Family and Parent Correlates of Educational Achievement: Migrant Children in China

Analyzing data drawn from the Beijing Migrant Children Compulsory Education Survey (BMCCES), this study examines the impact of child, family and parent factors on migrant Chinese children’s performance in math. The central questions address the differences between the performance of migrant and non‐migrant children in Beijing, the family and parent correlates of education achievement, such as household income and parent education, the impact of social capital based on family relations, norms and interactions, such as educational expectation and parental involvement, and how the results compare to findings in the US literature. The results show some similarities and differences between the family‐related factors that impact achievement in the US and China.     

Family Support and Empowerment: Post Autism Diagnosis Support Group for Parents

Receiving a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder often elicits strong emotional reactions from parents of the diagnosed child. Follow-up services and continued support for these families is a necessary component to help families adapt and meet their and their children's needs. This pilot study measured the effects of a six-session, co-facilitated, support group on the advocacy skills and self-efficacy of parents coping with a child's diagnosis. Statistically significant increases in the average mean scores for the three subscales of the Family Empowerment Scale were found. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Toward Empowerment: ReVisioning Family Support Groups

ABSTRACT

Family support groups (FSG) have been recognized as an important and viable means for responding to the needs of family caregivers. How these groups work, however, is not well understood. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory study was to explore the impact of attending a family support group on the caregiving experience from the perspective of the family member. Personal, semi-structured interviews took place with eleven family members who had participated in at least one FSG. Data was analyzed for themes, using a constant comparative categorizing strategy. This analysis suggests that attending a FSG impacts the caregiving experience in four important ways: helping the family member to construct a self-identity as a ‘caregiver’; promoting a sense of personal competence; fostering the use of formal support groups; and creating a community context within which to experience the caregiving role. Cumulatively, these have the potential to contribute to a sense of empowerment for the family member by helping him or her to reposition the caregiving experience as more than a personal issue and promoting the emergence of a more collective voice.     

Family Support of the Aged: Some Evidence and Interpretation

This paper brings together a range of Australian material concerning family support for the aged. From a review of studies dealing with the family structure of the aged and accounts of inter generational contact and supportive exchanges within families, including migrant families, considerable evidence of family support is found. The implications of the absence of such support are seen from data on the use of services and admissions to institutional care; the preventive effect of marriage and family is apparent, those aged without family being identified as most at risk. Reasons for the commonly held view of family breakdown are then examined and some suggestions for service development outlined.     

The Social Ecology of Early Childhood: Preschool Social Support Networks and Social Acceptance

The focus of this study was on the social networks of preschool children and on the interface between network characteristics and the child's acceptance by peers and teachers. Fifty-six children and their mothers were interviewed about the child's social support network. Social acceptance measures included peer sociometric ratings and teacher ratings of child preference and relationship quality. Frequency of contact with mother-nominated child network members was a determining factors in the concordance of mother and child reports. From the child's perspective, social acceptance was related to the presence and supportiveness of siblings and extended kin. Mother reports were less predictive, with only one significant association between parental support and teacher preference. In general, the children's perceptions regarding the structure and function of their social networks were found to be reliable and to relate meaningfully to social acceptance in the preschool domain.     

The Understanding and Use of Reflection in Family Support Social Work

ABSTRACT

Previous research emphasizes the need for reflection in complex, dynamic practices, like social work. However, increased governance of the public sector and welfare state has caused a reform, which in turn has affected the layout and conditions of work. Private sector control ideals and ideas from the auditing system have led to a new focus. It is argued that we should subordinate practice approaches – characterized by reflection, proven experience, and tacit knowledge – to manual-based treatment, evaluations, and assessments. This study aims at understanding the role of reflection in social work by investigating its use and valuation by family support social workers. Opportunities and resources for reflection are another focus. Focus group interviews (n = 40) were used to produce data. The need for reflection to conduct highly qualitative social work became evident. The question is not whether to reflect or not, rather how this best can be done, given current time constraints. Reflection was considered a coping mechanism, offering a sense of professional legitimacy. Organizational changes seem to impact on time for reflection. However, when enabling process, learning, and development, it can be argued that reflection is beneficial for several parties. Therefore, reflection requires continued emphasis, highlighting its potential benefits.     

Informal Support Networks of Hispanic Mothers

One hundred eighty-five pregnant and postpartum Hispanic mothers completed anonymous questionnaires regarding the composition, extent, and quality of their support networks. Mothers were found to provide the most support for the younger English-speaking respondents (12-20 years of age) and husbands for the older English-speaking respondents and all age groups in the Spanish-speaking subsample. The 18 to 20 year old respondents appeared to have the broadest based and most responsive support network.     

