Grandparent and Kinship Foster Care: Implications of Licensing and Payment Policies

ABSTRACT

In this article, we examine the different licensing and payment policies in the United States for kinship foster care and assess the potential impact of licensing policies on the likelihood that grandparents or other kin will become licensed as formal kinship foster care providers. With this information, discussion is presented that outlines possible barriers to formalized foster kinship care placement and identifies the need for changes in public policy that could lead to increased program access for kinship foster caregivers.     

A New Model of Welfare: Re-asserting the Value of Kinship for Children in State Care

This paper briefly examines current arguments concerning the demise of the traditional family, pointing out that the numbers of lone-parent families are not historically unparalleled and noting that the current emphasis in the "death of the family" debate on the nuclear rather than the extended family marks a significant shift over recent decades. The nature of kinship is briefly examined in historical context, and kin relationships are seen to be fundamentally different on a number of important dimensions from other social relationships. The erosion of kinship as the consequence of the increasing state regulation of family life and the lack of importance it is now generally accorded in modern child welfare systems is considered and the reasons for this are discussed. Finally the article turns to the changes that would be required were kinship decision-making once more accorded a key place in planning for the care of children deemed to be in need of care and protection and the potential, as a model for practice, of the family group conference is considered.     

Lessons Learned from the Kinship Education and Support Program (KEPS): Developing Effective Support Groups for Formal Kinship Caregivers

This qualitative study examines the effectiveness of the Kinship Education Preparation and Support (KEPS) program, a group-work program designed specifically to address the varied support needs of formal kinship caregivers. There were a total of 43 participants in this study, including relative caregivers, child welfare workers, and community leaders, all of whom participated in one of six focus groups. Themes emergent from the focus groups were: the need for, and benefits of, support programs for formal kinship caregivers, implementation challenges, and improvements for KEPS. Recommendations for planning supportive and educational groups for relative foster parents will be discussed using components of Kurland's planning model.     

Kinship Foster Care and Its Impact on Grandmother Caregivers

Summary

Kinship foster care programs are designed to address the needs of relatives, usually grandparents, who have taken in children who have been removed from their homes voluntarily, or following a substantiated report of neglect and/or abuse. The author reviews the history of kinship foster care nationally and examines related research. Reported are findings on a survey of kinship foster care programs nationwide and from qualitative interviews with nine grandmothers from New York City who were kinship foster care providers. Particular attention was paid in these surveys to the impact of kinship foster care on families caring for children with disabilities.     

Preparing Social Work Students to Work with Grandparents in Kinship Care

Summary

Grandparents in kinship care represent an expanding population of older adults assuming primary parenting responsibilities for their grandchildren at a time when many grandparents may also be experiencing developmental changes accompanying their own aging process. Research documents a lack of social workers prepared to respond to the needs of an aging population in general, and grandparents in kinship care in particular, as curricular content on this population has been limited in undergraduate and graduate social work programs. This article describes an infusion model proposed for an undergraduate social work program's GeroRich Project designed to introduce content on an aging population in four foundation courses to expand students' knowledge of older adults and grandparents as kinship care providers.     

Promoting Individual and Social Changes: A Hybrid Model of Social Work with Groups

Taking as a starting point two influential, yet different approaches in group work, that is, the self-directed group work and mutual aid models, this article examines a possible alternative for conducting social work with groups. Drawing from structuration theory, which makes a strong dialectical relation between agency and structure possible, this article highlights how our alternative model could lead to a greater integration of the micro- and macrodimensions in group-work practice. The Discussion section proposes three key principles for group work, namely, a belief in people’s strengths and capacities, a focus on critical thinking, and a concern for the development of a democratic culture in groups. These principles are conveyed through the group worker’s roles as consciousness raiser and process facilitator and provide a flexible and participatory process that can be used with a broad range of service-user groups. The article concludes with a discussion on the strengths and limitations of the model.     

The Impact of Time and Place on Mutual-Aid Practice with Short-Term Groups

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to help practitioners promote mutual aid to short-term groups. It describes and discusses the impact of time and place on the process of such groups. The challenges of the short-term group are identified and implications for practice are drawn.     

Using the End of Groups as an Intervention at End-of-Life

SUMMARY

Support groups are an effective therapy at end-of-life. Patients with life-threatening illness and caregivers of the terminally ill have benefited from the mutual aid process provided by groups. Mutual aid is fostered by talking about feelings and developing group cohesion. Difficulty discussing the multiple issues of loss faced at end-of-life, including death and dying, can stifle sharing and impede this process. Group endings offer a unique opportunity to symbolically introduce these topics. This article explores the utilization of the group developmental stage of termination when facilitating groups for this population.     

Retrospective Book Review: Teaching a Methods Course in Social Work with Groups

SUMMARY

Eight years after its publication, Teaching a Methods Course in Social Work with Groups serves as a reminder to social workers of group work's historic roots and its value as a method of practice with diverse populations. The author shares her experiences in utilizing the teaching text in her work with MSW students and students of the arts who facilitate activity-based groups in community settings. Citing examples of students' experiences in group work facilitation, the author touches on the constraints emerging group workers face in translating social work skills and values to practice. The author's retrospective review of the teaching text underscores its continued importance in the field of social group work instruction.     

