Social policy and stigma

Abstract

This paper sets out the social policy implications of a comparative study of stigma and child welfare services within the European Union. Based in Catalonia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the study looks at perceptions of stigma amongst both users and providers of services. A brief investigation of the concept of stigma within the participating countries suggests that similar policy shifts have occurred in within all three. Social policy frameworks have been developed which, despite different histories and the retention of distinctive and local-specific characteristics, share a common and explicit aim of eliminating stigma from social welfare encounters. The paper then records the outcomes of an investigation of how far these ambitions have been achieved. Using four different indicators, a conclusion is developed which suggests that the phenomenon remains stubbornly attached to the experience of those most intimately concerned in the giving and receiving of child welfare services. Significant differences, however, emerge in the reported levels of stigma between individual service elements and between the three countries. The paper deals with a series of these distinctions and with the social policy perspectives through which these findings might be understood. It ends by suggesting that while the impact of stigma can be reduced by micro-policy changes, it is the larger-scale ideological messages which shape social policy and social welfare services which have the greatest effect upon the experience and perceptions of end-users and providers alike.