so I would get angry’ (mother of girl in PRE service). These results are consistent with a study of French families, and demonstrate that doing homework in the home after school is a cause of child‒parent conflict in many families, especially in those where mothers have a low level of education (Bergonnier-Dupuy and Esparbes-Pistre, Reference Bergonnier-Dupuy and Esparbès-Pistre2007). These impacts of school difficulties on parent–child relationships were mentioned by many of the parents, but professionals we interviewed saw it the other way round. To them, learning and behavioural issues were ‘symptoms’ of other issues inside the family: ‘you keep talking to the mum and telling her the school issue will not progress if you don't deal with the therapy . . . after a while you can make her aware . . .’ (éducatrice, daycare service). The professionals in the PRE services mentioned school absenteeism, drug abuse, conflicts at home and financial problems as their principal concerns about the children, whereas professionals in the daycare service emphasised parent–child relationships and psychological issues of the child or of the parent. For many professionals, it was the family and parenting interventions which were central for children, rather than the learning support they provided to children. In both services, multi-agency working was valued for facilitating simultaneous interventions addressing several dimensions of children's and parents’ situations. The multiple partnerships these services built on allowed for an individualised approach to each family, addressing both the parents’ and the professionals’ concerns regarding the child.
Support practices
The studies show that there are different approaches to supporting the families, combining more or less intensive support. All parents who were interviewed mentioned the school learning support, which was provided as the main benefit of the two services. In the child protection day care service, children came at least twice a week, after school or at the weekend, where they would play games, have individualised learning support, go to sport activities or to cultural events. There was an emphasis on providing additional after school homework support in the centre, or additional education, depending on each child's level and aptitude for learning: ‘for me, the most important thing for my son is, homework done, good mood!’ (Mother of boy in day care service). Whereas the parents talked about this activity as being the most important, within the child welfare professionals’ team it was not the priority. Professionals paid more attention to the activities dedicated to children's behaviour and health support, and to the relationships they were able to set up with the parents.
Additionally, the service organised holiday trips for the children, sometimes accompanied by some of the parents and siblings. In specific cases, carers would collect the child after school or take the child home after the service activities. The daycare service had a facility where children, and sometimes parents, engaged in activities. They had several ways of involving the parents: dedicated appointments for consultation with educators and with the psychologist, leisure and sport activities inside and outside the service, trips including the parents, informal talks when the parents came to get their children or when the educators brought the child home in the evening and phone calls. Consultation talks encouraged parents to discuss difficulties in raising their children, a major intervention strategy used by ‘éducateurs’. Professionals felt this was a major aspect of their role: engaging parents with invitations to talk about parenting and their children.
In three of the PREs, school tutoring was an important feature of support, whereas the fourth one offered activities, such as riding and caring for horses, which was intended to capture children's attention and help them find something they liked to do. So these were an indirect way of getting children who were at risk of school exclusion to become interested in learning a new activity. Another main area of support in the PREs was providing access to health services and child health advice. Partnerships with health services were important. Some of the PREs offered consultations with a speech therapist. As in the daycare service, all the PRE appoint psychologists to work both with the parents and the children. Educators also dedicated a great part of their time to talking with the parents. Generally, the professionals who are appointed within the PREs spend their time either talking with the parents about their needs and difficulties (not only in the area of the upbringing of the child), or networking and finding other services who might be able to provide more specific support to the parents’ and children's individual needs. Other activities with the children (for example, leisure and sport activities) or parents (support groups) were delegated to local associations and services.
Expectations of the parents and to the parents
In the PRE, families were directed to the service either through the schools or other social services, or families could approach the service themselves. They received support only if they wanted it and if the PRE thought they could provide the right kind of help. Children and parents were only supported if parents gave written consent. So it was crucial for professionals to gain parental trust. Practitioners also reported that they often needed parents to be willing to change their approach to parenting in order to help the child, which suggested poor parenting was considered a primary problem. For this purpose, they listened to the parents’ concerns and expectations, and discussed these in order to understand the child's and the parents’ problems. This allowed professionals to analyse the family's situation and try to better understand parenting issues and problems, before raising parental awareness and encouraging improvements in parenting. The coordinator of one of the PRE services gave the following example:
This helped [the Mother] to become aware of her lack of authority with her child, thanks to the talks we had with her, she started thinking ‘I'll give him boundaries, give my child a frame of rules he needs to stick to’.
