Adolescents in Care and their Social Workers: A Research Note

Summary There has recently been an increasing concern that young people,and especially those in residential care, should be encouragedto express their views, and that the views expressed shouldbe used in improving the care which they receive. The publicationof the Who Cares? booklet (Page and Clarke¹), and the emergenceof ‘Who Cares’ groups and the ‘Voice of theChild in Care’ organisation, is evidence of this concern.In sympathy with these developments has been a study of adolescents'perceptions of social workers, and a part of this research hasincluded a pilot study of the views of adolescents living intwo family group homes.     

The Children's Family Trust: a Unique Approach to Substitute Family Care?

Summary This article outlines the contribution made to child care since1945 by the Children's Family Trust in providing substitutefamily homes. Reference is made to some Trust policies whichhave aroused controversy over the years. Recruitment and supportof the substitute Parents is discussed, and a brief analysismade of the children for whom placement with the Trust may bemost appropriate. Comparisons are drawn between staff turnoverin Trust families and other residential homes, and between successand failure rates of placements with the Trust and in long-termfoster-homes. The final section assesses the role of the Children'sFamily Trust and its philosophy in contemporary child care.     

A Study of Families' Expectations and Experiences of a Child Guidance Clinic

Summary Recently there has been considerable debate concerning the useof child guidance/psychiatric services. There is a lack of consumerstudies in this area, despite opinion that such studies areessential in the evaluaton of these services. This paper considersthe expectations and experiences of ten families who attendedtheir local child guidance clinic. These families had attendedthe clinic for no more than six appointments before termination.Most parents had expectations which conflicted with those ofclinic staff. The only three families whose expectations concurredwith clinic practice had had previous experience of the ‘helpingprofessions’. Overall less than half the families feltthey had been helped and this seems related to the differencesbetween their expectations and experiences. The clinic's andthe families' opinions concerning the helpfulness of clinicintervention do not always coincide, nor do their reasons fortermination. Ideas for preparation of families prior to attendingthe clinic and for modification of treatment by clinic staffare considered.     

Primary Health Care Workers' Views about Social Work

Summary SUMMARY A comparison of the views about social work held by 188 primaryhealth care workers—118 GPs, 31 health visitors and 39district nurses—working in the same teams is presentedhere.^* The study focussed particularly on their perceptionsof social workers, their role and performance. The data indicatea general acceptance of the social work role, but a lack ofknowledge of or extensive criticism about, social work performance.Significant differences of view emerged about social work training,role and clients, indicating occupation is a significant factorin perceptions held. In particular, the client group predominantlydealt with appears to have had an impact on perceptions. However,views about social work performance did not differ greatly,suggesting the influence of occupation on perceptions shouldnot be overstated.     

Helping Children Directly

Summary The mothers most able to respond to the child's communicationsare those whose personal needs do not obtrude and who have onlya minimum of preconceived ideas. Thus they are able to considerthe child as an individual and are interested in his expressionof individuality. They want to listen and to understand andenjoy the flow of communication between him and them. (Heinickeand Westheimer¹)     

The motives of foster parents, their family and work circumstances

Summary In foster care research the focus is generally placed on thechildren, not on the parents who perform the foster care. Inthis article the focus is on foster parents of 10-11 year-oldchildren. They were interviewed about their motives for becomingfoster parents, which were linked to their family and work circumstances.Among the 21 foster families in the study, four different butequally frequent reasons or motives for taking care of fosterchildren from the very beginning could be distinguished: relativeswho feel responsibility for a certain child; couples who wantchildren and do not think they can have children of their own;families where the mother wants to be at home taking care ofbiological as well as foster children instead of having unskilledemployed work outside the home; and parents with grown-up childrenwho want to fill the 'empty nest' by becoming foster parents- combined with a family business at home or close to home.Changing family and work patterns in Sweden do not seem to haveinfluenced foster families as much as families in general. Theworth of acquiring more knowledge about the families involvedin foster care of children and young people in order to improvefoster care and reduce breakdowns of care is discussed.     

Children in Secure Accommodation

Correspondence to Professor Robert Harris, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Department of Social Policy and Professional Studies, The University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX. Summary This paper describes the characteristics of a sample of children(N = 399) being held in secure accommodation in eleven localauthorities prior to the implementation of the Children Act1989. It is argued that secure accommodation cannot be divorcedfrom other aspects of child care policy and practice; that anyconfidence that problems of excessive or variable usage canbe removed by more restrictive legislation is largely misplaced;that when social workers resort to secure accommodation it isoften through a combination of ‘worry’ about anunpredictable child and uncertainty as to what else to do; andthat since not all children in secure accommodation wish toleave it (and the more secure accommodation constitutes goodquality child care the more children are likely to want to stay)a ‘rights’ framework, though necessary, is not asufficient moral or conceptual basis for developing secure accommodationpolicy and practice.     

