124 ● Anita Gibbs
with 83 percent of couple families, with or without children, in debt (Legge
and Heynes 2009). The combination of poverty and debt, although often
deemed relative and temporary, causes lasting damage to families across
educational, employment, social, health, and relational domains (Children’s
Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group 2012). Poverty affects some sectors
of society—those who receive welfare benefit payments, single-parent house-
holds, and minority ethnic groups—much more substantially than it affects
others, namely, those who are employed, who are in two-parent households,
and who are members of European/white ethnic groups (Legge and Heynes
2009). The gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to grow (Boston
and Chapple 2014; Inside New Zealand 2011).
In 2012, the New Zealand Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory
Group produced a report detailing 78 strategies to reduce child poverty.
Some of these recommendations have already been implemented (Children’s
Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group 2012), and changes to a raft of mea-
sures will be monitored to indicate whether poverty is declining. The Child
Poverty Monitor project will produce an annual report to monitor the success
of the strategies (Craig et al. 2013).
With this brief overview of family poverty in New Zealand in mind, I
now explore the application of integrated theory to address social problems
generally, before applying the theory to family poverty more specifically.
Explanatory and Interventive Theory for Social Problem AnalysisAs is noted in earlier chapters, social work takes a praxis position on theories.
Problems are viewed through an analytical or explanatory lens, as well as
from an interventionist or outcome oriented perspective. Questions include
not only “Why is there a problem? What is the cause?” but also “How can
we solve the problems? What do we need to do to change things?” Payne
described a theory as “an organised statement of ideas about the world”
or about an issue or social problem and said that it must offer “a model
of explicit guidance” to address social issues, usually with evidence of its
effectiveness (Payne 2005, 5–6). Payne’s understanding of theory was that it
must be practice-based and able to suggest concrete strategies of action for
change-related outcomes. Payne provided a broad definition of theory to
encompass perspectives, explanatory theory, and practice models. According
to Payne (2005, 5), perspectives are the views or values that people bring
to everyday life, which enable them to “order their minds sufficiently to
be able to manage themselves while participating.” Some examples of per-
spectives are anti-oppressive, feminist, Christian, socialist, and indigenous;
these provide people with guiding principles to bring to social situations,