Parenting policy and the geographies of friendship: Encounters in a Sure Start Children's Centre

This chapter takes a qualitative approach to a Sure Start Children's Centre as a space framed by a particular set of policy imperatives. It is argued that the targets of policy are not simply translated into the space and that interactions between staff and users are somewhat ‘uneasy’ and ambivalent because of this. It is also argued that friendships between groups of parents play an important role in mediating access to the centre as part of wider ‘caringscapes’ of parentin