Parents' experiences with child protection during pregnancy and post-birth

Limited research has directly sought the input of parents involved in the child protection system during pregnancy and with their infants. As the focus of these policies and practices, parents have a unique and important insight not available to others, so it is vital to obtain their input. As part of a larger Australian study, qualitative interviews were undertaken with 13 parents asking about their views and experiences. Parents predominantly became involved with child protection services during pregnancy through a prenatal report. Parents who previously had their newborn removed from their care described it as sudden and unexpected, leaving them distressed and unsupported post-removal, with a growing list of requirements for them to see their baby or for restoration to be considered. Domestic violence was a particular issue of concern for some mothers who expressed distress that their partners, perpetrators of violence, were allowed access to their infant with fewer requirements than for them. Improvements recommended by the parents included greater communication and preparation for the removal, better recognition of improvements in their situations and increased supports to be provided to parents both pre- and post-removal. Parental experiences provide an important guide to improving child protection practice with these families.     

Prosodic Modification and Vocal Adjustments in Mothers' Speech During Face‐to‐face Interaction with Their Two‐ to Four‐month‐old Infants: A Double Video Study

The purpose of this study was to examine 32 mothers' sensitivity to social contingency during face‐to‐face interaction with their two‐ to four‐month‐old infants in a closed circuit TV set‐up. Prosodic qualities and vocal sounds in mother's infant‐directed (ID) speech during sequences of live interaction were compared to sequences where expressive behaviours were decoupled by presenting either the mothers (Replay 2) or the infants (Replay 1) with a replay record of the partners' former behaviour in a Live 1–Replay 1–Live 2–Replay 2–Live 3 design. Overall, the mothers produced significantly higher amount of ID speech during the live sequences. Compared to the Live 1 sequence, there was a significant reduction in mothers' ID speech during both replay sequences. However, the mothers only recovered ID speech after the Replay 2 sequence, not after the Replay 1. These findings suggest that the emotions signalled by the mothers' ID speech is affected by the contingency of the infant responses.     

Pathways between Parent–Child Interactions and Peer Acceptance: The Role of Children's Social Information Processing

This study examined the links among parents' interaction styles, their children's social information processing, and peer acceptance. Fourth‐grade children (N = 159) and their parents were observed during family discussions. One year later peer acceptance and children's information processing choices (goals, strategies, and attributions) in response to social dilemmas involving their parents and peers were assessed. Fathers' interaction styles with their children predicted both girls' and boys' information processing in regard to their fathers and peers, which, in turn, were related to peer acceptance. Mothers' interactive styles with their children predicted children's social information processing in regard to parents and peers and peer acceptance in similar ways, but only for girls. This study provided evidence that parent–child interaction is linked to children's information processing concerning their relationships with parents and peers and in turn with children being liked by peers. The implications of a social information processing approach for understanding family–peer links are emphasized.     

Infants who stay in foster care: child characteristics and permanency outcomes of legally free children first placed as infants

Despite growing concern in the United States about the number of children who are entering child welfare care as infants, little empirical attention has been given to the sizable group of these children who are not reunified with their biological families and who then remain in care for long periods. This study examined length of stay and permanency outcomes for 458 legally free children who initially entered out-of-home care as infants. Using a Cox proportional-hazards event history model, the study also explored the effects of race/ethnicity and gender on the likelihood of these children achieving a permanent placement (legalized adoption or guardianship) within a reasonable period of time. African–American children and boys were found to be significantly less likely to achieve permanence than Caucasian children or girls. Across all groups of children in the sample, however, long stays in care were the norm. These findings suggest the need for flexible approaches to permanency, for efforts to better differentiate among infants in care, and for attention to children's long-term developmental needs as well as to strategies that better assure placement stability.     

