‘I want to be better than you:’ lived experiences of intergenerational child maltreatment prevention among teenage mothers in and beyond foster care

The growing body of research on teenage motherhood in foster care has largely focused on the risks involved for both mother and child, yet these mothers depict a much more complex picture of their own experience of becoming and being mothers. The current study employed interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore 18 in‐depth, qualitative interviews from six participants on the meaning and experience of motherhood among teenage mothers in foster care and in the years immediately after ageing out. This study focused on a particular dimension of motherhood: participants' efforts to break the cycle of child abuse and neglect with their own children. Two themes emerged as characteristic of these experiences: (i) treating children well/parenting differently and avoiding the system; and (ii) reducing isolation and enhancing support. Given the increased likelihood of the children of teen mothers – particularly those who have been maltreated – becoming involved with the child welfare system, study findings suggest possible strategies for disrupting cycles of intergenerational child welfare involvement generated by young mothers themselves. Practice implications for addressing possible substance abuse, mental health and relational and parenting needs are discussed.     

The construction of maternal identity among Israeli mothers who are welfare clients

Dominant social, cultural, and professional discourses view motherhood as the core of a woman's identity. Thus, the identity of women who do not meet the general expectations of motherhood might be negatively affected. Specifically, mothers who are welfare clients may violate the prevailing norms concerning the maternal role. This qualitative study explores how Israeli mothers who are welfare clients construct their maternal identity. Studies of mothers who are clients of welfare services suggest that they feel blamed for being “bad” or “unfit” mothers. However, women occasionally negotiate or challenge the negative perceptions that are forced on them by hegemonic discourses of motherhood. We postulate that such women experience a troubled maternal identity that they negotiate through interactions with others. Accordingly, this study set to explore how Israeli mothers who are welfare clients negotiate their maternal identity in the context of motherhood and welfare discourses. Fourteen participants were interviewed, and the findings illustrate the vulnerability of the mothers and their strategies to construct a positive maternal identity. We discuss the findings in light of the concept of troubled identity.     

Negotiating motherhood: women with troubled upbringings and their self‐conceptions as mothers

This paper examines how women who experienced severe adjustment problems during adolescence, and who had troubled childhoods in families with high levels of conflict, construct their self‐conceptions as mothers. Applying data from a 30‐year‐long follow‐up study, this paper examines how participants with troubled upbringings experience social norms of motherhood. Two overall themes emerged along with their associated subcategories, and these are identified as significant findings. The first theme is the stigmatizing gaze, exemplifying how the intervention of the child welfare service is recognized as essential to the women's self‐conception; its three subcategories are prejudiced motherhood, predestined motherhood and self‐critical motherhood. The second theme is significant relationships, exemplifying the mothers' personal bonds and contributing greatly to their self‐conception; its three subcategories are the other half, next of kin and disturbed relations. The findings reveal that the way these women view themselves as mothers cannot be separated from the way that others view them, and in addition, they must negotiate their positions as mothers through the normative discourses of motherhood. The findings apply to both theoretical and practical social work, addressing the need for an understanding of motherhood within the field of child welfare.     

Treatment progress of foster care adolescents with severe behavioural problems: Factors conditioning their performance in the residential treatment centres

Behavioural problems are a recurring issue in the child welfare system population. Normative residential centres do not have the characteristics to address the specific needs of these adolescents, so they are usually treated at therapeutic residential centres. In Catalonia (Spain), these cases are treated in intensive educational residential centres (CREIs), a variant of therapeutic residential care (TRC) facilities. This exploratory study seeks to understand the treatment progress of adolescents with severe behavioural problems who were placed in the CREIs, a variant of TRC facilities. Data from 206 cases, the totality of population under treatment in the CREIs, were collected using a questionnaire administered to the treating team. A cross‐sectional design was used, applying quantitative methods to analyse the incidence and interrelation of a series of variables related to the progress of adolescents in the CREIs. Significant differences among profiles by sex, place of origin, criminal offences, substance abuse and mental health disorders were found. Furthermore, adolescents who performed a positive treatment progress according to the professional staff arrived at the CREI at an earlier age and had longer stays than the group with an unremarkable progress. Logistic regression indicated that duration of stay in the centre and runaways predict the adolescents' treatment progress. This treatment is working well with the milder cases; however, it does not tend to be successful for adolescents with greater difficulties. It is recommended that interventions focus on factors that engage the adolescents in their own rehabilitation process, include substance abuse programmes and consider the gender perspective.     

