Hilary Armstrong is a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom. Her immediate past positions were Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and, most significantly for us, the Minister for Social Exclusion in Tony Blair's Cabinet.  She stepped down from these positions when Blair stepped down from the Prime Minister position last summer.  Armstrong started her career more than 30 years ago as a social worker and remains, to this day, deeply rooted in the Labour government traditions of a strong commitment to public service; government responsibility for society's most vulnerable; insurance that all members of society have the opportunity to fulfill their potential, and to contribute to and benefit from wider society; and the critical role of government in "*delivering social justice and tackling social exclusion."

As Minister for Social Exclusion, she was responsible for coordinating cross-departmental efforts to address multiple forms of social disadvantage with the ultimate goal of improving the life chances of the most vulnerable.  Though health and education were major programmatic foci of Government's social exclusion agenda and consequently her work as Minister, her portfolio was all-encompassing and included the domains of education, health, housing, employment, justice, and other areas that impact quality of life. The breath of her portfolio reflected the fact that it is virtually impossible to effectively address challenges in one domain without simultaneously addressing problems in other related domains.  To meet this challenge, she worked across institutional boundaries to implement, what the British refer to as, "joined-up" policy and programmatic interventions.

Ms Armstrong will speak about what the concept of social exclusion -- what it is; how it is different from traditional conceptual frames for social problem-solving; how it has informed UK social policy and programmatic interventions; what those interventions are; how they have been implemented; and what their outcomes have been.  She will also speak about what is meant by "joined-up" policies and programs (a key theme of social exclusion-informed policy making and program development/implementation in the UK), how this has been operationalized, and the impact on social welfare.