The impact of ‘being assessed’ by a disabled children's team: a personal reflective account

The body of ‘service user’ literature confirms the value of parental perceptions of child and family social work and the insight parents and others can offer. This paper lends my voice to the literature regarding parental perceptions, inspired by the work of Pamela Davies, who provided a personal account of the impact of a child protection investigation. This paper draws upon my experiences of being a father of two ‘disabled children’ and undergoing an assessment of need. This paper seeks to draw attention to issues of choice, power imbalances and the role of expertise. My personal experience of undergoing an assessment was that it was an emotionally fraught process, for the duration of the assessment, our family stress increased and we had a sense of having to ‘battle’ for the support we needed. As such, my personal experience fits well with the wider body of literature, which highlights the increased stress of caring for children with additional needs, the challenges of ‘fitting’ disabled children into the frameworks used to assess all children and the difficulty for parents and professionals in distinguishing between ‘normal’ parenting responsibilities and the additional responsibilities of caring for a disabled child.     

The unknown soldiers of foster care: Foster care as loss for the foster parents’ own children

Abstract

This paper explores the effects of the foster care experience on foster parents’ biological children. In spite of having been accepted for over 40 years as the best form of residential care for most children and adolescents requiring alternative living arrangements, very little research has been done into the foster care experience. Almost nothing is known about the effects of foster care on either the foster family as a unit or its individual members, yet one of the major concerns foster parents present is the effect of the foster care experience on their own children. This concern leads many experienced foster families to leave foster care and many potential foster families to decide not to foster. This paper discusses the losses experienced by the children of foster parents.     

Attachment,Intelligence, and Language: A Meta-analysis†

In attachment theory, several hypotheses about the association between attachment and cognitive development have been generated. In a series of meta-analyses on 32 studies, we tested whether the quality of attachment is related to intelligence (DQ or IQ) and to language competence. Attachment showed a weak association with DQ and IQ measures (combined r = .09; N = 1026). The combined effect size for the relation between attachment and language competence was r = .28 (N = 303). We conclude, first, that differences in intelligence do not play a major role in shaping attachment relationships. Differences in quality of attachment are not confounded in any significant way with differences in intelligence. Second, secure children appeared to be more competent in the language domain than insecure children. Language development appears to be stimulated in the context of a secure attachment relationship because secure parents may be better ‘teachers’ and secure children may be better motivated ‘students’.     

A sense of belonging in a changeable everyday life – a follow‐up study of young people in kinship,network, and traditional foster families

This in‐depth follow‐up study of 15 foster youth shows the importance of an ‘open foster family’, open to letting the foster youth into the family life and to cooperating with the adolescent's birth family. Previous findings about the importance of negotiations, mutual rituals, and having fun together in foster families for the creation of social bonds and belonging are strengthened in the follow‐up interview. A lack of these mutual practices is observed prior to disruptions. Most adolescents still living with the same foster family feel a sense of belonging to both their foster and birth families, especially when both families cooperate. This is most evident in kinship families. Over time, adolescents in traditional foster families have also strengthened their social bonds to the foster family, which makes the difference to youth in network foster families less pronounced than in the previous study. Despite life changes, above all changing schools and peers, most adolescents reveal personal agency by still coping with their situation. However, therapeutic support is now more common than 1 year ago, for girls in particular. Methods used are interviews, network maps and text responses (‘beepers’).     

Teaching and learning communication with children and young people: developing the qualifying social work curriculum in a changing policy context

Twenty years after survey evidence showed that UK social work students could complete their training without having learnt about or worked with children, new research suggests little has changed. There is still no guarantee that any student on qualification will have been taught about or assessed in communication skills with children and young people. This is despite the claim that the pre‐registration award provides teaching and assessment in core generic skills as a foundation for the development of specialist practice roles in agencies. In fact, as this paper shows, a common understanding of what counts as effective communication with children has yet to be consolidated in social work practice and research. This has impeded the process of curriculum development. Divergent expectations about what counts as social work communication with children in a changing policy context may be exacerbating long‐standing uncertainties about how genericism and specialism should be linked in professional education and training. In exploring these issues, this paper seeks to clear the way for the renewed effort that is now required if this aspect of curriculum development is to be effective.     

Concurrent associations between mothers’ references to internal states and children’s social understanding in middle childhood

Although it is well established that features of maternal speech are associated with children’s social understanding in the preschool years, few studies explore this relationship in middle childhood. Within the context of a prospective longitudinal study of a representative community sample of families (subsample n = 207, mean age = 82.88 months), we investigated concurrent associations between mothers’ internal state language and aspects of 7‐year‐olds’ social understanding, including children’s understanding of belief and spontaneous references to internal states during free play. When sociodemographic, maternal, and child characteristics were controlled, mothers’ references to their own cognitions were associated with dimensions of children’s social understanding. Our findings suggest that exposure to others’ perspectives contributes to children’s advanced understanding of minds, which has implications for interventions that foster social understanding.     

