Changing the culture of social care in Scotland: Has a shift to personalization brought about transformative change?

In April 2014, the Social Care (Self‐directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 (SDS Act) was implemented in Scotland. This marked a major shift in how social care is delivered and organized for both users and professionals across the country. Whilst it emerged through the personalization agenda—which has dominated international social care systems over recent years—self‐directed support (SDS) represented a significant shift in thinking for service provision in Scotland. In this article, we review the initial stages of policy implementation. Drawing on two Freedom of Information requests from 2015 and 2016 and a series of interviews with local authority practitioners, we argue that, to date, SDS has yet to produce radical transformative change. We explore the reasons behind this through four key themes. First, we highlight the challenges of promoting the principles of co‐production in policy and suggest that, in reality, this has been compromised through SDS implementation. Second, we suggest that SDS has been caught up in a policy overload and ultimately overshadowed by new legislation for health and social care integration. In looking at the impact of this relationship, our third theme questions the role of new partnership working. Lastly, we argue that the timing of SDS in a period of acute austerity in social care has resulted in disabled people being offered limited choice rather than increased opportunities for independent living.     

Protecting children in Scotland: examining the impact of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995

This paper discusses findings from a small‐scale study of the impact on child protection practice following implementation of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. The Act introduced three new measures to allow the state to intervene in families to protect a child where there is a risk of significant harm. These include the child protection order, the child assessment order and the exclusion order. The child protection order provides for the removal of a child to (or his or her retention in) a place of safety. In the first two years of the operation of the 1995 Act fewer applications were made for this order compared with similar provisions under the previous legislation. This reduction in applications appears to be related to unfamiliarity with new legislation; greater scrutiny resulting from the more formal application to the sheriff court; and the introduction of a new legal criterion for intervention, the presence or likelihood of ‘significant harm’. The introduction of the ‘no order’ principle into Scottish child care law is also likely to be a factor.     

Some differences between neurotic delinquents and other neurotic children 1

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) neglects the clinical implications of permanency planning decisions for foster care children. The resulting decisions can undermine children's attachment-based treatment progress. The intersection of policy and practice with foster care children raises issues of ruptured attachments, communications between therapists and the larger macrolevel systems, the role of the therapist in the permanency decision process, and the impact of permanency decisions on treatment. An improved policy would promote greater coordination between clinical and court processes and would expand the criterion for permanency planning decisions to include the clinical needs of families.     

Secrecy and Openness in Adoption: An Historical Perspective

The issue of whether there should be continuing contact between those who are adopted and their birth relatives is one of the most contentious issues in current adoption practice (see for example DoH, 1993; McWhinnie and Smith 1994). The view traditionally taken is that adoption in England and Wales has been secret since its legal origins in 1926 and any moves to more fully disclosed information and indeed contact between the parties in adoption is a recent development (see for example DoH 1992). This article considers the history of birth family contact and access to records in adoption from 1926 to the 1958 Adoption Act and examines the factors that favoured the development of closed models of practice where there was no contact between the parties and records became secret. In doing so it challenges the accepted view that adoption has always provided for secrecy in England and Wales and establishes that both the thinking of policy makers and the legislation itself until 1949 provided for more open forms of adoption than we enjoy today. Secrecy, it is claimed, developed as a consequence of a collusion between professionals and the judiciary which disregarded the legal rights of birth parents and failed to respect their entitlement to a proper say in the decisions about the future of their children.     

Rolling Out Anti‐social Behaviour Families Projects in England and Scotland: Analysing the Rhetoric and Practice of Policy Transfer

In both Scotland and England, reducing anti‐social behaviour (ASB) and building a culture of respect are key central government priorities. Accordingly, since 1997 both jurisdictions have seen the introduction of a raft of punitive legislation. Over recent years, however, there have been signs that the official ASB agenda has shifted away from a reliance on ‘enforcement measures’ towards a more balanced approach incorporating measures to address the underlying causes of problem behaviour. With their emphasis on ‘whole family’ approaches and parenting interventions, ASB family projects, pioneered by the Dundee Families Project (DFP), are seen to respond to official concerns about social exclusion and have been promoted as an effective and sustainable response to ASB. In both Scottish and English jurisdictions official endorsement of the DFP model has been marked by government‐funded programmes to ‘roll out’ this concept more widely. Drawing on findings from a recent evaluation of ASB family projects operating in Scotland combined with scrutiny of evidence from a number of English studies, this article explores, in a comparative manner, the differences and similarities in the policy discourses and models of practice employed by Scottish and English projects. More specifically, we critically appraise the role played by sanctions in evoking service user engagement.     

