PARENTING SKILLS - VIEWS OF COMMUNITY-HEALTH AND SOCIAL-SERVICE PROVIDERS ABOUT THE NEEDS OF THEIR CLIENTS

The concept of 'parenting skills' features large in professional, political and popular discourse on the role and responsibility of parents. This article explores what constitutes skills of parenting from the perspective of community health and social service providers, working with families deemed to be 'in need'. It shows how the concept is drawn on to describe both the needs of women with whom they work and their own role in fulfilling some of those needs. It argues that 'parenting skills' are not only gendered, insofar as it is women as mothers who are more likely to be perceived as needing them, but that a lack of them might also be associated with marital status, age and place of residence. In looking at 'parenting skills' from the perspective of service providers in the context of their working lives, it is clear however that service providers, predominantly women, formulate a role for themselves in the face of poverty and poor housing which they feel powerless to change.