Undocumented migrant families experience high levels of food poverty, exclusion from mainstream benefits, and sometimes from social work services. This is an underresearched area for social work in the UK, and there is no statutory guidance for social workers on supporting undocumented migrants. Practitioner research is one way of 'visibilising' their experiences. Six migrant families accessing a voluntary sector stay and play project were interviewed using a practitioner research model of semistructured interviews on the themes of food, access to services and children. The research found that families responded to their situation with a seemingly contradictory strategy of resignation and resilience. The implications for practitioners working with this user group are considered and suggestions for support services for this group of families are offered.

Families in the UK with an irregular migration status are excluded from most mainstream welfare provision through the no recourse to public funds rule, and statutory children’s social work services are one of the few welfare services available to undocumented migrant families. This article draws on semi-structured interviews with undocumented migrant families who are accessing children’s services support to illustrate the sometimes uneasy relationship between child welfare law and immigration control. Outlining the legislative and policy context for social work with undocumented migrant families in the UK, the article argues that the exclusion of migrant families from the welfare state by government policy amounts to a form of statutory neglect which is incompatible with the global social work profession’s commitment to social justice and human rights.

Firewalls are clear divisions between border policing and the provision of basic social rights. They have a dual character: to ensure that no information collected with the purpose of safeguarding basic social rights should be shared for immigration control purposes; and that migrants should not be subject to immigration control when being present at, or in the vicinity, of religious, private and public institutions upholding and providing social rights. This article suggests a normative argument for ‘firewalls’ in the context of social work and develops the concept theoretically as a principle practised and negotiated at different scales.

In response to some of the criticisms of previous research into the arts in criminal justice, this article presents findings from research with a music programme run by a Youth Offending team (YOT). Data were collected on the attendance of 42 participants at YOT appointments – matched against a comparison group – and measures of change over time in musical development, attitudes and behaviour and well-being. Participants who completed the music programme were statistically more likely to attend YOT appointments than a comparison group. There were statistically significant improvements in participants’ self-reported well-being and musical ability over the course of the project. Effect sizes reached the minimum important difference for quantitative measures. To understand not just if, but how, any impact was achieved, and to ensure the voice of the young people was heard, the quantitative elements of the research were complemented and extended by in-depth interviews with 23 participants.

This qualitative study using a grounded theory approach, assesses the construction of claims in online news articles and below the line comments in connection with foodbank use in the West Midlands region, UK. The sample includes 146 online news articles and 132 below the line comments, commencing 23 September 2010 until 8 April 2019. Individual foodbank users’ stories are told and these relay discourses of stigma, shame, embarrassment and desperation. In contrast, the below the line comments centre on the undeserving poor. Here, emphasis is on the migrants who are ‘flooding’ the country, and the scroungers who are work-shy.