Paraplegics in Scotland: a Survey of Employment and Facilities

Summary The results of a survey of employment facilities and socialservices available to 50 paraplegics living in Glasgow or thesurrounding counties are reported. The degree of unemployment in the group (74%) was far greaterthan has been reported in other surveys and although the generalunemployment level in the area is high, services to help thedisabled gain employment were only partially utilized. Liaison between social workers was not always successful. Someparaplegics were visited at home by both a medical social workerand a local authority social worker, while others were not supportedby either. There was no apparent attempt by local authoritiesto identify the disabled as is required in England under Section1 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act (1970) andseveral paraplegics lacked facilities which are covered by Section2 of the Act. It appeared that the exclusion of Scotland fromSections 1 and 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled PersonsAct might widen the differences between the two countries asthe Scottish legislation is less specific. (This work led to the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons(Scotland) Act, 1972; see note, p. 37.)     

Need,well‐being and outcomes: the development of policy‐thinking for children's services 1989–2004

This paper describes how government policy thinking about the well‐being of children and young people developed between the Children Act 1989 and the Children Act 2004. These two Acts are milestone statements about how services to children in England and Wales should be delivered. It is an account informed by the author's own experience as a government adviser on children's social care over much of this period and supporting documentation. It traces the strands of government policy thinking about how to deliver services for children from children in need to the articulation of the five Every Child Matters outcomes. It argues that attempts to achieve coordinated service planning for children and young people played a significant role in the formulation of shared objectives and the articulation of child outcomes. However, it argues that looking at real outcomes exposes how children in the UK do relatively badly compared with other rich nations. It questions whether we can realistically expect our services to deliver significantly improved outcomes given the impact of enduring inequality in our society. This paper is dedicated to the memory of David Lambert CBE, former Assistant Chief Inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate in London, who died suddenly on 7 October 2010. He lent me articles to assist me in writing this paper.     

Lessons learnt? Abuse in residential child care in Scotland

This paper draws on work carried out by Sen, Kendrick, Milligan and Hawthorn commissioned as pert of the Historic Abuse Systemic Review by the Scottish Executive in 2007. It considers the evidence‐based regarding abuse in residential child care from 1945 with a specific focus on Scotland. It reviews the context set for residential child care post‐1945 by the Clyde and Curtis reports, outlines how the residential child care sector developed following this, provides an overview of evidence and awareness of abuse in residential child care establishments after the 1948 Children's Act, giving particular consideration to the public inquiries and reviews of residential child care which there have been in Scotland, explores research evidence regarding the safety of convictions of residential child care workers found guilty of child abuse, and provides an overview of the main policy and practice developments which there have subsequently been in Scotland. The paper concludes by considering the progress that has been made in developing safeguards in Scotland and identifying areas where further research and development are required.     

The impact of parental incarceration on children's care: identifying good practice principles from the perspective of imprisoned primary carer parents

Parental incarceration has wide‐ranging impacts on families. One key effect may be disruption to the care and legal custody of children, yet few studies have examined processes and outcomes relating to care planning for children of prisoners. This paper presents findings of interviews with 151 primary carer prisoners in two Australian states which aimed to address this research gap. The study examined care planning for children upon parental arrest, sentencing and imprisonment, stability of care arrangements and primary carer prisoners' involvement and satisfaction with care planning. Around one third of prisoners had discussions regarding children's care arrangements at arrest and imprisonment, although the issue was more commonly raised at sentencing. While there was much variation in the stability of care arrangements, children placed in out‐of‐home care experienced the most instability. A minority of prisoners reported being involved in care planning and decision‐making for children upon imprisonment, and around one third rated care planning process poorly. Prisoners were more satisfied with care planning when there were fewer movements of children, where prisoners felt involved with decision‐making, and when police officers, lawyers and corrections staff inquired about the welfare of their children. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

‘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.     