A family affair? Kinship care and parental substance misuse: some dilemmas explored

Both the Children Act 1989 and the Human Rights Act 1998 support the principle that children should remain within their birth families wherever possible and that this option must be considered when children are unable to live with their parents. Where parental substance misuse is an issue, family placements, whether formally or informally arranged, are increasingly being used and the support of grandparents, in particular, has been identified as a significant protective factor for children. This paper examines some of the issues that can arise with such placements, particularly in view of the part that substance misuse may play within the wider family system, the impact of parental drug and alcohol use on attachment and child development, and the complex dynamics that can ensue. Drawing on themes emerging from parental substance misuse literature and kinship care research, some practice dilemmas will be explored. While acknowledging the complex aetiology of substance misuse and the dangers of pathologizing family systems in which it is found, some hypotheses about potential risks and challenges will be debated. It will be argued that, although such placements can often provide children with a safe haven, they may demand a specific type of support and monitoring, if children’s welfare is to be safeguarded.     

Kinship care in the UK: using census data to estimate the extent of formal and informal care by relatives

Until recently, little was known about kinship care in the UK. Research has begun to illuminate the circumstances which lead to children being cared for by relatives, and the stresses and strains experienced by carers. However, most UK research has only considered ‘looked‐after’ children placed with formal approved kinship foster carers, although this group forms the smallest proportion of children in kinship arrangements. In this paper, we use microdata from the 2001 UK Population Census to examine the characteristics of kinship carers and children, and demonstrate that most children in kinship care are growing up in informal unregulated arrangements. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Issues Related to the Use of Short-Term Groups for Adjustment to Divorce

Programs for divorce adjustment which utilize short-term groups provide a viable treatment intervention for meeting the needs of divorced clients. Through a comparison of such programs, this article identifies and discusses some of the issues and gaps in our present knowledge about the use of short-term groups for adjustment to divorce. Guidelines are provided for practitioners and agencies interested in developing divorce adjustment group programs or modifying existing ones.     

Drawing on Kinship Care Support for Older People during a Pandemic (COVID-19): Practice Considerations for Social Workers in Ghana

ABSTRACT

Undoubtedly, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought both systemic, practice changes and limitations to social workers’ commitment to the welfare of vulnerable populations such as older people. A golden preventive rule of the COVID-19 pandemic; maintaining physical and social distancing, has limited social workers’ direct practice support for older people who are considered as an at-risk population. Within jurisdictions such as Ghana where kinship care practices are culturally engrained, social workers should promote kinship care support as substitute mechanisms and pathways to safeguard or meet the welfare needs of older people.     

Helping each other: a peer supervision group with facilitators of mutual aid groups

ABSTRACT

Mutual aid groups can help people cope with life’s problems. A peer supervision group can help facilitators to better understand their role and improve their facilitating skills in mutual aid groups. Peer supervision groups aim to support facilitators ability to reflect on their difficulties in working with groups, deepen their methodological questions, and improve their understanding regarding how to best proceed as facilitators. This paper studied a peer supervision group of experts-by-experience facilitators to demonstrate the dynamics of mutual aid that characterized the group’s functioning.     

Differential Models of Social Work Groups with Family Violence

This paper examines the research literature on multiple forms of family violence and proposes three social work group models to apply to this widespread phenomenon. The models proposed are group work with wife abusers, groups of reciprocated violent marital dyads and multiple violent family unit groups. The theoretical approach of each model is discussed as well as group composition, goals, tasks, structure, relational-interactional systems, worker role and means of service delivery. Important problems in group development of each model are identified and suggestions for worker intervention are outlined.     

The Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Movement and Young People with Serious Physical Illnesses Who Support Building Communities of Care

In 2011–2012, a qualitative exploratory pilot study was conducted to examine the experiences of immigrant Mexican women using a culturally specific domestic violence intervention model curriculum in a Midwestern state. Using a psychoeducational group format, 20 immigrant Mexican women participated in two 11-week groups over a 9-month period at a community-based health clinic. Findings indicated immigrant Mexican women examined current relationships, dating, and domestic violence dynamics in group settings and reported changes in self-esteem within their own culture. Implications for social workers include learning how they can use culturally competent curriculums and programs in group formats.     

Organizational Restructuring in European Health Systems: The Role of Primary Care

The main goal of this paper is to review the strategies developed across European health care systems during the 1990s to improve coordination among health care providers. A second goal is to provide some analytical insights in two fields. On the one hand, we attempt to clarify the relationships between pro‐coordination strategies and organizational change in health care. Our main conclusion is that the specific features of health care impede the operation of either market or hierarchical coordination mechanisms. These can, however, be selectively successful if applied as levers to promote the role and impact of the pro‐cooperative coordination strategies which are ultimately required to foster adequate inter‐professional and inter‐organizational coordination. On the other hand, we try to cast some light on the ongoing debate on convergence versus path dependency within the broader field of welfare state reform. Evidence on pro‐coordination reforms in health care apparently supports some insights from previous work on the centrality of the socio‐political structure to account for varying patterns of selective path dependency across countries. In particular, the informal power resources of specialist physicians vis‐à‐vis primary care professionals and the state are critical to explain the different rhythm and fate of pro‐coordination reforms across Europe. Against received wisdom, the evidence examined suggests that selective path dependency might apparently be compatible with a general trend towards convergence understood as hybridization.     

Resistance and Work in Adolescent Groups

This paper examines the nature and function of resistance in adolescent groups and suggests that resistance can be better understood in the context of (a) stages of group development, and (b) work/resistance cycles which are the central mechanism of tension regulation in the group.