What do children think about their social worker? A Q‐method study of children's services

Understanding how children experience social work interventions is an important part of gauging whether what is provided is genuinely helpful. In this paper, we describe the findings from a research project using Q‐method, aimed at understanding what children involved with statutory services think about their social workers and how they experience the time they spend together. Using a pre‐existing practice framework, we explored skills including empathy, collaboration, and purposefulness from the point of view of children and young people. The participants in our study (n = 22) were insightful observers of social work practice, able to describe not only how they experienced time spent with their workers but also inferring differences in motivation and approach. In addition, workers who were described in similar terms by different young people were nevertheless experienced differently. This suggests not an archetypal “good social worker”—instead, there are skills that are good for specific children at specific times within the context of specific relationships.     

Service user experience of participation in child welfare case management

Child welfare case management systems were designed, in part, to standardize participatory practices for both young people and their parents. This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study of Australian service users' experiences of participation when using the case management systems, Looking After Children and Supporting Children and Responding to Families. Findings indicate that the majority of service users reported positive experiences of participating in the use of these systems. However, participatory relations were often slow to develop and frequently involved conflict. Some service users used their power to control the flow and accuracy of information, or resisted workers in other ways. Some children and young people were excluded from the opportunity to participate because the systems did not have a ‘text‐based’ format to ‘ensure’ that this process occurred. These findings indicate that case management systems did not result in relationships which consistently informed the intervention in a way that the systems' authors had envisaged. Service users did not necessarily take up the openings offered to them and workers did not necessarily comply with the systems' obligations. The findings cause us to question the assumptions that power can be bestowed or withdrawn, in the way suggested by these case management systems.     

Private Passions, the Public Good and Public Service Reform

There has been considerable recent discussion of the impact of public service reforms on the work ethics and motivations of public service workers. In this article we draw upon recent research on the ethical dilemmas facing regeneration workers in order to look more closely at the role of values in the working lives of public service professionals. Focusing on the commitment to social justice, we argue that such values find expression in two interlinked ways, as something workers have and as a process of giving value to different goods. Our research reveals that while both aspects of values are rooted in people's life experiences the second dimension is more contingent and relational. While public service reforms appear to have less impact upon workers’ pregiven values, they can and do have an impact on the way in which these values find expression in attachment to different goods. To understand the effect of such reform processes on workers’ motivations we therefore need a more complex conceptual framework than that provided by either simple public sector ethos/private sector ethos distinctions or by models of economic individualism offered by writers such as Julian Le Grand.     

Implementation of Active User Principle: Learning from the Czech Social Services Reform

ABSTRACT

The active user principle introduced in Czech social services by the new Act on Social Services (2007) was expected to induce change of the prevalent paternalistic nature of social service provision. This study examines the relationship between clients and social service workers in social service facilities designed for people without shelter. From 2001 to 2008, instrumental case studies were examined from three different shelter facilities using qualitative interviews (with 17 members of staff) and document analysis. The findings indicated that neither the frontline workers nor the managers could always understand how to implement this principle. Response patterns and the effect it had on recipients are examined. These findings imply that such a profound change needs to be supported with proper explanation, professional training, and practical application skills. Directions for further application and future research are suggested.     

Whose agenda? Issues of power and relationship when listening to looked‐after young people

Listening to children and young people is for social workers a legal requirement, it is also believed to lead to better outcomes and is increasingly promoted in policy. The practice of listening is, however, rarely straightforward, and this is particularly the case with socially excluded groups. As a result, the voices of the marginalized are less likely to be heard. In this paper the author draws on interview data from a research study into communication between social workers and looked‐after children for the light it sheds on why effective dialogue with disaffected young people can be hard to achieve. It is argued that much that appears unsuccessful in an interaction can be understood in terms of power plays, with young people resisting the adult's agenda and trying to impose their own. True listening to disaffected young people requires time, so that a trusting relationship can be developed. It also demands an acceptance that the adult agenda may be flawed and a willingness to consider alternative possibilities. This can challenge the preconceptions, not just of individual workers, but of agencies and of national policy‐makers.     