The only child 1 : A study of one hundred only children living at home with both parents,referred, to a child guidance clinic

This study examined differences in attachment typology, early histories of unresolved trauma and loss, and intergenerational patterns of substance abuse in a high-risk sample of African American, White, Mexican American, and Native American mothers involved with the child welfare system. The Adult Attachment Interview and Chemical Dependency Assessment Profile were used to collect data from 24 mothers who were in-patients at a substance abuse treatment center. Consistent with attachment theory mothers classified as secure/autonomous (46%) had positive early attachment relationships, although several mothers in this group had histories of unresolved trauma and loss. The insecure classification included 21% dismissing and 33% preoccupied. The unresolved classification included mothers from all racial/ethnic groups who had histories of trauma and loss. Results indicated prevalence of substance abuse in all racial/ethnic groups as well as patterns of intergenerational substance abuse in the aforementioned attachment classifications.     

Play therapy with sexually abused children: Including parents in therapeutic play

This paper draws on the author’s experience as a member of a team of social workers undertaking play therapy with sexually abused children. It outlines the theoretical rationale that informed the development of practice in which parents were included in therapeutic play sessions with their children. It goes on to examine two cases that illustrate some of the issues. Finally, this paper begins to develop a critique of practice that involves parents, highlighting potential limitations and proposing a series of questions for further research.     

Singing with Durham Cathedral: exploring the relationship between architecture and singing

ABSTRACT

Acoustically, cathedrals can be challenging spaces. The long reverberation lengths created make singing well without prior knowledge of the building an almost impossible task. It is necessary then to understand and work with the building to achieve the sounds expected during services. Taking influence from the question of whether architecture can be heard, the article explores how singers in Durham Cathedral maintain an embodied awareness of their relationship with the building. Furthermore, it argues that the music used in Durham Cathedral developed symbiotically, emerging from a material engagement between singers and the building. The article concludes that the sound of worship cannot simply be a performance in Durham Cathedral, but a performance with Durham Cathedral as the singers works through an embodied knowledge of the architecture and its unique traits.     

Distress and depression in new motherhood: research with adoptive mothers highlights important contributing factors

Feminist, sociological literature concerned with mothering and motherhood reveals that the reality of mothering within the sometimes contradictory and invalidating context of western society may bring forth a range of emotional responses, some of which are unexpected negative responses. In a recent study with adoptive mothers in Queensland, Australia, experiences at significant points across the adoption life cycle were explored. These experiences included, for mothers of babies and young children, a wide range of emotional responses in the early post-adoption period. Methods for the collection of data included the introduction of several scales, including a postnatal depression scale (EPDS), and in-depth interviews. The findings have implications for social work practice with adoptive mothers, and also for the delivery of health services to all mothers and babies.     

Marital Satisfaction and Maternal Emotional Expressiveness: Links with Children's Sibling Relationships

Associations between marital quality, maternal emotional expressiveness and children's sibling relationships were examined in a sample of 64 seven-year-olds and their mothers. Mothers reported on the quality of their marital relationships, and children rated the quality of their sibling relationships. Mothers and children provided data on maternal emotional expressiveness. Results indicated that marital dissatisfaction was associated with hostile and rivalrous sibling relationships and with maternal negative emotional expressiveness. Mothers' negative emotional expressiveness was correlated with hostile and rivalrous sibling relationships, and maternal positive emotional expressiveness was associated with affectionate sibling relationships. Maternal emotional expressiveness mediated the links between the marital relationship and sibling hostility and rivalry.     

Young Children's Psychological Selves: Convergence with Maternal Reports of Child Personality

The present research examined five‐year‐old children's psychological self‐concepts. Non‐linear factor analysis was used to model the latent structure of the children's self‐view questionnaire (CSVQ; Eder, 1990 ), a measure of children's self‐concepts. The coherence and reliability of the emerging factor structure indicated that young children are capable of meaningfully reporting about their own emotions and personalities. Moreover, these self‐reports from five‐year‐olds converged with maternal perceptions of child personality. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the study of emergent personality, continuity/discontinuity in personality assessment across the lifespan, and self‐concept formation in early childhood.     

