Street children in Russia: steps to prevention

This article examines the historical evolution of the development of social policy toward street children in Russia and makes recommendations for prevention. The historical examination begins with the Soviet period, when statistics on social problems were not publicly known. It continues through the post-Soviet period when there was an emerging awareness about the increasing number of abused, abandoned children and children living on the streets. Etiological factors, such as child maltreatment and parental substance abuse, are then discussed. Based on these etiological factors, the article then proposes a model in which existing institutions and professionals are supported in facilitating an integrated system of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. This includes improving child protection services and interventions to prevent children leaving their homes, early identification of children who are becoming involved in street life and a continuum of care for children who cannot return home.     

Predictors of behavioural and emotional problems of children placed in children's homes in Croatia

Since children's homes in Croatia and elsewhere nowadays deal with children who have more problems than in the past, there is a need to identify predictors of the children's behavioural and emotional problems in order to provide adequate interventions and an appropriate developmental environment. This research was carried out in all children's homes in Croatia. The sample consisted of 263 children aged 10–14. Standardized instruments (Youth Self‐Report and Child Behaviour Check‐List) were used as outcome measures of children's psychosocial functioning. The results showed significantly more behavioural and emotional problems in children in children's homes than in the comparison group of children living with their families. Child care‐workers assessed fewer behavioural and emotional problems than did the children themselves. Multiple regression analyses were used to determine predictors for well‐being scores. The level of everyday stress in children's homes, coping strategies, perception of social support and school achievements proved to be the most significant predictors. Since those variables belong to mediating variables within the suggested model of research, it is argued that positive changes in these areas can facilitate a better psychosocial functioning of the children in children's homes.     

Children's accounts of moving to a foster home

Little is known about how children themselves understand their moves to and between foster homes. The data presented in this paper come from a study that sought children's views on becoming and being a foster child. A key finding of that study was how children's accounts of being fostered illustrated a high level of anxiety and concern about their moving to live with a foster family. This paper firstly explores the key issues about looked‐after children's moves. It then describes the research study undertaken, before exploring the data generated from children's accounts of their moves to a new foster home. Lastly, there is a discussion of the implications for social work practice in this area.     

Disaster impact and recovery: what children and young people can tell us

Christchurch's earthquakes revealed children's vulnerability to disaster but also their ability to respond and play an active role in recovery. We argue that children's voices need to be heard and given priority in the recovery process because the disaster impacts on them and their families in ways that are not recognised or well understood. We report the findings of a study undertaken with 94 Christchurch children. Its aim was to give voice to children's experiences of post-earthquake Christchurch and in doing so contribute to post-disaster recovery. The experiences of these Christchurch children offer other children, parents, government and agencies valuable insights into how to manage the recovery process in ways that best meet children's needs. In the post-disaster recovery period, decision-makers need to recognise children as authentic actors in the recovery process and should commit to hearing children's voices throughout the rebuilding. Children and young people's resilience and positive commitment to Christchurch are assets that should be capitalised on in the longer-term recovery process.     

Policy transfer,social pedagogy and children's residential care in England

Much concern has been expressed about the quality of care and poor outcomes for looked‐after children (‘children in care’) in England, especially regarding residential homes. This paper builds on a recent evaluation of the piloting of the continental European model of social pedagogy (SP) in English residential care. It does three things: it considers the theoretical social policy literature on policy transfer and its implications; discusses European residential care for children and the discipline of SP; and reflects on these debates and the situation of children's residential care in England. The paper concludes that there are some major hurdles to a widespread implementation of SP in England. This particularly concerns the differing social, professional and political context of children's residential services across neighbouring countries.     

Working with managers to improve services: changes in the role of research in social care

The setting of specific objectives for children's services and the identification of key outcome indicators, together with the development of a core information specification for children's services with its practical application in the implementation of the Integrated Children's System, all mean that substantially more data are now available to child welfare agencies. Not so long ago in the UK it was the role of research teams to collect and analyse such data. Now that so much of it is already available to agencies, are researchers who work in this area of applied social policy research becoming redundant? Using data from the cohorts of looked after children being studied at the Centre for Child and Family Research, Loughborough University, the paper demonstrates how researchers can work in consultation with the managers of child welfare agencies to make better sense of the data at their disposal. It considers three issues: what additional variables need to be explored to help agencies better understand their performance; how groups of children could be identified who follow predictable pathways through social care; and how qualitative information is necessary to gain a true picture of what is happening. All of these examples demonstrate a fundamental role for researchers in working with social services personnel to identify how services can be improved.     