Father's involvement in the lives of children in foster care

Limited understandings exist about non‐resident fathers' views of their involvement with their children in foster care placements. Guided by the ecological systems framework, the purpose of this exploratory study was to gain insights into fathers' perceptions of their involvement with a child in foster care. Data were collected from demographic questionnaires and two focus groups with 17 men. Fathers expressed how kinship compared with non‐kinship placements affected their involvement. Fathers were also in agreement that their financial hardships were a significant factor affecting their involvement. Several fathers also reported how they experienced discrimination in the child welfare system as men. Surprisingly, uncommon to findings from other studies, few men viewed the child's mother as being a barrier to their involvement. The findings provide insights into factors requiring attention to help non‐residential fathers become involved with their children.     

The Neighborhood Contexts in Which Low‐Income Families Navigate Welfare Reform: Evidence from the Three‐City Study*

Objectives. We investigate the neighborhood contexts in which low‐income families negotiate welfare reform. Methods. Using data from the Three‐City Study and U.S. Census, we follow 1,059 low‐income women from 1999 to 2005 tracking their neighborhood quality, employment, and welfare use. We evaluate whether improvements in residential contexts facilitate transitions to economic self‐sufficiency, but also test the reverse possibility. Results. Despite living in similar neighborhoods in 1999, women who left welfare experienced larger reductions in neighborhood disadvantage than women who remained on welfare. Likewise, women who left welfare with employment achieved larger increases in neighborhood quality than those who left welfare without work; the latter experiencing neighborhood change no different than those who stayed on welfare. Conclusions. Neighborhood conditions are, at minimum, associated with welfare outcomes. Findings suggest that neighborhood quality increases after women leave welfare, though we cannot reject the possibility that better neighborhoods lead to better welfare outcomes.     

Between the maternal and the professional: the impact of being a child welfare officer on motherhood

Child welfare officers experience stress from exposure to child neglect and abuse and the burden of responsibility for children's well‐being. This qualitative study addresses the question: How do social workers who are child welfare officers perceive and cope with the influence of their professional occupation on their relationships with their own children? The research is based on in‐depth interviews with a purposive sample of 10 child welfare workers who are mothers (of 2–4 children aged 2–23 years). The data analysis illustrates how the professional identity and the maternal identity of the child welfare officer fluctuate between two positions. The first is ‘anxious motherhood’ in which anxiety is the prism through which the welfare officer views the world as dangerous for her children, stimulating protective, control‐enhancing actions. The second position is reflective motherhood in which the welfare worker struggles with her own stresses and conflicts as a mother and searches for an experience of meaningful, positive motherhood. The findings reinforce the need to raise the consciousness of child welfare officers regarding the impact of encountering distress and trauma on their own well‐being as parents. In this way, they can prevent secondary traumatization and enhance professional and maternal growth.     

Early outcomes for young adults transitioning from out-of-home care in the USA

This paper describes the well‐being of participants in the Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth (n = 603), a study of youth leaving out‐of‐home care in the USA, at the point where they have been ‘young adults’ for about 1 year. Although some of these young adults are in stable situations and either moving forward with their education or employed in promising jobs, more of them are having significant difficulties during the early stages of the transition to adulthood. Too many are neither employed nor in school, have children that they are not able to parent, suffer from persistent mental illness or substance use disorders, find themselves without basic necessities, become homeless, or end up involved with the criminal justice system. They are doing worse than other young adults across a number of important dimensions. Most of these young adults continue to maintain relations with members of their family of origin, with many finding themselves living with family at age 19. Importantly, those young people who chose to remain under the care and supervision of the child welfare system experienced better outcomes than those who either chose to or were forced to leave care.     

The bumpy road to ‘becoming’: capturing the stories that teenage mothers told about their journey into motherhood

Understanding the experience of women who become mothers during their teenage years is central to ensuring that the support that is offered is appropriate to meet their needs. This paper reports on a small part of a larger ethnographic study that captured the lived experience of young mothers who were between the ages of 16 and 19 years that potentially typifies and illuminates the experiences of young women who become mothers in their teenage years. By collecting data from narrative interviews as well as participant and non‐participant observations over an extended period of time it was possible to identify how the young women experienced a range of difficulties as they made their transition into motherhood. Drawing on the findings, this paper argues that this transition for teenage mothers can be significantly different from the experience of older mothers, and it identifies the importance of appropriate support to mediate the challenges that they face. Understanding the young women's journey to ‘becoming’ is critical when planning services because if their experience of support is negative, it can lead to increased levels of maternal stress and reluctance to engage with support services.     

“I did not know there was another life”: Meanings of life in the out‐of‐home Mothers Unit reunification programme

The Mothers Unit is a reunification and treatment programme in a welfare emergency centre in Israel. The unit is the only one in Israel offering joint residence for mothers at risk of abusing or neglecting their children. The unit provides an alternative to out‐of‐home care for young children suffering from maltreatment in order to enable them and their mothers to return to the community together at the end of the treatment. The current qualitative study examines the lived experiences of the women and their children from the subjective perspective of the women currently or previously involved in the programme and of the professionals working with them. Thematic analysis of 36 in‐person semi‐structured interviews reveals the multiple meanings they attribute to life in the Mothers Unit and its perceived effects on their children and themselves.     

