Risk factors for dating violence among teenage girls under child protective services

The aim of the present study was to explore potential risk factors for severe physical victimisation in dating relationships of adolescent girls in the child protective system (CPS). A total of 196 adolescent Canadian girls within the care of the CPS completed questionnaires containing measures relating to dating and family violence, sexual history and socio-demographic variables. Results showed that the majority of participants had experienced some types of victimisation in their dating relationships, with 53.1 per cent reporting at least one severe physical victimisation experience. Results from bivariate analyses revealed that a history of child sexual abuse and school failure or dropout were not associated with dating victimisation. History of parental physical abuse, living outside the family environment before placement, age of first sexual relationship, number of sexual partners and having been pregnant were related to sustained severe physical dating victimisation. Logistic regression analysis indicates that all factors, save for number of partners and living outside family environment, contributed to the prediction of dating victimisation in multivariate analysis. Having been pregnant increased the odds of sustaining severe physical abuse more than threefold (by 3.60). Implications for intervention and further research are discussed.     

Family centres: a focus for the children in need debate

The development of child care policy has been characterized by debates organized along various intersecting constructs such as universal vs. selective services and prevention vs. treatment. Family centres, as a site of service delivery, represent a point of intersection of many of these arguments. Their role is contested between protagonists of all positions within the child care policy debates: whether they should be professionally managed, led by service users, provide a service to referred families, or offer a universal resource for local communities. This paper argues that a needs-led approach to family centre development may supersede the sterile dichotomies of many of these debates. A case study is presented of an evaluation research project, designed to inform a needs-led family centre policy for an urban unitary social services department. The methodology utilizes an approach combining quantitative analyses of geographical distributions of family need with qualitative presentation of the perspectives of actual and potential centre users, and agency stakeholders. The outcome is a family centre model which, by focusing on need, seeks to transcend the limited oppositions of the child care debates.     

Research Review: Risk and resilience in cases of emotional abuse

This paper examines risk and resilience in relation to emotional abuse. Research has identified numerous child and family factors that may increase the risk of emotional abuse occurring and has also identified numerous ways in which an experience of emotional abuse can enhance vulnerability to negative outcomes. However, relatively little is known about the factors that determine the extent to which an experience of emotional abuse predicts later psychosocial functioning. Factors that may determine risk and resilience in children who experience emotional abuse are discussed. These include predisposing factors such as early caregiving experiences; precipitating factors such as the frequency, intensity and duration of the abuse; factors intrinsic to the child such as working models of the self and others, internal or external attributions, behavioural and coping strategies, self‐esteem, and disposition; and external factors such as school and availability of supportive relationships. The need to pay attention to the particular vulnerabilities and protective factors pertaining to each emotionally abused child in order to most effectively enhance resilience is highlighted.     

Social services provided for physically abused children in Sweden: background factors and interventions

This study aims at describing and analysing what kinds of social services are provided for physically abused children in Sweden. The social services files were examined for 113 children under 15 years of age (67 boys and 46 girls) who had been reported to the police as having been physically abused by a parent or equivalent caretaker in a particular police district. The children's social services files indicated an increased risk of a parental abusive behaviour prior to the abuse incident. There had been former interventions in 81 per cent of the families and previous reports on neglect or abuse in 44 per cent of the 113 families. After the abuse incident, investiga-tions were opened in 80 per cent of the cases. The three most common interventions were placement in foster care, referrals to Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Service and Social Services support contacts. The study shows that there was a tendency towards more proactive work with injured children, children of immigrant parents and children of mentally ill parents.     

The day fostering scheme: a service for children in need and their parents

This paper summarizes a new scheme, set up initially as a pilot project, which has now become Children and Families Social Services provision, in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport. The pilot project ran for a 6‐month period, in order to establish whether a day fostering service would be a useful and effective way of working in partnership with birth families. The paper discusses the philosophy behind the Children Act 1989 (England and Wales), and some research findings on the consequences of poor parenting for children, to examine the need for a day fostering scheme. Finally, the scheme itself is described, with an evaluation of the referrals for the 6‐month pilot period, and a discussion of the future of the project.     