Preschool Boys with Pervasive Hyperactivity: Early Peer Functioning and Mother–Child Relationship Influences

This study compared the peer functioning of a community sample of preschool boys with pervasive hyperactivity (N=33) and comparison boys (N=34), and examined the extent to which any differences in peer functioning between these groups could be explained by comorbid child conduct problems and parenting factors. The quality of boys’ peer relations was assessed on the basis of teacher and observer ratings of peer‐related behavior at preschool. The quality of parenting and boys’ behavior at home were assessed using the Parental Account of Children's Symptoms Interview, the Parenting Scale, and videotaped mother–son interactions. Boys with hyperactive behavior problems showed higher rates of aggressive, noncompliant, and nonsocial behaviors, and lower rates of prosocial behavior and peer acceptance than boys in the comparison group. These between‐group differences in social functioning remained significant following statistical control for the effects of conduct problems, highlighting the wide range of peer difficulties associated with preschool hyperactivity. Results of further analyses suggest that the quality of early mother–child interactions and the behavioral features of hyperactivity may make unique contributions to the 00development of peer relationship difficulties in preschool children with pervasive hyperactivity.     

Mothers' Emotions and Behavioral Support During Interactions with Toddlers: The Role of Child Temperament

This article examines mothers' support for children's interests and, specifically, emotional processes in mothers that may explain why they display different levels of support with children of different temperaments. We observed 114 mothers and their 14–27 month-old children during a laboratory interaction. Mothers rated children on three dimensions of temperament: activity, anger proneness, and social fearfulness. As expected, activity predicted mothers' anger, disappointment, and low support for children's interests. Social fearfulness predicted mothers' worry, low anger, low disappointment, and high support for children's interests. Mediational tests verified that (1) mothers' emotions often mediated the relation of child temperament to mothers' supportive behavior, and (2) children's compliance often mediated the relation of child temperament to mothers' emotions. Mothers tended to report negative emotion and to display relatively unsupportive behavior with children whose temperaments corresponded to attributes considered relatively undesirable for their sex.     

Moderators of the Relation between Shyness and Behavior with Peers: Cortisol Dysregulation and Maternal Emotion Socialization

This study investigated the relations among shyness, physiological dysregulation, and maternal emotion socialization in predicting children's social behavior with peers during the kindergarten year (N = 66; 29 girls). For shy children, interactions with peers represent potential stressors that can elicit negative emotion and physiological reactions. Behavior during these contexts can be viewed as adaptive (e.g., playing alone) or maladaptive (e.g., watching other children play without joining in) attempts to regulate the ensuing distress. Whether shy children employ adaptive or maladaptive regulatory behaviors was expected to depend on two aspects of emotion regulatory skill: (1) children's physiological regulation, and (2) maternal emotion socialization. Findings supported the hypotheses. Specifically, shy children with poorer cortisol regulation or have mothers who endorsed a higher level of non‐supportive emotion reactions engaged in more maladaptive play behaviors whereas shy children with better cortisol regulation or a high level of supportive maternal emotion reactions engaged in more adaptive play behaviors.     

Maternal enhancing responses to adolescents’ positive affect: Associations with adolescents’ positive affect regulation and depression

Mounting evidence indicates that deficits in positive affect (PA) regulation are implicated in youth depression. Although parental responses to youths’ PA expressions have been linked to youth regulation of negative affect, no study has directly examined whether parental responses are linked with youth PA regulation strategies. The present study utilized a novel observational measure to test whether maternal active‐constructive responses to youths’ PA were uniquely associated with youth effective PA regulation strategies and, subsequently, depressive symptoms. Ninety‐two adolescents between the ages of 11 and 18 (M_age = 14.22, Girls = 62%) and their primary female caregivers (M_age = 41.40, 88% biological mothers) completed a series of questionnaires and engaged in a Plan a Day Trip interaction task. Results revealed that observed maternal active‐constructive responses to adolescents’ PA were uniquely associated with adolescents’ effective PA regulation strategies which, in turn, were related to lower depressive symptoms. These findings underscore the importance of parental responses to PA when sharing positive experiences for specifically targeting adolescents’ responses that generate and sustain PA.     

