Can Voluntary Support Projects Help Vulnerable Families? The Work of Home-Start

Jane Gibbons, NISW, 5-7 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SS Summary In an exploratory study, we examined the characteristics ofa sample of families referred to a branch of Home-Start (a voluntaryorganization to help stressed parents of under-fives) and thework of its volunteers. Comparison with families on social workers'case-loads suggested that Home-Start was able to work with awide variety of families, including those with severe difficulties,and that it offered a qualitatively different and complementaryservice to that of the local authority.     

The Cost of Hope

Summary A conversation with a woman, recently widowed, living in a poorblack community of London, reveals the difficulty in merelysurviving that she, her family and families like her own presentlyare experiencing. Her concers are with housing, schools, healthcare for herself and her children, ageing when one lives inpoverty, and perhaps most significantly, her gradual loss ofhope that anything can be done to improve her circumstances.The study reported has been done on one single family; it isnot a composite of several families, although clearly, the lifeof this one woman is most representative of families livingwhere she lives.     

Two Value Positions in Recent Child Care Law and Practice

Summary This paper aims to explore two contrasting viewpoints on stateand agency intervention in child care, and the major pointsof divergence and similarity between these viewpoints. Materialis drawn from literature and from interviews conducted by theauthor with individuals prominent in the child care field.¹Simply put, one viewpoint emphasizes the prevention of the break-upof ‘natural’ or biological families and the restorationof biological ties where severed, while the other advocatesthe readier removal of children from natural families and theprovision of permanent, secure substitute families when naturalparenting is unsatisfactory. At attempt is made to place thesetwo positions in a wider intellectual context.     

Some Characteristics of Abusing Families Referred to the NSPCC

Summary The results from 85 social work schedules completed at a numberof NSPCC units for the treatment of non-accidental injury showthat there is a decreasing trend in the seriousness of recentreferral injuries and confirms the prevalence of facial bruising.Children under four were those most at risk, the mean age ofchildren being 20 months. Early parenthood appears to be a characteristicof these and other families with the likelihood of larger thanaverage families by the time the family is completed. Maternalill-health, especially psychological ill-health, is a confirmedfinding and general family violence rather than the scapegoatingof a single child was frequent. Family disruption was high withseparation, housing and employment changes, and previous criminalityoccurring in a disproportionate number of families.     

Behavioural Social Work with Schizophrenic Patients in the Community

Summary A preliminary project on the application of behaviour modificationprocedures in the home setting is reported together with commentson the social needs of schizophrenic patients and their families.The article includes suggestions about social work with thisclient group based on the project experience.     

Children At Risk: How different are children on Child Abuse Registers?

Mark Campbell. 64. Alberta Road. Bush Hill Park. Enfield EN1 1JE. Summary Following a review of the literature a checklist of 118 itemswhich have been associated with child abuse and neglect wasconstructed. This checklist was applied to twenty-five familiesattending a Local Authority's family centres. Nine of thesefamilies had children whose names were on the local Child AbuseRegister. The checklist scores of the families on the registerwere compared with the remainder. There was little differencein the factors studied between the two groups. This suggeststhat either there is little real difference between the characteristicsof abusing and non-abusing families, or that the process ofregistration is controlled by a series of events which are notsolely related to the characteristics of the families underconsideration.     

A Study of Families' Expectations and Experiences of a Child Guidance Clinic

Summary Recently there has been considerable debate concerning the useof child guidance/psychiatric services. There is a lack of consumerstudies in this area, despite opinion that such studies areessential in the evaluaton of these services. This paper considersthe expectations and experiences of ten families who attendedtheir local child guidance clinic. These families had attendedthe clinic for no more than six appointments before termination.Most parents had expectations which conflicted with those ofclinic staff. The only three families whose expectations concurredwith clinic practice had had previous experience of the ‘helpingprofessions’. Overall less than half the families feltthey had been helped and this seems related to the differencesbetween their expectations and experiences. The clinic's andthe families' opinions concerning the helpfulness of clinicintervention do not always coincide, nor do their reasons fortermination. Ideas for preparation of families prior to attendingthe clinic and for modification of treatment by clinic staffare considered.     

