Social Work, Asset-based Welfare and the Child Trust Fund

Asset-based welfare represents a new departure in British income maintenance policy and the Child Trust Fund is its most important contemporary example. This Research Note explores the claims made for asset-based welfare in general and for the Child Trust Fund in particular. It sets out the results of an investigation into the views of young people into potential uses which individuals might make of the Fund. It then suggests a series of reasons why social workers ought to take a particular interest in the development of asset-based welfare policies and the benefits which might flow from them.