The ‘D’ word: responding to disadvantage within a universal and integrated service model for children and families
Sally Cowling and Trish Brown
UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families
Contact Email:   scowlingburnside.org.au

The national policy debate on effective service provision for children and families is increasingly framed in terms of developing a system of ‘universal and integrated’ services. We argue that the currency of the phrase masks an emerging tension around the place of socio-economic disadvantage in decisions about how, why and where such services are delivered. For some, universality implies uniformity and limits our capacity to make a difference in communities with a higher concentration of risk factors. For others, a focus on disadvantage and social inclusion in the policy discourse has seen welfare imperatives dominate an approach which should provide quality early education and care programs to all children as a right of citizenship.

In this paper we explore the causes of these tensions in Australian policy debates about if and how universal, targeted and specialist intervention services can be integrated. We review how responses to risk and disadvantage have been cultivated in established service models in the United Kingdom and Europe and the extent to which these have involved approaches which are universal but area-based. Finally, we consider what Australian policy makers can learn from the international experience to facilitate the shift to a universal prevention approach which can effectively engage with families and communities experiencing disadvantage and respond to the need for more intensive or specialist support services.

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