Domestic Violence, Emotional Competence, and Child Adjustment

This article examined emotion competence in children exposed to domestic violence (DV). It also examined the hypothesis that children's emotional competence mediates relations between DV and children's later difficulties with peers and behavioral adjustment. DV was assessed when children were at the age of five, emotional competence was assessed at the age of 9.5, and peer quality and behavioral adjustment were obtained at the age of 11. Children from homes with greater DV were less aware of their own emotions and more emotionally dysregulated at the age of 9.5. Emotional awareness mediated the relationship between DV at the age of five and children's friendship closeness and internalizing problems at the age of 11. Emotion dysregulation mediated the relationship between DV at the age of five and children's negative peer group interactions, social problems, and internalizing and externalizing problems at the age of 11. Results are discussed in terms of the impact of DV on children's emotional development and the role that different aspects of emotional competence play in children's socio‐emotional adjustment.     

Therapeutic residential care in Spain. Population treated and therapeutic coverage

Therapeutic residential care (TRC) is the name given to specialized children's homes for treating cases with severe emotional and behavioural problems that have been placed in residential care. A recent international review has revealed great diversity in the referral criteria of cases and in the models of intervention carried out. The goal of this study is to describe the population treated in these types of facilities in Spain and the therapeutic coverage given. The sample is made up of 215 young people in children's homes, of whom 93 are in TRC. The cases referred to TRC have been in residential care for less time but have gone through a greater number of placements. These young people also exhibit more problems of drug use, and there is a larger percentage of clinical‐range cases in the Child Behaviour Checklist scales of attention problems and aggressive behaviour. Nevertheless, the results of logistic regression indicate that the only variables that significantly increase the probability of being referred to TRC are drug use and changes of care placements. With regard to therapeutic care, there is a higher percentage in the TRC group receiving psychiatric care, and the sessions are also more frequent.     

Congruence and incongruence in the perception of ‘family’ among foster parents,birth parents and their adolescent (foster) children

Over recent decades, listening to children's voices and viewing children as competent actors has gathered momentum in research as well as in practice. Acknowledging children's perspectives requires sensitive listeners who are willing, deliberately and as realistically as possible, to reconstruct children's ways of seeing. In our study, based in Norway, we investigated the views of 22 adolescents in long‐term foster care and 15 of their birth parents and 21 of their foster parents. Using Q methodology, we explored congruence and incongruence in the perception of ‘family’ among foster parents, birth parents and their adolescent (foster) children. We found three family perspectives among the adolescents. Within two of these perspectives, there seem to be more congruent understandings of the children's perspectives among the parent groups. We discuss some main implications in light of these findings. In Norway, as in many other countries, the policy of child welfare is that children first and foremost should grow up with their birth family. When out‐of‐home placements are necessary, a basic principle is that children should remain in contact with their birth family.     

Longing to belong: children in residential care and their experiences of peer relationships at school and in the children's home

Resilience literature has stressed the potential of both children's educational experiences and their friendships to act as protective factors against adversity. However, less is known about how children living with adversity navigate these ‘everyday’ aspects of social terrain and the particular challenges that they face. This paper explores the meaning and experience of peer relationships to one group of children living in residential care in Ireland. Drawing on a larger study of school and care, it explores data gathered from 16 children, aged 8 to 18, who were living in eight different children's homes on the east coast of Ireland. The findings suggest that the children were acutely aware of their ‘care’ status and developed a number of strategies to manage this identity in school. It appears that more often than not, children described being left to their own devises to manage friendships and peer relationships. Thus, despite being a crucial source of both stress and support, peer relationships did not appear to be regarded as an issue that adults should be involved with. This raises questions for practice about what children should be supported with and the way in which peer relationships are potentially overlooked by social work, residential and school staff.     

Attachment, Temperament, and Preschool Children's Peer Acceptance

This study examined the relations between preschool children's attachment security, temperament, and peer acceptance. Ninety‐eight preschool children and their mothers were recruited through childcare centers in the southeast. Mothers and their children participated in two two‐hour home observations. Attachment security was assessed using the Waters Attachment Behavior Q‐set (AQS) completed by observers, and mothers reported on their children's temperament. Standard picture‐sociometric nominations and paired‐comparisons were used to measure children's peer acceptance. Results revealed significant associations between security and temperament. In addition, both attachment and temperament made significant and unique contributions to peer acceptance whereas temperament was found to be a stronger predictor of children's peer rejection. These findings underscore the dynamic interplay of inter‐ and intrapersonal factors that influence preschool children's peer relations. Implications of the findings for theory building and future research are discussed.     