Social Support Networks in China : An Urban- Rural Comparison

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The Family and Aging:

No abstract available for this article.     

Effects of Parent Effectiveness Training Program on Family Communication and Flexibility of Korean Parents

This study examines the effects of an 8‐week Parent Effective Training (PET) program on family communication and flexibility. Forty‐two pairs of Korean parents were randomly assigned to either an experimental group that provided the PET program or a control group that did not offer the program. The two groups were compared on pre‐, post‐, and follow‐up measures of PAC(Parent‐Adolescent Communication), ENRICH(Enriching and Nurturing Relationship Issues, Communication and Happiness), and FACES(Family Adaptability Cohesion Evaluation Scale), while controlling for the effects of socio‐demographic variables. Compared with the control group, the experimental group showed significant improvements in family communication between parents and children and between the husband and the wife but no such improvements in family flexibility. These findings suggest that the PET program is a useful short‐term tool for Korean parents wishing to enhance family communication.     

Family Support for Old People in Rural China

In China the family is still the major welfare provider for old people in rural areas. Although the implementation of this role has varied significantly, in different historical periods, owing to social and economic changes in the rural environment, the core functions of the family have remained the same, that is, the provision of welfare for dependants, particularly for the aged. In the more traditional China, providing care for the aged was indeed assumed to be a paramount function of the family. Whereas, following the founding of the PRC in 1949, the welfare function of the family was reduced, as a result of the collectivization of the rural economy, which meant a part of family responsibilities being shared by collective organizations. However, after more than twenty years' experience of agricultural collectivization, China embarked on a course of further rural economic reform in the early 1980s, replacing the commune system with one of private production based on the family unit. As a result, rural welfare responsibilities were shifted back from the commune to the family, which became solely responsible for providing support for its dependent members. This paper attempts to set out the real situation with regard to family support for rural old people in China. The first section offers a brief introduction to the declining family status of rural old people as a consequence of socio-economic change. The second section reviews the implications of rural economic reform for the (declining) status of old people with regard to family support, focusing on patterns of rural old age dependency and the changing roles of family caregivers. Lastly, cases of family support disputes and community responses are presented, drawing on findings from fieldwork conducted by the author between 1995 and 1996 in three rural localities in China.     

Rethinking Family Support in the Current Policy Context

This article uses the concept of ‘the social investmentstate’ to understand key aspects of New Labour’spolicies in relation to welfare reform. It argues that ‘investingin children’ and creating ‘responsible parents’are vital features of many of the policies and service initiativeswhich have emerged since 1997. Such features have considerableimplications for policies and practices in the arena of familysupport. The article goes on to outline aspects of an importantcritique of the social investment state which has emerged fromthose engaged in research and policy analysis who argue fora ‘political ethics of care’. It argues that thisperspective offers important possibilities to family supportadvocates not only for critique, but also for articulating muchneeded policy alternatives to those currently being promotedby New Labour. It also signposts the importance of conductingongoing research into the meanings which are being attachedby individuals to complex and contested terms such as ‘family’and ‘support’.     

Correlates of Social Worker Contact with Clients' Family Networks

The study examined the degree of social worker contact with the family networks of a sample of new elderly applicants (N = 122) to the social welfare services of Jerusalem. Greater contact was correlated with frail status of the client and a request for institutional care. A curvilinear relationship was found with network accessibility. These correlations disappeared, however, when degree of family initiated contact with the social worker was considered together with the other variables, through multiple classification analysis. Implication of these findings for the interweaving of formal and informal supports are considered.     

Family and Friends of People with HIV/AIDS Support Group

ABSTRACT

Those who are supporting a loved one with HIV/AIDS are under a great deal of stress and need support too. This article describes a support group for family and friends living with HIV/AIDS in which members share their personal experiences, educate one another, and in the process, realize they are not alone as they learn to cope with the diagnosis of AIDS or HIV+ in someone they love. The struggles, conflicts, and emotions of the group members and of the group facilitators are discussed.     

Informal Support Networks Meet Health needs of Rural Elderly

While major studies of informal support systems have been conducted in urban areas, it is important to gain comparable knowledge for the rural and small town communities in which so many older people live. This exploratory study had as its overall purpose to examine the association between community based informal support networks and the ability of older adults to carry out daily activities in a rural area-the measure of the functional health status of the person. Within a rural perspective the outcome of the study included: replication of urban data in terms of network identification; the generation for further study of two hypotheses related to the association of network functionality and functional health and one hypothesis related to the association of network proximity and functionality; and recommendations of unstudied areas of concern for a better understanding of network functionality.