Adoptive family life and adoption support: policy ambivalence and the development of effective services

Adoption policy and practice in England is being ‘modernized’ in order to increase the number of permanent placements for children in public care. Success depends on improving adoption services as well as reforming the adoption process itself. To this end the Adoption and Children Act 2002 places new duties on local authorities to ensure greater consistency and quality of service in adoption support as well as in care planning. Questions now arise locally about what priority and focus to give to adoption support. Yet service development is inhibited by the ambivalence of New Labour about exactly what it is that adoption support is supposed to be supporting and how. Funds are limited and service re‐organization is always difficult to achieve. However, mixed policy messages result largely from the ambiguous social role and expectations of adoptive family life and kinship. In law adoption replicates the autonomous normative birth family whilst in policy it provides reparative parenting for particularly vulnerable children. A lack of clarity about the claims for support of those affected by adoption results. This paper argues a fresh case for the distinctive claims of adoptive family life for support. It suggests how new thinking about adoptive family life and kinship might stimulate local service collaboration and effective adoption support.     

Is Personalization the Right Plan at the Wrong Time? Re‐thinking Cash‐for‐Care in an Age of Austerity

As personalization has dominated the policy agenda for reform in social care, its roll‐out as a mainstream option has coincided with global programmes of austerity which have targeted services for disabled people. Was this simply bad timing or was its implementation always part of the agenda for reform? Whilst the principle of cash‐for‐care schemes drew strongly on promoting the independence and autonomy of disabled people, early incarnations of direct payments policy in the UK were initially at least in part rolled out in light of potential cost savings to social care budgets. This article explores these and other issues in light of evaluations of the Scottish government's self‐directed support (SDS) test sites (2009–11) and implementation of subsequent legislation enforcing models of SDS in Scotland from April 2014. Discussion draws on the authors’ recent book (Pearson et al. 2014) to reflect on what the evidence can tell us about radically transforming social care at a time of global austerity.     

Adoption as a means of child protection: the law and practice in Malaysia

Adoption in Malaysia is of two kinds; firstly, taking the child of another as a person's own child, where as a result, the adopted child will stand in equal footing with the natural children of the adoptive parents; and secondly, taking a child of another into a person's custody without affecting the biological status of the adopted child. This article wishes to discuss the law and practice of adoption in Malaysia as one of the means of child protection. The article will also examine as to whether the law is adequate to protect children who are the subjects of adoption.     

The needs and strengths of unaccompanied asylum‐seeking children and young people in Scotland

Unaccompanied asylum‐seeking children seeking refuge in safer parts of the world have a wide range of needs. This paper discusses the main needs of unaccompanied minors drawing upon the views of service providers who work with or for unaccompanied asylum‐seeking children and young people in Scotland, as well as the perspectives of unaccompanied minors themselves. The complexity of the children's needs is explored with a framework considering their process of resettlement, looking at the present first, the future next and the past last. We also explored the strengths and resilience of the unaccompanied children consulted.     

Aboriginal Children Belong in the Aboriginal Community: Changing Practices in Adoption

The placement of aboriginal children has been the responsibility of white social workers attached to state welfare agencies. Many of these children have been fostered or adopted by white families and have had little or no contact with the aboriginal community. Aboriginal people are now voicing opposition to such practices and are calling for an end to inter-racial adoption. They want the placement of all aboriginal children to be in the hands of the aboriginal community and are seeking to establish aboriginal placement agencies. These, and other demands, were voiced by an aboriginal task group at the recent First Australian Conference on Adoption.     