Risk and Resilience in Long-Term Foster-Care

The concept of resilience provides a necessary framework forunderstanding the varied ways in which some children do wellin the face of adversity. The debate on resilience in childrenhas shifted from an emphasis on factors to an emphasis on processesand mechanisms and from identifying resilience to promotingresilience. Children in long-term foster-care have experienceda range of early adversities which continue to affect theirself-esteem, self-efficacy and capacity to cope with developmentalchallenges. Risk and protective characteristics in the foster-child,the foster-carers, the birth family and the agencies involvedwith the child will interact in complex ways to produce upwardor downward spirals. This article reports on a longitudinalstudy of children in long-term foster-care, funded by the NuffieldFoundation. It provides a psychosocial model that links innerand outer worlds, developmental theory and social work practice,to explore why some children appear to be making good progresswhile others continue to experience multiple developmental difficulties.     

Placed and paid for: a national overview of the use of private and voluntary day care facilities for children in need

This paper examines day care provision for children in need, who are placed and paid for by local authorities in non local authority services. The England and Wales Children Act 1989 placed a new duty on local authorities to provide day care services for children who are defined as being 'in need', and the guidance accompanying the Act encourages the use of independent sector services for this purpose. This paper brings together the main findings from a survey of all English local authorities, an analysis of local authority documentation and secondary analysis of government statistics to provide a national overview of the use of sponsored day care places for children 'in need'. It concludes that the majority of English local authorities value the contribution of independent day care providers, but that there are potential problems with adopting a market approach to welfare services, such as low levels of training and support for such providers, and a shortage of suitable service provision in the areas where they are most needed. These require further consideration by policy makers and local authorities.     

Assessment of the developmental needs of children in need: Estonian child protective workers' case reflections

Child protective workers must be able to evaluate children's developmental needs in order to assess problems and delays. Skilful and comprehensive assessment leads to outcomes for children that promote their well‐being and development. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study on a sample of Estonian child protective workers that investigated their assessments of the developmental needs of children in cases with child protection concerns. Only half of the child protective workers considered some dimension of the child's developmental needs in their assessment, suggesting a profound need to incorporate a developmental assessment framework and implement training of such in Estonia to increase child protective workers' competencies to conduct consistently comprehensive assessments.     

The conceptualization and measurement of need: a key to guiding policy and practice in children's services

Effective services for children must be grounded in the sound conceptualization and measurement of need. The concept of need is often misunderstood because it is used in different ways. Defining need as both a requisite and a goal is desirable. The conceptualization ought to rest on an acceptance that not only are objective and universal needs to attain physical health and autonomy requirements for all human beings, but subjective needs may also sit alongside of universal needs. The ecological/developmental perspective is best suited as a framework for assessing the needs of children. One of its tenets, the importance of understanding the interaction of risk and protective factors, is highly relevant to assessing needs. An assessment of the interaction of risk and protective factors operating in a child's life reveals the requisites and goals necessary for child development. The proposed approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of need when combined will be conducive to better assessment and intervention by social workers with children.     

Congruence and co-operation in social workers' assessments of children in need

This paper examines the concepts of congruence and co‐operation in social work practice with children and families. It describes findings from the author’s own research and attempts to deconstruct the interaction of the two phenomena. Using material from other published research, the paper proposes a model and suggests methods for analysing congruence and co‐operation in the practice context. The key implication is that the depth of a social worker’s understanding of a family situation may affect his or her assessment of parental co‐operation.     

Working the ‘spaces’ between policy and practice: the contributions offered by resilience theory and action research

The policy‐practice dimension often presents challenges particularly in the policy arena of child well‐being. Policy designers identify risk factors and design programmes intended to develop protective factors in areas of need. The 2004 Australian Communities for Children (CfC) initiative aimed to improve the social, health and educational outcomes for young children living in socio‐economically disadvantaged localities. Its method was to engage local community members to contribute towards developing protective factors. Rather than considering this national–local arrangement, an unworkable alliance, we examine the performance of CfC through three examples and demonstrate how resilience theory and action research can assist this programme achieve its social inclusion aims and well‐being outcomes. We choose not to disregard policy programmes like CfC, rather we emphasize the possibilities offered when working these complex spaces involving multiple and inherent contradictions. The spaces that often exist between the policy and its implementation are rethought to allow a greater opportunity for the growth of innovation and change.     