‘Undeserving’ mothers? Practitioners’ experiences working with young mothers in/from care

Although teen pregnancy is on the rise in Canada, and while adolescent mothering in general has received considerable recent attention from researchers, there is a paucity of information about the particular experiences of young women who become mothers while in government care. Emerging out of a study guided by a grounded theory methodology to address this knowledge gap, this paper examines the experiences and perspectives of government‐based social workers who work with young mothers in/from care. Our findings indicated that social workers reflect prevailing middle class values, including norms about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parenting, and centred around the belief that adolescent pregnancy is, in and of itself, bad. One of the most significant ramifications of workers’ values was their belief about the inevitability of ‘the cycle’: of children in care begetting children who ultimately came into care. Ironically, though workers and young mothers were both preoccupied by the concept of ‘the cycle’, and each were determined to break it, the two groups had very different ideas about what the cycle was all about and what perpetuated it. Unfortunately, this disjunction in perspectives, along with major recent shifts in the direction of child welfare policy and practice and related constraints in the resources at workers’ disposal, conjoined to create significant barriers to what workers and young women both recognized as supportive practice with youth in care.     

Factors associated with placement breakdown initiated by foster parents – empirical findings from Germany

This study investigates the effects of covariates on the probability of placement breakdown in non‐kinship family foster care. Breakdowns are distinguished according to the initiator: children, carers, foster parents and the local child welfare authorities. The children concerned had entered foster care at ages ranging from 0 to a maximum of 17 years (n = 14 171). A significantly higher risk of breakdown on the initiative of the foster parents is found in male children, children whose parents receive financial support, children whose parents were removed from the register of carers, children who were between 6 and 15 years old when they joined the foster family, children who had earlier lived in a different foster family or residential care, children from patchwork families and children whose joining of a foster family was the result of disruptive social behaviour. Two‐thirds of the children from non‐kinship family foster care who stay in the foster family was ended on the initiative of the foster parents are subsequently looked after in residential care. That is three times the rate for all terminated foster relationships. Breakdowns on the initiative of the foster parents thus indicate a high risk of unstable care history developing and accordingly necessitate prevention strategies.     

Jumping through hoops – the cost of compliance on sole parents

Australian governments along with other western countries have made significant changes to the welfare system with a focus on encouraging sole parents on social security payments to move into paid work. This paper reports on in‐depth interviews with 48 sole parents about their experiences with the welfare‐to‐work process and with a range of other services. Although parents reported some positive encounters, they also described a range of negative experiences, including how they needed to repeatedly prove their entitlement to help, leaving them feel as if they were undeserving of support. The study has demonstrated that it is often the most vulnerable parents who feel under close scrutiny and who have to work extra hard to get the help they need. These experiences can also see them disengaging from services. The findings show how the current policy environment adds to the complexity of sole parents' lives reinforcing their disadvantage.     

“I can be a mum or a professional,but not both”: What women say about their experiences of juggling paid employment with motherhood

Past research has identified the salience of the notion of “good motherhood” in countries such as Australia, where women are expected to invest significant time and energy, often through self‐sacrifice, to raise their children. We analysed free‐text comments provided in response to an open‐ended question from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH) to examine whether the discourse of “good motherhood” played any role in how women articulate their experiences of juggling paid employment with motherhood. Eighty women from the cohort born 1973–78 were included, providing 223 comments. “Good motherhood” underpinned many of the accounts about combining motherhood with paid employment. Women reported life as stressful and hectic as they attempted to juggle the demands of childcare with paid employment and domestic chores. Although some identified “good motherhood” as an unachievable ideal, most were largely unable to disengage with this discourse. Broader social structures, such as inflexible working conditions, were found to reinforce and support this ideal, contributing to the strength of the discourse.     

Young people leaving care in Sweden

The transition from a placement in care to an independent life can be a problematic phase for young people. In Sweden, special care‐leaving services are almost non‐existent. What then happens to young people when they leave a placement in out‐of‐home care? This paper draws on the results of a study in which 16 young care leavers between the ages of 18 and 22 years were interviewed. Telephone interviews were also performed with the young care leavers' parents, social workers, foster carers and institutional staff. The aim of the study was to investigate how young care leavers perceive the transition from care to an independent life. The Swedish welfare model, the prolonged transition to adulthood and the family‐oriented welfare discourse have been used as analytical perspectives. The results show that young care leavers have a pronounced need for social, emotional, practical and financial support. Whilst such support is occasionally provided by foster carers and residential staff, it is seldom given by social services or biological parents. This group is at risk of facing severe problems in the transitional phase from care to independent life, a fact that is not acknowledged by the Swedish welfare system.     

