Young people's views on safety and preventing abuse and harm in residential care: “It's got to be better than home”

Young people who live in residential care are at greater risk of experiencing sexual abuse and other forms of abuse than those living in other out of home care placements. To better understand how young people perceive and experience safety in residential care, and the things that they most need to be and feel safe, a qualitative study was conducted with 27 Australian children and young people for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. This paper describes young people's perspectives on what makes residential care safe: supportive relationships, stability and predictability, fair rules, and having some control over their environment. Young people said that safety could be improved with: better appreciation of the risks in residential care; better matching, staffing and oversight; and better-designed responses that involve young people themselves. The findings provide critical insights from young people themselves and argue that adults and institutions need to appreciate their views of safety so as to adequately respond.     

‘Society keeps abuse hidden—the biggest cause of all’: the case for child-friendly communities

This second paper on the findings and recommendations of the National Commission of Inquiry into the Prevention of Child Abuse discusses the need to create ‘child friendly communities’ in which children and young people feel loved, valued and listened to and their needs are effectively met. Such communities are essential if we are to prevent child abuse—only in such environments will children and young people feel free to take action on concerns which they have, including child abuse. Consideration is given to ways in which communities are currently hostile or unfriendly towards children and how these factors can be overcome. The characteristics of child-friendly communities are described and examples given of initiatives which are supportive of children and young people. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Abuse and disabled children: hidden needs…?

In order to look at current practices in recording the abuse of disabled children, a questionnaire was sent out to the 121 Chairs of the Area Child Protection Committees in the United Kingdom. Of the 73 responders, over 50% claimed to identify the disability of an abused child but only 10% could given an actual figure. The lack of statistical evidence made it impossible to calculate anything except an approximation of the rate of abuse of disabled children. Schedules completed over a period of 1 year in two Social Services Departments for all disabled children who were conferenced for abuse showed that they were less likely to be put on the child protection register than a comparison group of non‐disabled children. Semi‐structured interviews with eight of the key workers for the disabled children revealed that they were concerned that there was a tendency ‘not to see’ the abuse of disabled children and they did not feel there was sufficient training regarding the interface between abuse and disabilities. Taking into account the responses to the study, a number of national and local recommendations were made. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sticking with us through it all: The importance of trustworthy relationships for children and young people in residential care

Both historical and contemporary residential care for children have been found to present risks to their safety and security. Views about the characteristics of workers that helped them to feel safe in the placement were obtained from 27 children and young people who were placed in residential care in Australia. Competent and trustworthy staff were considered essential. These workers were characterised as caring, proactive, tenacious in building relationships, and available. Importantly, they listened and ensured young people had a voice. The study affirms the central role of the worker-client alliance in ensuring residential care is a positive and safe experience for children and young people, and identifies structural factors that children and young people believe are barriers to them feeling safe.     

Fallen apples

Children today often have to cope with living in fractured family systems in which multigenerational dysfunction and abuse is passed on to them. As a result, they often make decisions that lead them into unsafe, and possibly disastrous situations. Some children and adolescents cannot see beyond today. They are prone to giving up because they feel nothing can change. Growing up in physically violent homes can create children who are unable to control their own violent rages. While hospitalized, they often seek the struggle and emotional release that accompanies physical management. Physical management allows the children to be out of control and safe at the same time.     

Children and Power in Mexican Transnational Families

Today, many families find that they are unable to fulfill the goal of maintaining a household by living together under the same roof. Some members migrate internationally. This article addresses the consequences of a transnational lifestyle for children who are left behind by migrant parents. Using ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with a total of 141 members of Mexican transnational families, I explore how children who are left behind react to parents’ migrations. I focus on how Mexican children manifest the competing pressures they feel surrounding parents’ migrations and consequently shape family migration patterns. The article shows that children may experience power, albeit in different ways at different ages, while simultaneously being disadvantaged as dependents and in terms of their families’ socioeconomic status.     

Technology as a Weapon in Domestic Violence: Responding to Digital Coercive Control

ABSTRACT

Technology-facilitated domestic violence is an emerging issue for social workers and other service providers. The concept of Digital Coercive Control (DCC) is introduced to highlight the particular nature and impacts of technology-facilitated abuse in the context of domestic violence. While practitioners have become more adept at working with women experiencing DCC, there is still little known about its dynamics and whether this violence requires a change in current service responses. This article explores findings from survey research conducted with 546 Australian domestic violence practitioners about the ways perpetrators use technology as part of their abuse tactics. The findings demonstrate that DV practitioners believe perpetrator use of technology is extensive and has significant impacts on the safety of clients. A major dilemma faced by practitioners is how to promote and facilitate client safety from DCC while still enabling safe use of technology so clients can remain connected to family, friends, and community.