Building resilience in a children's home: results from an action research project

This paper reports on the findings of an action research project aimed at building resilience in young people in a residential children's home. Daniel and Wassell's six domains for promoting resilience in young people were adopted as a conceptual framework to guide the residential social workers as they engaged in successive cycles of reflection and action. Two core areas were explored: (a) the approaches deemed to be helpful in building resilience; and (b) the background factors that enabled and constrained the social workers' interventions. The findings showed that the participants acted creatively to use resources and tools both within the system of State‐mandated parenting and the informal, meaning‐oriented world of the young people.     

Finding the right connections: Peer support within a community‐based mental health service

Gray M., Davies K., Butcher L. Finding the right connections: Peer support within a community‐based mental health service This article reports on a qualitative study that examined the organisational enablers and barriers to implementing peer support work in an Australian, rural, community‐based mental health service. Interviews with 19 peer and non‐peer staff were conducted to identify attitudes towards peer support and whether there were organisational values, practices and strategies that might support the implementation of peer support. The findings revealed that peer support workers were valued for their ability to build trusting connections with clients and to accept client choice in a non‐judgemental way. However, peer support workers tended to ‘fill service gaps’ within intensive, administrative case‐management environments. These findings highlight the importance of an organisational‐wide approach to integrating peer support, where the responsibilities for adopting new ways of working fall to all staff, not just the peer support workers themselves. Key Practitioner Message: ? Practitioners placed high value on the peer support workers on their teams due to their unique personalised engagement with clients; ? The roles of peer support workers were poorly understood by team members; ? Organisational integration of peer support principles could improve the way all staff engage with clients to reflect a recovery orientation.     

Putting the parity into service‐user participation: An integrated model of social justice

Models of service‐user participation have derived from citizenship or consumerist agendas, neither of which has achieved the structural reforms important for the most marginalised social work clients. This article proposes Fraser's model of ‘parity of participation’ as an appropriately multifaceted frame for capturing the social justice aspirations of service‐user participation. A qualitative case study compared the experiences and expectations of people who had used Australian mental health services with a sample who had used Australian homelessness services to examine their expectations of participation at individual and representative levels. The findings reinforce concerns from Fraser's research about the tendency for identity‐based consumerist notions of participation to reify group identity. This leads to tokenistic service‐user involvement strategies that have little impact on participation at a structural level. Fraser's parity of participation is shown to have untested potential to reshape service‐user participation to meet the social justice aspirations of social work clients. Key Practitioner Message: ● Innovative, service‐user driven strategies for collaboration will be those which challenge existing power structures; ● Service users want their contributions to decision making to generate identifiable change in the system of social services; ● The success of service‐user participation strategies might be the extent to which political, economic and cultural opportunities are enhanced.     

Investing in the relationship: practitioners’ relationships with looked‐after children and care leavers in Social Work Practices

Providing more consistent and continuous relationships for looked‐after children and care leavers is a current preoccupation in social work in light of many criticisms of the quality of such relationships. Recommendations for more direct work have spurred new models of service delivery in children's services aimed at improving individual outcomes. Independent Social Work Practices (SWPs), a new organizational model piloted in some areas of England between 2009 and 2012, were established to enable social workers and other practitioners to spend more time in direct work and thus to improve the practitioner/child/young person relationship. This paper uses findings from interviews with 169 children and young people across 11 local authorities and 5 SWPs, undertaken as part of a 3‐year national matched control evaluation of pilot SWPs, to identify key elements of good quality practitioner relationships with children or young people. Focusing on children's and young people's perspectives and experiences, the study demonstrates that more direct work and consistent relationships are valued. The paper deploys Recognition Theory to further understanding of effective practice as defined by children and young people.     

Improving outcomes for children in out‐of‐home care: the role of therapeutic foster care

How best to support children and young people in foster care remains a challenge for child welfare. There has been little Australian research on the outcomes for children and young people placed in therapeutic foster care (TFC). This article aims to address this knowledge gap, presenting the evaluation of a state‐wide model of TFC known as the Circle Program operating in Victoria, Australia. Data sources for the study were case assessment analysis; surveys of foster carers, program workers and other stakeholders in the sector; and both focus groups and individual interviews with foster care workers. The evaluation found that the Circle Program lessened the number of unplanned exits of children from foster placements compared with generalist foster care. Another important finding was that the Circle Program positively influenced foster carers' decisions to stay in the carer role. Key components perceived as contributing to outcomes of the Circle Program included enhanced training of foster carers, intensive carer support, specialist therapeutic support to the child and carer, therapeutic service to family members and a network of services to provide support to the child.     