Factors Contributing to Stress on Mothers Caring for an Intellectually Handicapped Child

Summary With the shift away from institutional care, increasing responsibilityis falling on families to care for their elderly or disabledmembers. Whilst this move may be cost-beneficial for the authorities,it inevitably puts additional strain on family resources. This paper examines the home care of intellectually handicappedchildren and the subsequent impact on families. Specifically,it assesses stress levels amonst mothers of intellectually handicappedchildren and explores the factors which contribute to that stress.It is argued that better understanding of the causes of stresswill help in the optimal provision of support services.     

The Effectiveness of Behaviour Modification with Families

Summary The literature would have us believe that behavioural procedurescan be applied extremely effectively to a wide range of familyproblems. As with any other therapeutic approach there are,however, a wide range of specific and non-specific factors whichwill determine whether or not a behavioural approach is successful.This paper sets out to examine some of these and also attemptsto draw a few conclusions about the effectiveness of behaviourmodification with families, especially when it is practisedin a routine clinical setting.     

Self-fulfilling Prophecies, Self-defeating Strategies and Change

Summary This paper sets out to describe and define ‘self-fulfillingprophecies’ and ‘self-defeating strategies’and discuss their relevance to understanding families. The conceptsare presented as a model for making sense of, and simplifying,the complex repeating sequences of behaviour seen in families.It is a model which has a behavioural and a cognitive componentand this may form a bridge between theories which concentrateon the ‘here and now’ and those which emphasizethe significance of history. Examples of the model are givenwith an analysis of the process of interaction. Certain featuresof self-defeating strategies are discussed, specifically howattempts to avoid a particular outcome can, in fact, precipitateit and how obsolete expectations can inhibit families from changing.Finally, some of the underlying assumptions of the model areexamined.     

The Supply of Foster Families for Children in Care

Correspondence to John Miles, Institute of Social and Applied Psychology, The University, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7LZ. Summary The family circumstances of 2694 foster homes in England arecompared with representative families from the 1985 GeneralHousehold Survey. Foster families typically include a womanin the 31–55 age group, live in homes with three or morebedrooms, are two parent families with one parent working full-timeand the other not, and they have older children only. The incidenceof families with these characteristics is used to develop anestimator of the relative supply position of local authorityareas for foster care, from which a number of conclusions aredrawn. Over the last thirty years some social changes have improvedthe supply, others decreased it, and on balance the nationalsupply position is little changed. Ironically, supply is bestin those areas which have the lowest need for fostering services.Ways in which local authorities can improve their supply positionare considered. The supply estimator reveals that the averageboarding out payments made by authorities show clear signs ofresponsiveness to the local supply position for foster families.     

The Side Effects of Intervention?

Summary Are families worrying too much about ordinary, everyday difficultiesor are we trying too hard to help, resulting in a kind of systemsoverdose? Through the use of two case examples, the authorsexplore these questions, concluding that social work and otheragencies might be in danger of over-reacting, thereby addingto a family's difficulties. Strategies for change at the familylevel and within the welfare network are discussed.     

The motives of foster parents, their family and work circumstances

Summary In foster care research the focus is generally placed on thechildren, not on the parents who perform the foster care. Inthis article the focus is on foster parents of 10-11 year-oldchildren. They were interviewed about their motives for becomingfoster parents, which were linked to their family and work circumstances.Among the 21 foster families in the study, four different butequally frequent reasons or motives for taking care of fosterchildren from the very beginning could be distinguished: relativeswho feel responsibility for a certain child; couples who wantchildren and do not think they can have children of their own;families where the mother wants to be at home taking care ofbiological as well as foster children instead of having unskilledemployed work outside the home; and parents with grown-up childrenwho want to fill the 'empty nest' by becoming foster parents- combined with a family business at home or close to home.Changing family and work patterns in Sweden do not seem to haveinfluenced foster families as much as families in general. Theworth of acquiring more knowledge about the families involvedin foster care of children and young people in order to improvefoster care and reduce breakdowns of care is discussed.     