IMPLICATIONS

• The use of digital technology in domestic violence creates a significant practice issue for Australian domestic violence practitioners.

• The development of a practice framework for responding to digital coercive control may assist practitioners to highlight the risks posed by this abuse, while still enabling women and children the freedom to participate in the digital realm.

     

Managing the Student‐Parent Dilemma: Mothers and Fathers in Higher Education

In this article, I explore how student‐parents draw on cultural discourses associated with parenthood and education when talking about their child care choices and schooling experiences. Unlike many other studies, I include the voices of both fathers and mothers. College students have extraordinary demands on their time, and their instructors do not generally expect them to be parents. Some students feel that in fact they are expected to be bad parents, bad students, or both. The use of accounts allows student‐parents to assert they are good parents even as they spend less time with their children and make their schoolwork a priority some of the time. As they modify their understandings of their capabilities as parents and students in this setting, they come to see themselves differently. They potentially change others' understandings of what good parents and good students are as well. Both the parent identity and the student identity change in the context of the university.     

Lessons learned from children who have experienced homelessness: what services need to know

Children who accompany their parents or guardians during a period of homelessness make up 37% (more than one in three) of all people accessing the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) services. This paper describes an Australian qualitative study that explored the experiences of children who accompanied their families during periods of homelessness. It focuses particularly on what children and young people say they want from the services that they come in contact with; particularly specialised homelessness services such as housing support services and refuges. Key themes that emerged from the research include: the need for services to engage with children as individuals in their own right, to listen to and acknowledge their stories, to have services that meet their individual needs, to act and respond when children feel unsafe and for workers who can provide support to children to talk to parents about what is going on. Children and young people wanted workers to know that they felt their parents were doing their best to keep them safe. They focused on what their parents could do and did do rather than what they were not able to provide. They called on the human service system to do the same.     

Coping with bullying in Australian schools: how children with disabilities experience support from friends,parents and teachers

Little research has been published investigating the experiences of physical and emotional support for children with disabilities in the Australian school context. The aim of this phenomenological study was to explore how children with disabilities experienced support when they were bullied at school. Qualitative interviews with 10 children, aged 8–10 years, were analysed. The children had a range of disabilities, including physical, visual and hearing impairments. The four themes that emerged were: (1) bullying experiences; (2) coping with bullying; (3) importance of friends; (4) adult responses to bullying. The implications of the contributions to this study for bullying research specific to the lives of children with disabilities are discussed, such as providing educational and health professionals with a knowledge of the support that children with disabilities draw on when they experience bullying.     

How parentline helps

In their Editorial-Child Abuse Review Vol. 3: 1-3–Kevin Browne and Margaret Lynch called for “more support for families and children in need”. They highlighted the necessity of increasing resources for children and families in need. PARENTLINE is one such source of support. PARENTLINE began in 1973 as a UK community-based response to the death of Maria Colwell, the first public acknowledgement in modem times of the existence of child abuse and neglect. PARENTLINE offers a safe, non-judgemental, non-threatening support service to anyone who parents a child, in an atmosphere where parents can feel comfortable talking about anything or any problem that concerns them or any child in their family. They are given time in which they can be sensitively and closely listened to and are helped to talk through and identify their own solutions and strategies wherever possible.     

Lobbying to Stay: the Chinese Students’ Campaign to Stay in Australia

This paper examines the way in which onshore asylum seekers lobby to stay in the host country permanently, and how they interact with local institutions. This study is based on a multi‐method case study of about 45,000 Chinese nationals in Australia, mostly students, who sought to stay after the so‐called political disturbance of 1989 in China. The students succeeded in obtaining residence by pursuing intensive lobbying activities over a period of about four years from June 1989 to November 1993, becoming the largest onshore migration intake in Australian history. This paper is concerned with how the students and their organizations negotiated the changing stance of the Australian government towards asylum seekers, and the way in which the students harnessed resources in the campaign. It examines the strategies adopted by the students, the roles of the main local institutions in the issue, and analyses the permissiveness of local polities.     