“Build a friendship with them”: The discourse of “at‐risk” as a barrier to relationship building between young people who trade sex and social workers

Young people in statutory care and protection interact with social workers, who hold potential to provide a supportive adult role in their lives. Many however, run away at an early age and end up on the street trading sex for money or other favours. There is potential to improve outcomes for young people in care if the relationship between young people and their social workers is better addressed. This paper uses data from a qualitative study of 14 young people who traded sex and who had experienced interactions with social workers. A thematic analysis identified three themes: the rigidity of social work practice; contesting the family situation; and resisting the at‐risk label. We argue that to have any impact on outcomes for young people in care, social workers need to prioritise relationship‐building above the need to conform to organizational protocols and guidelines. Such guidelines assist the social worker in assessing whether family situations pose high risk for a young person, but the “at‐risk” label is contested by young people, which results in a lack of trust and a barrier to relationship building.     

Interpretative phenomenological analysis of young people's lived experiences of therapeutic residential care

Concerns of maltreatment and poor outcomes persist in residential care despite numerous government inquiries and recommendations. Young people in residential care continue to be the most vulnerable and marginalized group in the out‐of‐home care population. Young people's voices are also underrepresented in research. Existing studies predominantly focus on service evaluations in which individual voices of young people are overshadowed by adults' perspectives. Other studies examine the perspectives of young people in out‐of‐home care as a homogenous population, limiting understandings of the subjective experiences of young people in residential care. This study focused exclusively on young people's lived experiences in Australian therapeutic residential care, utilizing interpretative phenomenological analysis. The young people in this study revealed experiences of peer victimization, ambiguous loss and uncertainty during transitions. These findings suggest that more work is required in order to provide safe and healing environments and experiences for young people in therapeutic residential care. Each individual voice captured in this study offers valuable insights into how residential care practitioners can strengthen practice to enhance protection, engagement, connection with families and leaving care support.     

Out of the Generosity of Your Heart: Are We Creating Active Citizens through Compulsory Volunteer Programmes for Young People in Australia?

Using governmentality as a theoretical framework, we examine two Australian policy areas where young people are disciplined into becoming good, active citizens. These policies—mutual obligation through the work for the dole programme, and school‐based active citizenship programmes similar to American service learning programmes—both mirror volunteer‐type activities, in a social context where volunteers are viewed as good citizens. In this study, we present findings from a qualitative study that addresses the question of whether young people will develop active citizenship through compulsory volunteer‐type programmes. The findings show that first, young people are very conscious of the lack of choice involved in these programmes and that this weakened their sense of agency. Second, the programmes failed to develop positive community attitudes and active social behaviours. These results suggest that policies that compel individuals to contribute to society may actually weaken their citizenship identities.     

Professionals' perceptions of the rocky routes to successful outcomes for young people in a children's residential school

Poor outcomes for young people in and leaving care have been well documented and research has indicated that the expectations of professionals working with children and young people looked after is a significant influence, particularly in relation to education. An evaluation of an independent children's residential school in Scotland provided a rare opportunity to analyse and compare the views of different kinds of staff about desirable outcomes and how successful outcomes could be achieved. Care workers, teachers and specialist support staff shared some views, but also held contrasting expectations, which appeared to be linked to differing emphases in their models for working with young people. This paper offers tentative explanations for such differences and concludes with suggestions on how to help align service staffs' expectations of young people leaving their care.     

‘It's just like another home,just another family,so it's nae different’ Children's voices in kinship care: a research study about the experience of children in kinship care in Scotland

Growing acknowledgement of the importance of the role of kinship carers in caring and supporting children and young people in Scotland has led to a burgeoning of research on this topic. However, most research has tended to focus on the role of kinship carers. A significant gap has been direct studies into the views and experiences of children and young people living with relatives or friends. This paper seeks to address this by drawing on the findings from a small‐scale qualitative collaborative research project with 12 children and young people living in informal and formal kinship care in the Northeast of Scotland. The literature on foster and kinship care is reviewed and key themes identified. The qualitative research data is outlined employing a thematic analysis approach. The key findings are analysed with a view to the potential implications for policy and practice. The paper concludes with proposals for potential future research.     