Conditionality in the context of housing-led homelessness policy: Comparing Australia’s Housing First agenda to Scotland’s “rights-based” approach

Homelessness services and policy have historically tended to be organised by an explicitly conditional logic, wherein people experiencing homelessness must prove their “housing readiness” before accessing settled housing. This model has been robustly challenged in recent decades by “housing-led” approaches that ostensibly eschew conditionality and prioritise the rapid rehousing of people experiencing homelessness. Various countries now include housing-led approaches in the national policy frameworks, including Australia, which overhauled its approach to homelessness in 2008, and Scotland, where a housing-led approach is supported by a legal right to housing for homeless households. Notwithstanding this policy shift, conditionality remains an enduring feature of responses to homelessness in both jurisdictions. This paper sheds light on this phenomenon by comparing the Australian experience with that of Scotland. We demonstrate how conditionality remains a feature of both jurisdictions; however, there is greater effort in Scotland to identify and minimise conditionality, whereas in Australia it is able to persist relatively unchallenged. We conclude with some reflections on what Australia can learn from Scotland’s relative success, highlighting the importance of a national-level policy framework and an adequate affordable housing supply.     

Adoption in Korea: current status and future prospects

This article examines the current status of adoption in Korea and discusses the issues that must be addressed for future development. The nature of adoption has changed dramatically in the last 50 years, and continues to change in Korea. If the first half of modern adoption history were about finding and providing permanent homes for war orphans and children abandoned out of destitution, the second half saw increasing demand for adoption to function as a key component of the continuum of child welfare services providing care for children who need protection and care outside their home. However, responding to this change has been a challenge over the years. Based on the analysis of recent trends of the child welfare system and adoption in Korea, this article reveals that there are significant barriers in the path to improving adoption, especially domestic adoption, so that it can be considered a realistic placement option for children who need protection and care in Korea. Suggestions for the future direction of reforming adoption policy and practice are given.     

Why parents matter: exploring the impact of a hegemonic concern with the timetable for the child

In a climate of austerity, timescales and targets, this paper probes whether parents matter sufficiently within the current child protection system in England. Evidence suggests that achieving partnership working in the context of child protection has become increasingly illusive, particularly when parents are notified that the local authority is considering compulsory intervention to remove their children under the Children Act 1989. Recent changes to legislation, policy and practice ushered in with the aim of achieving earlier decisions within the time frame for the child are laudable, but there are consequences for both children and their parents. The aspirations of the Public Law Outline (2008) are well rehearsed, but the changes being introduced with the recent reform of the family justice system, alongside particular constructions of parenting, may be failing to recognize the potential of many parents, if offered appropriate support, to care safely for their children.     

Family support and the Scottish children's hearings system

ABSTRACT Evidence from a study of 1155 children referred to the children's hearings system in Scotland in 1995 found many of the children could be characterized as ‘children in need’. As found in other child care research, limited voluntary help was available to them, the majority received ‘no action’ and a substantial group a compulsory supervision requirement. The critical need for the strategic development of family support services in child welfare policy in Scotland for children referred to the hearings system is argued. The potential misuse of compulsory measures of supervision as a key to accessing resources is examined.     

India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act: Assessing the quality of access and adequacy of benefits in MGNREGS public works

The extension of social protection to all has become a central policy objective, both nationally and internationally. A considerable number of middle‐ and low‐income countries have undertaken substantial efforts to extend social protection, while the international community reaffirmed its commitment to the extension of social protection through the adoption of the ILO Recommendation concerning National Floors of Social Protection, No. 202 (2012). This article reviews the legal provisions and the implementation of the Indian Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), legislated in 2005, and does so in the light of the more recent provisions of ILO Recommendation No. 202. Since its introduction ten years ago, MGNREGA has provided a source of income to rural workers, increased wage rates, achieved high female participation rates and created durable assets. India's local governance bodies, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI), have been empowered and involved in the processes of planning and monitoring. However, despite successes, there have been considerable shortcomings in implementation. This article highlights two central themes: first, the innovative policy framework of the Act, which brings together rights‐based entitlements, demand‐driven employment, and citizen‐centred monitoring. Second, it assesses the accessibility and adequacy of benefits in the implementation of MGNREGA. We conclude that MGNREGA offers potential for South‐South learning, both in terms of policy‐design and implementation.