Inter‐agency joint protocols for safeguarding children in social care and adult mental‐health agencies: a cross‐sectional survey of practitioner experiences

Parental mental illness, substance misuse and domestic violence are common risk factors for the maltreatment and neglect of children. Safeguarding children is everyone's responsibility, including professionals working primarily with adults. In the UK, Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) were established to ensure that all agencies work together to safeguard children. Many LSCBs developed multi‐agency joint protocols to enhance collaboration, but there is limited evidence of their effectiveness. This paper reports findings from a cross‐sectional survey of practitioner self‐reported experiences of joint protocols, which was conducted in one inner London borough, to evaluate their impact on professional practice. A self‐complete questionnaire administered to all professionals in adult mental‐health and children's social care services in the borough yielded a response from 119 practitioners. The survey found that the protocols had been widely disseminated and provided clear guidance to practitioners. Practitioners perceived that they had increased awareness of the risk factors for safeguarding children and some had used the protocols to help them gain access to services for their clients. Practitioners also perceived that they had improved inter‐agency working between children's social care and adult mental‐health services. However, respondents indicated that positive interpersonal contact with practitioners from other agencies was equally important in promoting joint working and inter‐agency collaboration.     

Asylum, children's rights and social work

Although it is only a minority of displaced and persecuted people globally who seek refuge in ‘Western’ countries, they meet an increasingly hostile reception. This paper focuses on the situation facing children seeking asylum with or without their families in Britain and Australia, and the implications for children's rights and for social work. The policy background and its racist foundations in both countries are outlined. Despite geopolitical differences, there are unnerving parallels. Legislative changes and policy complexity signal increasingly punitive attitudes towards asylum seekers. The situation of children and families in the community is discussed in terms of the exclusion of asylum seekers from basic rights, and specific issues for separated children. Even more damaging is the incarceration of children and families in detention centres, and the emerging research is explored. In both countries there is widespread flouting of children's rights, and children also feature as pawns in ideological contests. However, they also act autonomously and illustrate an inclusive model of citizenship. The role of social workers in the statutory and voluntary sectors is considered, and the paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges for social work of avoiding collusion with repressive policies and actively promoting human rights.     

Parent and Child Cognitive Representations of Social Situations and Children's Social Competence

The current study examines the relations among parent and child social information processing components and their links to children's social competence. Ninety‐seven kindergarten children and their mothers and fathers responded to open‐ended vignettes that involved conflict with a peer. Goals and strategies for both parents and children were assessed. Results show that there is some consistency between parents and children in the types of goals and strategies that are provided. Further, fathers’ and children's goals and strategies were related to children's social competence but only limited support for children's cognitions as a mediator between parental cognitions and peer competence was found. The implications for the role of social information processing in the development of children's social competence are noted.     

Play streets: women,children and the problem of urban traffic, 1930–1970

This article explores women’s participation in campaigns for urban play streets in England c.1930–1970. Concentrating on activities in ‘traditional’ terraced streets, it argues that working-class street sociability was strongly connected to children’s play and that rising levels of traffic were beginning to threaten this before the Second World War, feeding growing anxieties over the high rate of road accidents to children. One response to this from the 1930s was a series of local experiments aimed at separating traffic from children (a radical alternative to the more usual response of keeping children away from traffic) through the creation of ‘play streets’, closed to traffic for much of the day. The idea was taken up by national government and became popular in post-war decades, often due to the efforts of local women to defend the public life of their communities. The growing controversy over the introduction and maintenance of play streets from the 1960s shows women struggling to maintain traditional street sociability against the gathering power of business interests and rising car ownership in the period.     

Accomplishing irony: Socializing foster children into peer culture

Parents indirectly influence their children's peer interactions by implicit socialization and directly by interference. They influence their (young) children's doings by supervising their contacts with friends, monitoring where they go, and facilitating their meetings with friends at home. Adolescents' growing orientation to peers is often at the cost of direct contact with their parents. Potentially, conversations with adolescent children become significant moments for parents to collect information about their children's social lives, preparing them for the challenges of their preadult social life. We studied conversations between in state‐created family homes amongst foster parents (FPs) and out‐of‐home‐placed adolescents, to see how FPs prepare foster adolescents to deal with the dynamics of peer culture, specifically in mocking practices. We are interested in the pedagogical role of FPs in these practices. We find that peer culture behavior is expressed in the context of family homes. Rather than preparing adolescents for peer culture indirectly by discussing possible, or hypothetical, situations, FPs react directly to peer culture expressions at the dinner table. In their approach, FPs demonstrate that peer culture membership is not just an interactional competence but also a teachable issue.     

