Over recent years, a preventative approach has been promoted within adult social care policy and practice in England. However, progress has been somewhat inconsistent, in part due to issues around conceptualising what exactly prevention means within this context. Particularly since the financial crisis, there have emerged tensions between seeing prevention as a positive strategy to build assets and capability; as part of a neo-liberal project to roll back expectations for state support; or simply as a technocratic strategy to increase efficiency by deploying resources ‘upstream’ where they might have greater impact. This paper provides a critical perspective on how policy has unfolded over the last 15 years, which provides the context for an analysis of findings from a national survey of English local authorities and interviews with key stakeholders. These findings demonstrate a substantial commitment to preventative activity, but also some serious confusions and contradictions in how this agenda may be taken forward in the current policy environment.

中文翻译：

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在英格兰的成人社会关怀中，预防的概念是如何被概念化和发展的？

近年来，在英格兰的成人社会关怀政策和实践中推广了一种预防方法。然而，进展有些不一致，部分原因是围绕在此背景下预防的确切含义进行概念化的问题。特别是自金融危机以来，将预防视为建立资产和能力的积极战略之间出现了紧张关系；作为新自由主义项目的一部分，以降低对国家支持的期望；或者简单地作为一种技术官僚战略，通过在可能产生更大影响的“上游”部署资源来提高效率。本文对过去 15 年的政策发展提供了批判性视角，它为分析英国地方当局的全国调查结果和与主要利益相关者的访谈提供了背景。这些发现表明对预防活动的实质性承诺，但也表明在当前政策环境下如何推进这一议程方面存在一些严重的混乱和矛盾。