Abused children and foster care—the need for specialist resources

Estimates vary on how many abused and neglected children are admitted to care and how many children in care are there because of abuse and neglect. Nevertheless, it is important to examine their special needs and the problems they present to carers. Although research findings are difficult to interpret, there is enough evidence to show that abused and neglected children in care have special needs in three particular areas: education, health and social behaviour. The evidence is available from research into children in care and research into child maltreatment. Children in care run the risk of disrupted educational careers; abused and neglected children have additional problems in school. Many children in care have a patchy and neglected medical history; abused and neglected children are seriously at risk of further ill-health. Abused and neglected children have been shown to have behaviour problems that jeopardize their relationships with peers and adults; they run the risk of placement breakdown. Foster care of abused and neglected children is a specialist and demanding task, requiring knowledge of, and sensitivity to special needs. Because many abused and neglected children return to their parents, foster carers also need to include the natural family in their task. High expectations of these foster carers, however, should not lead to exploitation but rather an enhancing of fostering assessment, preparation, support and training.     

The child abuse and divorce myth

When the authors of this article undertook a study into the way the Australian legal process managed child abuse allegations in custody and access disputes following partnership breakdown in de facto and legal marriages, they encountered what they came to think of as ‘the child abuse and divorce myth’. The myth centred around a belief that child abuse allegations made during or after partnership breakdown were weapons fashioned to gain advantage in the marital war. Therefore, they were not real; therefore, they should not be taken seriously. Despite little previous research, these views were strongly held by both families and professionals. The article examines the myth, believed to be an international phenomenon, and shows, in detail, how the study's findings do not support it. In fact, the findings from this unique study contradict the myth in its totality and in its specific aspects. Thus, it is argued that the myth should be abandoned and a new knowledge base for professional intervention that recognizes the reality of this problem be adopted instead. As a result of the study, a new specialized intervention program for children involved in residence and contact disputes where child abuse was alleged is being trialled in the Family Court of Australia. Hopefully, the introduction of further intervention programmes based on the reality of child abuse in these circumstances rather than on the myth will follow. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Winning a Race: Narratives of Healing and Psychotherapy in Children and Adolescents Who Have Been Sexually Abused

This article explores the process of recovering from sexual abuse according to children and adolescents who have been sexually abused and have successfully completed psychotherapy. In this qualitative study, interviews were conducted with 20 participants from 8 to 18 years of age and then subject to narrative analysis. Results show that participants’ narratives of recovery involve an improvement of psychological well-being. Moreover, they feel better equipped to overcome future challenges, feeling empowered and able to retake control of their lives. Factors that support and inhibit recovery are examined, as are developmental differences. Discussion underlines the valuable role of psychotherapy in helping children and adolescents in their healing process, changing the meaning of the abusive experience, and developing new capacities.     

Post‐return experiences and transnational belonging of return migrants: a Dutch—Moroccan case study

In this article we explore the links between return migration, belonging and transnationalism among migrants who returned from the Netherlands to northeast Morocco. While transnationalism is commonly discussed from the perspective of a receiving country, this study shows that transnationalism also plays a vital role in reconstructing post‐return belonging. Return migration is not simply a matter of ‘going home’, as feelings of belonging need to be renegotiated upon return. While returnees generally feel a strong need to maintain various transnational practices, the meanings they attach to these practices depend on motivations for return, gender and age. For former (male) labour migrants, transnational practices are essential for establishing post‐return belonging, whereas such practices are less important for their spouses. Those who returned as children generally feel uprooted, notwithstanding the transnational practices they maintain. The amount of agency migrants are able to exert in the return decision‐making process is a key factor in determining the extent to which returnees can create a post‐return transnational sense of home.     

Young People as Moral Beings: Childhood,Morality and Inter‐Generational Relationships

This article uses the work of Goffman to explore how a group of older children presented a moral self in a study of inter‐generational relationships. By reflecting critically on their own behaviour and that of other young people and adults, they presented themselves as morally competent agents, whilst questioning the taken‐for‐granted moral competence of adults. Their presentation of a moral self involved portraying themselves as moral beings, whilst acknowledging that they are also moral becomings. The findings highlight how the embedded authority and associated moral accountability of adults in relation to children militate against recognising children's moral agency.     

Child Sexual Abuse and the Black Disabled Child

This paper seeks to document a previously neglected area of study, namely the effects of sexual abuse on black disabled children. With a particular focus on black children with learning disabilities, it examines how the interlocking dimensions of race, gender and disability compound the problems that they are faced with in the aftermath of sexual abuse. This paper presents case studies drawn from data generated from a broader research project of sexual abuse and black families to illustrate the specific ways the negatively valued position of black disabled children shape responses to them. It is argued that the way in which black disabled children and their families interpret their experiences is likely to differ from other groups of disabled children, as multiple marginalised identities shape their lived realities. The paper concludes with some reflections on the implications for making risk assessment for black disabled children.