Constructing Emotional and Relational Understanding: The Role of Mother–Child Reminiscing about Negatively Valenced Events

Although there is some evidence from cross‐sectional studies that reminiscing is an important context in which children construct socioemotional understanding, longitudinal evidence is lacking. The goal of this study was to examine longitudinally the links between the quality of reminiscing at 42 months and children's subsequent socioemotional development at 48 months. At 42 months, mothers and children reminisced about a past negatively‐valenced emotional event. These conversations were coded for maternal elaboration, the children's contribution and engagement, and the degree to which meaning was co‐constructed by the dyad. At 42 and 48 months, children took part in laboratory measures of socioemotional development. Whereas there were few links between concurrent reminiscing quality and sociomoral development, aspects of reminiscing quality at 42 months (including children's engagement and the dyad's co‐construction of meaning) were related to children's emotional understanding, empathy, representations of relationships, and moral‐self at 48 months. This study provides some of the first longitudinal evidence that reminiscing conversations are linked with children's subsequent sociomoral understanding.     

The Effects of Early Institutionalization and Foster Care Intervention on Children's Social Behaviors at the Age of Eight

The present study compared the social behaviors of eight‐year‐old previously institutionalized Romanian children from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) in two groups: (1) children randomized to foster care homes (FCG), and (2) children randomized to care as usual (remaining in institutions) (CAUG). Children were observed interacting with an age‐ and gender‐matched unfamiliar, non‐institutionalized peer from the community during six interactive tasks, and their behavior was coded for speech reticence, social engagement, task orientation, social withdrawal, and conversational competence. Group comparisons revealed that FCG children were rated as significantly less reticent during a speech task than CAUG children. For CAUG children, longer time spent in institutional care was related to greater speech reticence and lower social engagement. Using an actor–partner interdependence model, CAUG children's behaviors, but not FCG, were found to influence the behavior of unfamiliar peers. These findings are the first to characterize institutionalized children's observed social behaviors toward new peers during middle childhood and highlight the positive effects of foster care intervention in the social domain.     

From ‘Rights to Action’: practitioners' perceptions of the needs of children experiencing domestic violence

Not only has research over the past decade documented the emotional and behavioural consequences for children who witness domestic violence, but a number of studies have used children as participants thus, giving them an opportunity to describe their experiences in their own words. In policy terms, there has been a growing emphasis on children's rights and the importance and understanding of children's perspectives on their own lives. Consequently, children can no longer be perceived as forgotten victims where domestic violence is concerned. This paper explores practitioners' awareness of the needs of children and young people living with, and fleeing from, domestic violence. The research, conducted in a rural area in Wales, reveals that although the views of practitioners reflect the concerns reported by young people in other studies, there can be barriers to meeting these needs. While policy prescribes engaging with children, at the institutional level, operational priorities and increasing administrative demands can actually reduce opportunities for working directly with children. These demands may hamper the development of multi‐agency practice.     

Putting the child at the centre of inter‐professional cooperation in out‐of‐home care

A large part of most children's childhood is about taking part in educational and leisure‐time activities together with other children across various contexts. However, children in out‐of‐home care do not always have easy access to these possibilities for participation. In general, parents coordinate their children's everyday lives, but in the case of children in out‐of‐home care, the responsibility of care is distributed between several professionals and institutions. Research often recommends that inter‐professional cooperation should put the child at the centre and be more child focused. But what does that mean? The paper investigates theoretical understandings of ‘child centredness’ in inter‐professional cooperation. It also includes an empirical example taken from a research project that followed four children in their everyday lives in two residential homes in Denmark. The research explored how professionals work together across contexts in order to support children to take part in school and leisure‐time activities. The overall reasoning leads to the point that for children in out‐of‐home care, the possibility of exercising personal agency in their everyday life constitutes a difficult but vital issue. How children in out‐of‐home care learn how to conduct their everyday lives, is closely related to the ways professionals cooperate across contexts. It points to the need for close inter‐professional cooperation in order to encourage and support children's initiatives and engagements in activities in communities with other children.