Who Is My Family? Who Cares For Me? Legal Status and Relationships of Children and Their Families

The community tends to assume that, because a body of law known as ‘family law’ exists, it is based on cohesive and consistent principles which apply uniformly and without discrimination to all children and their families throughout Australia. It is further assumed that the law enables children to know who their family is, and to have ongoing relationships with all members of their family who love and care about them — even when another family may be taking care of them in the day to day sense. These assumptions do not reflect the real situation. The law in many instances prevents rather than enables the development of positive relationships between children and their families. The challenge for the community is to create a uniform and unified family law jurisdiction which supports and strengthens children's relationship with their families and which enables children to answer the question ‘Who is my family? Who cares for me?’     

Families on the brink: the effectiveness of family support services

This paper presents findings from a study of the costs and effectiveness of family support services offered to 40 families with a high level of need, in two neighbouring local authorities in North Wales. It describes the level and type of services offered by different agencies in each of the authorities, estimates the costs of these services, and assesses outcomes for the families receiving them after three months. Information is also provided about families’ experience of the support they received, and the kind of help they would have liked. Parents’ well‐being and family functioning were found to improve over the intervention period in both authorities, although only to a limited extent. Improvements were greater among those who were living with partners, and less among families identified by social workers as having financial difficulties or problems with drug or alcohol abuse. Respondents who rated their problems as very severe showed less improvement. The pattern of service provision and the costs involved turned out to be similar in both authorities, so it was not possible to reach conclusions about the relationship between services and outcomes. However, a number of themes emerging from the data are discussed, including the role of day care services in supporting families with young children, the impact of poverty and deprivation on parents’ ability to provide good care for their children, and the importance of an interagency response to children's and parents’ needs. The article also includes a discussion of problems encountered in undertaking comparative outcomes‐based research and cost‐effectiveness analyses in the social welfare field.     

Helping families when child sexual abuse is suspected but not proven

This paper reports from a project investigating reactions within families when intra‐familial child sexual abuse was suspected, and family members’ responses to a therapeutic approach. Data were obtained from therapeutic sessions and follow‐up interviews with mothers, children and alleged perpetrators. Before treatment the mothers felt uncertain as to how to interpret the children’s unclear signs. The children had severe symptoms, but had seldom disclosed abuse. The alleged perpetrators were often not informed about the suspicions. The families were in a state of crisis and shock, and communication within the family was characterized by uncertainty about what to talk about and whether the suspicions should be shared. In most cases after treatment the conflicts had been reduced, the children had few symptoms, supervised contact had been established, and the clients were satisfied with the treatment. One conclusion is that therapeutic sessions, where family members share information about concerns and take part in the decisions of how to protect children, seem relevant and helpful to the clients in unclear abuse cases.     

Experiences of the maternal role and support in mothers with cognitive limitations who have children in placement

In Sweden, when needed, children of mothers with cognitive limitations are placed in foster homes. There is a lack of knowledge about the mothers with cognitive limitations, their experiences of their maternal role, whether they get the support needed to maintain the relationship with their children, and whether the support system is adapted to mothers with cognitive limitations. The aim was to describe the experiences of the maternal role and support given in mothers with cognitive limitations who have children in placement. An explorative and qualitative design was used. Eleven respondents were interviewed with support from a study‐specific guide. A model representing the respondents' experiences revealed one theme “Struggling, dependent and frustrated mothers,” and three categories: I am a mother, I am dependent on an incomprehensible system, and I reluctantly accept my situation. Mothers with children in placement experience a threat to their identity and experience a need to alter their maternal role. They need adapted support to understand the decisions made and facilitate the cooperation with child protection services and the foster home. Offering service adapted to their cognitive limitations could be helpful for the struggling, dependent, and frustrated mothers.     

Research Review: The role of grandparents in intergenerational support for families with disabled children: a review of the literature

The family in late modernity faces demographic change. However, it is still apparent that intergenerational relationships and exchanges of resources are valued. There is a growing literature on the important role that grandparents play in their children’s families. In contrast, there is limited research exploring the support grandparents provide to families with disabled children. This is an important gap in our knowledge, as families with disabled children frequently face additional caring responsibilities and emotional demands. From the studies that do exist, it is clear that grandparents’ support to families with disabled children is generally valued. However, the literature remains partial: past studies are small‐scale, focused upon parents’ perceptions of support (especially mother’s), and frequently based upon North American data. Recognizing these limitations and the fact that grandparents themselves have support needs which require consideration, this paper identifies key areas where important issues remain unanswered and further research is required. It argues that research is needed to begin untangling the different support needs of parents, grandparents and other family members, and the different effects of grandparent support that different family members’ experience. Exploration of grandparents’ own support needs also indicates the need for wider policy and service consideration.     