Fathers who use domestic violence: Organisational capacity building and practice development

It is well established in the literature that fathers who use violence harm women and children. Statutory child protection workers and other human service professionals now face strong injunctions to work with these men. However, insufficient attention has been given to considering the processes for intervening with fathers who use violence and the organisational context to support workers in refocusing their practice. Workers lack clear guidance, and organisations lack specific understandings of how to support workers in this complex area of practice. Australian research used co‐design with professionals in Communities of Practice supported by the Safe & Together Institute to explore the organisational context required to work with fathers who use violence. This paper presents findings of qualitative data gathered from surveys, focus groups, and ethnographic notes of 30 Community of Practice sessions. Working together, practitioners and researchers identified four essential elements to support organisational development and improve practice: leadership by senior managers; recognition that domestic violence work needs to strengthen collaborative working; extensive training, supervising, and coaching; and enhanced worker safety. Worker perspectives are critical in developing practice principles and identifying organisational mechanisms that support practitioners to work safely and effectively with fathers who use violence.     

‘Like walking on eggshells’: service user views and expectations of the child protection system

This paper reports on a study of service users' views on Irish child protection services. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 67 service users, including young people between 13 and 23. The findings showed that despite refocusing and public service management reforms, service users still experience involvement with the services as intimidating and stressful and while they acknowledged opportunities to participate in the child protection process, they found the experience to be very difficult. Their definition of ‘needs’ was somewhat at odds with that suggested in official documentation, and they viewed the execution of a child protection plan more as a coercive requirement to comply with ‘tasks’ set by workers than a conjoint effort to enhance their children's welfare. As in previous studies, the data showed how the development of good relationships between workers and service users could compensate for the harsher aspects of involvement with child protection. In addition, this study demonstrated a high level of discernment on the part of service users, highlighting their expectation of quality standards in respect of courtesy, respect, accountability, transparency and practitioner expertise.     

Stilling the tremors: Resurrecting HIV services in Haiti's post‐earthquake tent cities

The January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti severely undermined HIV service provision in the country. Almost 10 percent of Haitians were displaced and now live in temporary tent communities. Little is known about how HIV services are being provided to Haitians with HIV in these encampments. This study addresses this lacuna by conducting a process evaluation of the manner in which a collaboration among Haitian community‐based HIV service providers, a US‐based HIV service provider, and a US‐based academic research team resurrected HIV services in the encampments. Efforts to set up HIV services in the encampments proceeded through three stages: (i) an initial crisis response that activated established networks and identified feasible goals; (ii) the development of services by building research capacity, conducting needs assessments, addressing logistical challenges, and establishing community‐based services; and (iii) the sustaining of the initiative by targeting resources and negotiating in the political arena. Implications of the protocol for future efforts are discussed. Key Practitioner Message: ● Resurrecting HIV services in post‐disaster zones; ● Utilizing cross‐country, provider–academic partnerships to develop service capacity; ● Targeting structural barriers to establish HIV services in resource‐poor settings.     

Coexisting principles and logics of elder care: Help to self‐help and consumer‐oriented service?

Healthy and active ageing has become an ideal in Western societies. In the Nordic countries, this ideal has been supported through a policy of help to self‐help in elder care since the 1980s. However, reforms inspired by New Public Management (NPM) have introduced a new policy principle of consumer‐oriented service that stresses the wishes and priorities of older people. We have studied how these two principles are applied by care workers in Denmark. Is one principle or logic replacing the other, or do they coexist? Do they create tensions between professional knowledge and the autonomy of older people? Using neo‐institutional theory and feminist care theory, we analysed the articulation of the two policy principles in interviews and their logics in observations in four local authorities. We conclude that help to self‐help is the dominant principle, that it is deeply entrenched in the identity of the professional care worker and that it coexists with consumer‐oriented service and without major tensions in the logics identified in their practices.