Research Review: Child protection referrals and minority ethnic children and families

This paper reviews the research on the referral of minority ethnic children to child and family social work teams because of child protection concerns. Specifically, it focuses on those studies that have researched the referral stage of the child ‘in need’ and child protection systems, and explored differences in patterns of referral between the main ethnic groups that make up the UK population.     

Older Latina Women and HIV/AIDS: An Examination of Sexuality and Culture as they Relate to Risk and Protective Factors

Older Latina women are one of the least studied American demographic groups with regard to social, health, or sexual behavior. This could leave social workers and other geriatric professionals unprepared for dealing with HIV/AIDS in this population. Currently, older Latina women are one of the fastest growing groups of new AIDS cases. Twenty percent of all women ever diagnosed with the disease are Latina and 5.5% of Latinas infected with the virus are older. The number of diagnosed infections is increasing in older women, including Latinas, in spite of recent declines in infection rates with younger populations. There are also a potentially large number of cases that go misdiagnosed or undiagnosed.

This article also addresses risk and protective factors related to gender roles, traditional Latino family values, religion, socioeconomic factors, health, and health care, with special attention to the triple jeopardy faced by this population by virtue of being female, seniors, and minorities. The article concludes with recommendations for the development of culturally competent practices with older Latinas and the development of a research agenda to better understand their risk-related and health-seeking behavior.     

The protection of children in time: child protection and the lives and deaths of children in child abuse cases in socio-historical perspective

For some 20 years now in the UK, assessments of the effectiveness of child protection have been carried out under the shadow of child abuse inquiries. Yet, relatively little is known about social work and matters of child life and death that preceded the first major inquiry into the death of Maria Colwell in 1973. This paper offers a socio-historical perspective on child protection and the lives and deaths of children in child abuse cases, and excavates the foundations upon which the major developments of the past two decades have proceeded. The emergence and development of a'modern' ideology of child protection, which held that it is possible and desirable for social intervention to work to protect children in time, is traced to processes that unfolded from the late nineteenth century. Statistical evidence on the numbers of children who have died in cases across the twentieth century is examined and analysed in the context of social theories of modernity and perspectives on the changing ways in which child death has (literally) been handled by professionals and knowlege about the problem managed over time.     

A Tool for Assessing Truancy Risk Among School Children: Predictive and Construct Validity of the Risk Indicator Survey

ABSTRACT

The Risk Indicator Survey I (RISK I) is a screening tool used to identify the truancy risk level and intervention needs for frequently absent students. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis were used to examine the survey's validity. Sample included 6,239 elementary school children. The RISK I was reduced from 59 items to 32 items on 6 factor subscales, accounting for 49.59% of the variance in EFA. Results support the use of the RISK I as a valid truancy risk screening tool. Future studies should evaluate the RISK I survey tool with a more diverse population.     

Social Development Quartet: Emotion Socialization in the Context of Psychopathology and Risk

An introduction is provided to this Social Development Quartet in which the articles focus on parent emotion socialization in the context of psychopathology and risk. In two articles, the samples of children and/or adolescents have a psychiatric diagnosis [oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) or depressive disorder]. The other two articles feature samples in which children and families have experienced serious risks [exposure to inter‐parental violence (IPV) or maternal incarceration]. The articles in this Social Development Quartet extend our knowledge of the impact of parental emotion socialization practices to contexts in which children and parents experience higher than normative risks. The work reported in these articles builds upon research on emotion socialization in normative contexts, illustrating the buffering effects of supportive parenting as well as its limits.     

Risk,resilience and identity construction in the life narratives of young people leaving residential care

The role of residential care for children has developed very differently internationally, but in all cultural contexts, there are questions about the extent to which it can help young people recover from high risk backgrounds. In the UK, residential care has come to be seen as the placement of last resort, yet new government guidance on permanence has suggested that residential care can provide security and a sense of belonging. Narrative analysis of interviews with 20 care leavers identified their different pathways from birth families through residential care to early adulthood. Some experienced a transformation from a negative sense of self as victims or ‘bad children’ to survivors, while others continued to struggle. Key to successful turning points were four interacting factors, all associated with resilience; connection, agency, activity and coherence. These narratives revealed the importance of nurturing relationships and a sense of ‘family’, and also the role of support after leaving residential care, when transitions workers helped them to move on but stay connected. The study highlighted how residential care leavers from adverse backgrounds attribute very different meanings to their experiences, which affects identity construction, resilience and the need for support.