A Tale of Two Cultures: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in the Care of Older Adults with Combined Visual and Medical Disabilities

A comparison of the vision rehabilitation and medical rehabilitation systems suggests that, despite the distinct professional cultures that have evolved around them over the past 50 years, their commonalities are more notable than their differences. The older adult, who frequently develops simultaneous visual and medical disabilities, demands a greater degree of cooperation between these systems, than that required for the younger client who was the primary focus of the rehabilitation paradigm in the years following World War II. This article includes guidelines for practitioners that should help them achieve a more comprehensive approach to their elderly visually impaired clients.     

Maternal socialization of children’s positive affect regulation: Associations with children’s savoring,dampening, and depressive symptoms

Maternal socialization of positive affect (PA) is linked to children's regulation of positive and negative emotions and the development of psychopathology. However, few studies have examined multiple types of emotion socialization as related to children's PA regulation and depressive symptoms. The current study examined how mothers’ socialization of children's PA regulation was related to children's PA regulation, and if children's PA regulation mediated the association between maternal socialization and children's depressive symptoms. Ninety‐six mother–child dyads (children aged 7–12) completed questionnaires and a five‐minute discussion about a positive event the child previously experienced; 76 dyads completed surveys again five months later. Partial correlations, controlling for child age and gender, indicated associations between maternal PA socialization and child PA regulation. Moderated mediation models suggested that maternal modeling of savoring predicted Time 2 child depressive symptoms via children's own savoring, which was moderated by Time 1 depressive symptoms. The moderated path indicated that only for children who reported higher depressive symptoms at Time 1, higher levels of savoring predicted lower depressive symptoms at Time 2. These results underscore the importance of examining multiple types of PA socialization and child PA regulation to predict children's depressive symptoms longitudinally.     

'I'm Like a Tree a Million Miles from the Water's Edge': Social Care and Inclusion of Older People with Visual Impairment

The care and support of older people with visual impairmentis a neglected public-policy issue, despite the growing numbersaffected by sight loss in later life. A recently completed studyof four hundred people aged over fifty-five has gathered dataabout experiences of sight loss, coping strategies, supportneeds, home environments, social contacts and information needs.This paper reports on a prominent concern arising from research—theconnection between unmet social-care needs and social exclusion.Discussion focuses on identifying and assessing needs, majorproblems and priorities raised by interviewees, and serviceinitiatives that promote inclusive social care. Conclusionsare reached that social workers and other allied professionalscan best promote socially inclusive support through inter-agencyco-operation, and practical suggestions are presented as tothe possible shape and direction of collaborative work.     

Emotion Socialization in the Context of Risk and Psychopathology: Maternal Emotion Coaching Predicts Better Treatment Outcomes for Emotionally Labile Children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder

We examined whether maternal emotion coaching at pretreatment predicted children's treatment response following a 12‐week program addressing children's oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms. A total of 89 mother–child dyads participated. At pretreatment, mothers and children engaged in an emotion talk task. Mothers also reported their beliefs about emotions at pretreatment and their child's disruptive behavior symptoms, emotion regulation, and emotion lability/negativity at pre‐, mid‐, and post‐treatment. Clinicians reported children's symptom severity at pre‐ and post‐treatment. Children's emotion lability/negativity moderated effects of maternal emotion coaching on children's post‐treatment ODD symptoms, with stronger benefits of emotion coaching for children high in emotion lability/negativity. Results suggest that emotion coaching may promote treatment response for children with ODD who are especially at risk due to their emotionality.