PARTICIPATIVE RESEARCH EXAMPLE FROM BELGIUM

2. Context

The research project was commissioned and financially supported by the Flemish Research Center on Poverty (VLAS: Flemisch Poverty Research Center), which aimed at developing strategies in policy and practice for child poverty reduction. VLAS rooted the mandate for research in the rationales of social policymakers across Europe, who have recently adopted an explicit focus on combating child poverty (European Commission, 2008). Whereas child poverty has, for centuries, been a stubborn problem in most European societies (Cantillon, 2011; Platt, 2005; Rahn & Chassé, 2009), it has only recently become one of the highest priorities of anti-poverty strategies. The aim is to generate tangible results from the efforts to combat child poverty across Europe, including poverty within families and its intergenerational transmission (Council of the European Union, 2006).  

In framing child poverty as a problem that needs urgent action, it has been made the focus for interventions by practitioners in child and family social work (Platt, 2005). The children, along with the parents, who are perceived as responsible for the children's well-being, have become the central objects of intervention (Gillies, 2005, 2008; Schiettecat, Vandenbroeck & Roets, 2014). Anti-poverty strategies have, for instance, been increasingly directed towards prevention in early childhood education and care as a field of health and social care practice (Doyle, Harmon, Heckman, & Tremblay, 2009).  

Therefore, this policy context allowed us to transfer our interest in realising a participative research design to this international social policy issue.

Reference: Schiettecat, T., Roets, G., & Vandenbroeck, M. (2015). Do families in poverty need child and family social work? European Journal of Social Work, 18(5), 647-660.