Weaving cohesive identities: New Zealand women talk as mothers and workers

Abstract

This exploratory study examines the discourses which construct women as mothers and workers and explores the strategies the women use to weave these sometimes contradictory identities together. Discourse analysis was used to explore the talk of two focus groups of first‐time mothers, all New Zealanders of European descent in stable heterosexual partnerships with babies aged less than six months. The women deployed an intensive mother discourse which privileged their maternal role and positioned the babies as needing parental care and mothers as the natural providers of that care. However, they also felt the pressure of successful woman and economic rationalist discourses in which paid work is essential to wellbeing and good citizenship while motherhood is devalued. The women's decisions about re‐entering the paid workforce were characterised by conflict and constraint. The analysis focuses on the strategies of resistance that the women used to warrant their life choices, including constructing motherhood as a job, and deploying an independent mother discourse which serves to facilitate their striving for the best of both worlds. Also explored are some of the structural barriers that serve to further limit women's choices.     

Child maltreatment,maladaptive cognitive schemas,and perceptions of social support among young women care leavers

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the associations between child maltreatment, cognitive schemas of disconnection/rejection reported in emerging adulthood, and social support perceived in emerging adulthood among young women who have exited placements in residential care. The sample is derived from a longitudinal study conducted with 132 young women who had been placed in residential care during adolescence in Montreal (Canada) in 2008–2009. The present study relied solely on the last measurement wave of this study, which was conducted approximately 5 years (2012–2014) after Wave 1. At this time, participants were out of residential care (mean age = 19.4 years). Results showed that the more severe the retrospective accounts of child maltreatment were, the less social support young women perceived as available to them in emerging adulthood. When the tendency to endorse disconnection/rejection schemas is considered, the direct connection between maltreatment and perceived social support disappears, and we instead see an indirect relationship through these schemas. Findings suggest that programs and services must go beyond identifying social‐support networks for young women care leavers. Considerable effort should be devoted to helping these young women develop the skills they need to build and maintain trusting relationships with significant people around them.     

Breakdown of teenage placements in Swedish foster and residential care

This article deals with the problem of breakdown in different types of out‐of‐home care (foster care/residential care) for Swedish teenagers. How often are such placements prematurely terminated against the wishes and intentions of child welfare authorities? Which factors appear to increase or decrease the risk of placement breakdown? The sample consists of a national cohort of 776 youths who started 922 placements during 1991. Every placement was followed in municipal case files for a maximum period of five years. Between 30 and 37% of all placements were prematurely terminated, the exact figure depending on whether a narrow or wide definition of breakdown was applied. The lowest rates of breakdown were found in kinship care and secure units, the highest in non‐kinship foster homes. Teenagers who display antisocial behaviour and/or have mental health problems constitute a high‐risk category for most types of out‐of‐home care, but especially in non‐kinship foster homes. Risk factors in relation to breakdown were analysed in the four main forms of Swedish out‐of‐home care separately (foster homes, privately/publicly run residential care and secure units). The analysis pointed out that risk factors are not the same in all types of care, but antisocial behaviour at time of placement increased the risk in most forms of care. Prior research indicates that placement breakdown is a major problem of child welfare in other countries, and this study found that Sweden is no exception.     

Residential Programmes for Children and Youth: An Exercise in Re-framing

Summary The key functions of residential programmes for children andyouth irrespective of their location in the health care, education,social welfare or criminal justice system are identified inthis paper. The issues of mandate for and status of those servicesis addressed. Finally, a series of propositions are offeredwhich seek to show how those factors influence the social positionand public credibility accorded to those important componentsof the group care field.     

Managing behaviour in child residential group care: unique tensions

Residential group care workers are frequently required to support children with extremely challenging and aggressive behaviour. Our knowledge about the tensions that may exist for workers that manage difficult behaviour is theoretically and empirically underdeveloped. The aim of this exploratory study was to contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of behaviour management in the residential environment by identifying the worker‐reported tensions involved in the management of challenging and disruptive behaviour. Seventeen South Australian residential group care workers participated in semi‐structured interviews in which they were asked to describe their management of behaviour. These interviews were subjected to thematic analysis. The analysis revealed several dynamics that influence workers' management of challenging behaviour: the sense of parenting at a distance, the pressure for consistency, the desire for balance between control and connection, the desire for normality and the inconsistent nature of relationships. These findings contribute to our knowledge about the interpersonal context in which behaviour is addressed in the residential group home and enhance our understanding of the unique tensions that workers' experience in managing behaviour in the residential environment. The findings have implications for the development of staff training and the support of residential care workers managing challenging behaviour.