Seeds of exclusion

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The effects of social exclusion are often all too easy to see: family breakdown, poverty, poor health, addictive behaviour and homelessness.

The purpose of The Seeds of Exclusion, the fourth in a series of reports published by The Salvation Army, is to identify how patterns of early-life experience contain the seeds of later problems, and how The Salvation Army and others might tackle them.

In the late 19th century William Booth, the Founder of The Salvation Army, drew on the analogy of a cliff fall to describe his understanding of social intervention. While it is entirely appropriate to rescue the man or woman who has fallen into the sea, it is much better to tackle the roots of the individual's problem at the top of the cliff from which they fell.

The Salvation Army undertook in-depth interviews with nearly 450 homeless people in its centres in various regions of the UK between January 2006 and March 2008.

Their findings reveal that when a child has a poor relationship with their mother and father they are more likely to experience homelessness before the age of 18. This suggests good relationships with parents may be crucial to preventing homelessness at a young age. The good relationships with parents become even more important when considering the evidence that those who were homeless as a child are significantly less likely to have close friends as adults.

If the seeds of social exclusion have been sown in the childhood experiences of this generation of homeless people, the concern from the study findings is that these seeds will be further propagated in their next generation. Of those interviewed more than half of the women and slightly less than half of the men have children. However, of those with children 38% of the women and 42% of the men have no contact with their children currently.

The full article can be read on the Salvation Army website.