To be fair,generous, or selfish: The effect of relationship on Chinese children’s distributive allocation and procedural application

Previous research has found that children’s sharing with others relies on fairness norms, but also varies according to their social relationships. The current study focuses on the conflict between fairness and relationship, exploring their impacts across two resource allocation contexts. We used a parallel work task to explore the effect of relationship with different recipients (friend, stranger, or disliked peer) on three allocation patterns (generous, fair, or selfish), when children directly allocated resources (distributive allocation), or applied different procedures to recipients (procedural application). Participants consisted of 123 Chinese children between the ages of 6 and 12. We found that in the distributive allocation context, in which participants directly decided the outcome, children primarily considered their relationship with recipients when dividing resources, not fairness. However, in the procedural application context, in which children could choose different allocation procedures for recipients, children primarily preferred fairness, regardless of social relationship. Moreover, when making distributive allocations, 6‐ to 8‐year‐olds were more selfish toward their disliked peers, whereas 9‐ to 12‐year‐olds tended to be more fair and generous toward their friends and strangers. These findings shed light on the link between social relationship and fairness within different allocation contexts among children of Chinese cultural background.     

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.     

Investigators,industry, and the heuristic device: Ethics,patent law,and clinical innovation

There has been much discussion about the prevalence of scientific misconduct. Investigational drug trials and cancer clinical trials have been audited systematically in recent years. Review of the results of these audits indicates that misconduct is not uncommon: serious deficiencies have been identified in 11% of audits of drug trials by the United States Food and Drug Administration. The trend has been toward fewer of the most serious problems in the most recent years of the audit program, suggesting that it is having a deterrent effect. Still, many problems remain. A series of possible strategies for addressing them are critically assessed. The experience of this program of fers a model approach to evaluating potential misconduct in science against which programs in other agencies and other areas of science should be measured.     

Psychosocial and relationship-based theories for child and family social work: political philosophy, psychology and welfare practice

Psychosocial perspectives on children’s development are allied to theories that recognize the ‘self’ as essentially a social entity. The quality of relationships that children experience in their social environment have a profound effect on their socio-emotional development, personality formation and social competence. To this extent, psychosocial theories of children’s development and wellbeing can provide child and family social workers with a powerful framework within which to analyse, assess and practise. However, it is also recognized that the character of child welfare practices and policies are influenced by prevailing political climates. A simple dichotomy is described between political philosophies of the right and left; libertarianism and communitarianism; individual freedom and collective action. It is argued that the present swing to libertarian individualism has brought about major changes in the policy and practice of much child and family social work, including a preference for theories that emphasize people’s psychological independence, rationality and personal responsibility. In such a climate, child and family social work becomes more legalistic, orientated towards principles of justice rather than welfare, and towards rights and responsibilities rather than personal relationships and social competence. Psychosocial developmental theories, with their emphasis on the importance of social relationships and the emotional interconnectedness of people in community, fare less well under the rigours of psychological individualism and free-market economics. The paper concludes that if children’s psychosocial development and competence are a product of their social history, practices that psychologically ‘disembed’ people from their relationship environment are unable to consider children’s needs within a coherent, well-grounded theoretical framework. If child and family social work is premised on helping children develop social understanding and emotional wellbeing, theory and practice are best served by taking a psychosocial perspective.     

Use of Play in Parenting and Family Groups

Parents who play with their children are more likely to have a strong parent-child attachment. Including play in parenting and family groups can help build parent-child relationships. However, little is written about how to include play in existing protocols for parenting and family groups. This article explores how a multi-family group used playful activities to build client engagement, scaffold parent skills in using play, and increase parents’ willingness to play with their children at home. It concludes by providing a list of play activities which can be easily integrated into parenting and family groups.     

Social pensions and policy learning: The case of southern Africa

In the last decade and particularly since the publication of the Millennium Development Goals, social pensions have captured the interest of those concerned with the well-being of older people across that large part of the world where formal, contributions-financed, old-age benefit systems cover only a minority of the population. International organizations have turned their attention to such schemes and some see them as having a valuable role to play. However, information about what they are and how they work, and about their efficacy in meeting the objectives set for them, is still limited. Learning has been taking place not only in the international organizations but also in the region where they are most prominent – southern Africa. Such learning should be encouraged and the International Social Security Association has a part to play in this learning process.     

Children with an imprisoned parent: children's and caregivers' narratives

Previous studies have found that children may experience adverse effects from parental imprisonment. However, little research concerning this issue from children's perspectives has been undertaken in Hong Kong. In order to fill the knowledge gap, this study aims at exploring the challenges and resilience of children with a parent in prison. Nine children aged between 9 and 11 years with a parent in prison, and their caregivers, were interviewed. Their life experience and feelings during parental imprisonment were explored. The caregivers were asked about changes in the children's behaviour and resilience in the children. Children reported that they experienced academic stress and psychological distress, including sadness and problems in having to conceal their parent's imprisonment. They benefited through positive thinking, holding religious beliefs and talking to trusted persons. For caregivers, children's conduct problems, psychological distress and suppression of feelings were reported as the challenges children faced, while object hitting for venting emotion, religious beliefs and engagement in activities were reported as helping children to cope. The article concludes by making a number of recommendations concerning the provision of services, including the establishment of mutual-aid self-help groups, mentoring programmes and programmes promoting the importance of positive thinking for the children, and trainings for caregivers on understanding children's needs, as well as public education on the social stigma of parental imprisonment.