Assessing Adoptions in Difficulty

Correspondence to Dr David Howe, Lecturer in Social Work, University of East Anglia, School of Economic and Social Studies, Norwich NR4 7TJ. Summary Although most adoptions are judged a success, a small numberof families and their adopted children run into behaviouraland relationship difficulties. The Post-adoption Centre, London,is a specialist agency which works with a number of client groups,including adopters and their families. The assessments madeby the Centre's counsellors of adoptive families were analysed.Two dimensions defined the counsellors' assessments. One recognizeda strong developmental perspective and owed much to the recentwork of David Brodzinsky. The other emphasized the complex emotionalinteractions that can take place between parents and child.Because of its originality and ability to refine the qualityof assessments, the analysis concentrates on the second dimension.When the developmental and interactional perspectives are combined,five assessment themes emerge. These are described and illustratedwith case examples.     

Adopted Children in Care

Correspondence to David Howe, School of Economic and Social Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ. Summary Four local authority social services departments were surveyedto determine the number of adopted children who were currentlyin their care. The biographical characteristics of these childrenand the reasons for them entering care are reported. The adoptivedimension is discussed as a possibly relevant factor in theassessment and treatment of these children and their families.It is concluded that appropriate practice in this field requiresspecialist skills and understanding.     

Informal, Voluntary and Statutory Services: The Complex Relationship

Summary The argument of this paper is that equitable social care caneventuate only with the acceptance of a greater role for publicsector services. In debates about the development of socialcare, politicians in industrial societies who stress the virtuesof family care are either unaware of the costs to families ofproviding that care, or are cynically expecting a major shiftin social provision and social resources, with the result thatthose least able to provide adequately will find greater burdensthrust upon them. Responses to the exclusions experienced bypeople in the 1980s will require greater state interventionbecause families may have the willingness, but not the capacityto provide the high level care required by dependent relativesand because the voluntary sector is too diffuse and diverseto plan, develop and deliver the bulk of the services.     

The Effect of Huntington's Chorea on Family Life

Summary This paper examines the effect of Huntington's Chorea (H.C.)on family life with particular reference to the consequencesfor the spouse of the H.C. patient. It describes in some detailthe marital and parental difficulties encountered and confirmsthe severe familial disruption that occurs. It suggests thatfamilies or individuals segregating this disorder can be usefullydivided into two categories of behaviour which are referredto as ‘H.C.-orientated’ and ‘independently-orientated’.It is further suggested that for purposes of practical managementand in the hope of avoiding the process whereby families becomeH.C.-orientated, these families require and should be offeredon-going social-work support from the time a family is recognisedas being at risk of H.C.     

Masking Hegemonic Masculinity: Reconstructing the Paedophile as the Dangerous Stranger

Summary This paper reviews the social constructions of the paedophileas these are embodied in clinical and journalistic discourses.It considers how these discourses have influenced communityperceptions of risk and professional responses to the concernsthey portray. It then locates these professional constructionswithin a context of hegemonic masculinity and unsafe families.It concludes that community safety is not adequately addressedby professional assessments of risk that focus primarily onthe problems posed by known paedophiles. It is important toconsider the problem of sexual violence in a much wider contextthat problematises the context in which sexual abuse occurs.     

Letters and Visits to Long-stay Broadmoor Patients

Summary Long-stay psychiatric patients are at risk of being institutionalisedand abandoned by their relatives. Special Hospital patientsare particularly vulnerable due to the compounded features ofmental disorder and criminality, together with the long termnature of their detention. A survey of 132 long-stay Broadmoor patients showed that a largenumber were neglected by their families but that many were sociallyisolated before admission. There was a significant differencebetween the amount of contact enjoyed by male and female patients.It is suggested that isolated patients should be identifiedand encouraged to take a more active interest in the outsideworld, and relatives given more encouragement to maintain theirinterest.     

The Children's Family Trust: a Unique Approach to Substitute Family Care?

Summary This article outlines the contribution made to child care since1945 by the Children's Family Trust in providing substitutefamily homes. Reference is made to some Trust policies whichhave aroused controversy over the years. Recruitment and supportof the substitute Parents is discussed, and a brief analysismade of the children for whom placement with the Trust may bemost appropriate. Comparisons are drawn between staff turnoverin Trust families and other residential homes, and between successand failure rates of placements with the Trust and in long-termfoster-homes. The final section assesses the role of the Children'sFamily Trust and its philosophy in contemporary child care.