Talking about parenting with parents was the main focus of the work undertaken by éducateurs, rather than undertaking specific parenting assessments or engaging parents in structured parenting programmes. Parental‒professional dialogue was key in the PRE services as was voluntary engagement on the part of families in need and children at risk. Each time professionals wanted to suggest an activity for the parents and/or children, they discussed this with the parents, stated why it would be beneficial, and supported them to take-up and attend the activity. Because the main issue parents were concerned about was school learning and engagement, the PREs addressed this issue by organising either support with schoolwork or alternative activities to reduce the risk of school exclusion. This finding converges with the results of a study which was conducted in 2006 based on evaluations of eighty-two local PRE services. This study showed that parents became more actively involved in these programs when the specific support they received addressed their children's schooling. They felt less personally threatened by the PRE structure, compared to child welfare services which could intervene in the same type of situation, because the focus was on children's school issues as well as parenting, rather than a more exclusive targeting of parenting (Jossy-Rissoan, Reference Jossy-Rissoan, Glasman, Berthet and Kapko2006: 44).
In the child protection day care service, the decision to support the families was prompted by child protection concerns and could involve either a court decision or a contract between the parents and the local child care administration (ASE), which makes the support compulsory for the child and the parents. Although those we have interviewed said they were satisfied about receiving this support, others might see it as an unwanted intrusion. So involving parents more meaningfully requires a considered approach. The first step often taken was to develop a support plan. When parents and children first arrived at the service, they met the educators and were asked what they expected from the service. Their answers were transcribed in the child's case file, of which we analysed thirty-eight. The parents’ expectations were firstly oriented towards help and support in administrative matters (how to get the help you are entitled to from public services), secondly to addressing their child's school issues, and then, after these, the goals of improving relationships between parents and children were mentioned. Those parents we asked directly about their expectations mentioned improving their child's behaviour at school, the child's results at school and their relationship with teachers. These hopes were different from the intentions of most of the practitioners, for whom improving parenting and parent–child relationships were more important, and school issues secondary (Join-Lambert, Reference Join-Lambert2012: 84).
If practitioners wanted to involve parents in the work they undertook with their children, they needed to identify the parents’ own needs and aspirations. At the beginning of the study of the daycare service, for the professionals, the central focus was on relationships between parents and their children. Although the issue of schoolwork appeared to be central to parents, the practitioners were reluctant to deliver support relating to school difficulties, firstly because they did not view this as the main part of their job and, secondly, because their understanding of the children's problems did not focus on schooling issues. However, in order to involve parents and develop partnerships with them, the professionals listened to the parents’ preoccupations. Additional to the schoolwork sessions for children delivered after the school day, professionals would help some parents to develop better relationships with teachers. The teachers viewed this as an important mediation role, that is mediating between the school and the parents:
Each time we had invited these parents we had only negative things to say about their child, so they cut off links with the school. The mum didn't want to come anymore and so the daycare service took over. With other means, they use our arguments to make the parents hear what we have to say. (Teacher at partner school)
Although the day care practitioners did not feel this was their core mission or competency, many addressed school issues in their activities with children and parents or coordinated school-related support, responding to concerns identified by parents. Professionals often explained responsiveness to parental concerns as important to gaining parental trust for their broader activities around parenting and parent–child relationships.
Concluding comments
The evolution of family and parenting support in recent decades shows two tendencies. On the one hand, the intention, across quite distinct policy areas (early childhood, the national education system, child welfare), has been to get away from the traditional hierarchy where parents were seen to be incompetent or harmful and professionals were viewed as experts in the education and raising of children. Recent legislation has tended to involve parents in the work that is done with their children, and build on the strengths and competences of parents themselves to reinforce and develop their parenting roles. This has included an emphasis on promoting parental responsibilities for children. At the same time, the more stigmatising and controlling approach in targeted services for parents of vulnerable children has not disappeared from the agenda of family policies.
The practices of multi-agency high-need family support services analysed above highlight how parental involvement was achieved by addressing parents’ needs. Spending time listening and talking to parents, alongside providing different kinds of support and activities, helped practitioners to gather information about the family (control) and at the same time led to more responsive support (support). The parents taking part in our studies stated that they trusted the services and the professionals, in part because the problems raised by parents were being addressed by a professional commitment to developing helping relationships with parents and families. These results illustrated that the extent to which parents became involved in support services depended on how aims and activities were negotiated with them. This negotiation was important with both services, one provided on a voluntary basis, the other a statutory child protection day care service. The studies found that professionals and parents do not tend to share the same understanding of problems, nor the same goals and means of solving the problems. Nevertheless, parents’ involvement can be achieved by listening to them and then addressing parental concerns about children, as well as practitioner concerns. The principles of parental involvement encouraged professionals to recognise parents as partners and as experts, a status not achieved in the past. The studies above indicate professionals’ position towards parents is shifting from the traditional position of authority to a more open position of dialogue. Through dialogue, parents are afforded more influence as service users, and professionals also engage with parents, promoting their perspectives about problems within their families and their objectives for professional support.
Acknowledgements
This article draws on the findings of two studies funded by the Association Jean Cotxet and the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense.
