Parenting in Poor Environments: Stress, Support and Coping Book

While there has been much research into the effect of poverty on children, this is the first book to concentrate on the effect of poor environments on parenting. The authors explore what professionals and policymakers can do to assist families living in poverty.

The authors examine community-level poverty and its relationship to familial and individual problems such as low income, mental ill-health and child behavioral difficulties - problems that those working with poor families need to understand. Assessing the wider help parents receive, both through formal support services and the informal network of family and friends, the book shows how service-users' views of the resources available to them can be applied to the improvement of service provision.

Presenting the findings of a Policy Research Bureau report to the Department of Health and including data from in-depth interviews with parents living in especially difficult circumstances, the book provides an essential guide to family support services in the UK.