‘I am much more than just a mum’. Social capital, empowerment and Sure Start

Abstract

Abstract An earlier article published in this journal sought to recover the views of professionals concerned with the delivery and implementation of a 'Third Way' multiagency programme tackling the social exclusion of young children and their families known as Sure Start. The tentative findings suggested a 'bottom‐up' partnership perspective was held by professionals as they engaged in a process of 'civic entrepreneurship' to build social capital within the local community. This article tells a further part of that story as through qualitative data it recovers the views of local parents involved with the programme. The findings are important as they suggest a meaningful change in the power relationship between parents and professionals. The parents report how the project built holistically on existing strengths within the community, how professionals valued, listened to, and acted on their views, how the project changed them personally, and how collectively they became increasingly involved with the programme and empowered in the social capital building process. The concluding discussion draws on the work of Granovetter (Citation1973) on social capital and Zimmerman (Citation1995) on empowerment to theoretically locate and discuss the findings. Notes 1. For a detailed discussion of the way in which the interagency team referred to this study addressed the professional–local community power relationship and approached the tensions and problems inherent in the delivery of a local partnership programme see Bagley et al. (Citation2004). 2. Mazebrook as a district is marked as one of the 15 most deprived in the country. The total number of children in Mazebrook under 4 years old is 865. In the first year of the Programme around £500,000 was made available to spend on services for families and children in Mazebrook. In subsequent years, this will rise to £750,000 (Mazebrook, Supplementary Report, March, 2002). 3. The sample is made up of all registered parents in the Mazebrook area identified as willing to be interviewed. The data therefore only speak to the individual and collective impact of the programme on those parents associated with Sure Start in the Mazebrook area. The sample does not include residents within the Mazebrook Sure Start area who are not registered with the programme and to this extent the sample is limited and partial.