A Comment on 'Family Structure as a Factor in the Adjustment of Adopted Children'

Summary Dr. Kraus's paper¹ suggests that ‘a criterion of acceptabilityof childless applicants for adoption should be their childbearingpotential’. This proposal, with its extremely seriousimplications for practice, is based on the results of a questionnairesurvey of couples who had adopted babies seven years earlier.Failings in the statistical analysis, however, cast considerabledoubt on the main finding.     

The Psychiatrization of Post-Traumatic Distress: Issues for Social Workers

¹Howard Davis, Centre for Studies in Crime and Social Justice, Edge Hill, St Helens Road, Ormskirk, Lancashire L39 4QP, UK. Summary The psychiatric category of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)is described and critiqued. Problems of definition and applicationmay lead to the non-inclusion or minimization of some formsof post-traumatic distress. Questions of what constitute ‘healthy’and ‘unhealthy’ reactions to trauma are raised andthe depoliticization of trauma explored. The absence from theliterature of sufficient acknowledgement of traumagenic actionson the part of official agencies is noted. The potential forcritically informed social work interventions in prevention,mitigation and longer-term response is outlined.     

Professionalism and the Adoption of Black Children

Correspondence to Paul Stubbs, Visiting Research Fellow, University of Lancaster, Department of Social Administration, Fylde College, Lancaster LA1 4YF. Summary This article poses certain issues about the effects of professionalismin policy and practice in the adoption of black children. Bylocating the practice in its historical context, recent debatesabout ‘bans’ on the adoption of black children bywhite families can be discussed more clearly. This is followed by case studies based on original researchin two London boroughs, examining professionalism in child careand adoption practice, before certain conclusions and alternativesare addressed.     

Social Work with Single Parent Families: Consumer Views

Summary The article describes a research project undertaken to determinethe satisfaction of a particular client group—single parents—withthe service they were given. The research examines five kindsof problems—legal, accommodation, financial, child care,and emotional-and concludes that problems were likely to arisein all these areas, and that, whatever the problem, the socialworker's ability to help solve it depended to a large extenton the quality of the relationship with the client.     

Social Work with Failure-to-Thrive Children and their Families: Part II: Behavioural Social Work Intervention

Reprint requests: Student Unit, 73 Aylestone Road, Leicester, LE2 7LL. Summary Part II of this study is concerned with a multicomponent behaviouralsocial work intervention with 17 failure-to-thrive childrenand their families. An investigation, described in Part I, showedthat the route to this worrying problem differed from familyto family. Patterns of contributory causes did emerge—thusdetermining the main thrust of the interventions. Many of thechild victims were difficult (not least in biological and psychologicaladaptability) from birth. Parents were disadvantaged in variousways. Feeding difficulties and parent-child relationships provedto be the major focus of the interventions. Behavioural Socialwork interventions directed toward the feeding performance andrelationships resulted in a high success rate; these improvementswere maintained over considerable periods of time (one yearor more). The results and temporal generalization in the caseof more general parent-child interactions, and child behaviourproblems, were more modest, but encouraging. The programme isdescribed fully and the results are given in detail.     

The Field Social Work Implications of Residential Child Care

Summary The workloads of field social work staff vary markedly, andlittle is known about the ‘burdens’ imposed by differentgroups of clients or cases. The research study reported hereset out to examine the extent to which field social work involvementin residential child care varied between individual childrenand to attempt to explain that variation in terms of the characteristicsof children, the characteristics and workloads of staff andtheir teams, the packages of services received by children andtheir families, and some general features of the residentialplacements. Field social worker involvement was measured interms of the number of contacts between ‘caseholders’and ‘case’ and the total amount of time spent onthe case over a three month period. The observed variationsin these two indicators were found to be significantly associatedwith the characteristics of cases and other factors. Indeed,these characteristics explained almost two-thirds of the variance.The empirical results have a number of policy implications whichare discussed under six heads: supply constraints, caseloadweighting, fieldwork organization, coordination and monitoring,out-county placements and travelling time, and comparative costings.     

Swimming with Dolphins: The Assessment Framework, New Labour and New Tools for Social Work with Children and Families

Correspondence to Dr Paul Michael Garrett, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. E-mail: paul.garrett{at}nottingham.ac.uk Summary Local authorities, in England, implemented the Framework forthe Assessment of Children in Need and their Families in April2001. The Framework is the first ‘official’ standardassessment model intended for use in the initial assessmentof all ‘children in need’ under Part 111, section17 of the 1989 Children Act. This new ‘conceptual map’needs to be understood in terms of previous policy documentsand earlier technologies of intervention related to child protectionand, more broadly, child welfare. However, it also needs tobe more expansively perceived, fixed and located as it relatesto other elements in New Labour's political ‘project’.The Framework's preoccupation with an ecological approach toassessments and with questionnaires and scales are likely tohave major implications for social work practice and for micro-engagementswith children and families.     

Towards Accountability in Social Work: One Year's Intake to an Area Office

Summary Monitoring one year's referrals to an area office of a socialservices department, we found that of the 2,436 referrals representing2,057 cases, about half were already known to the area office.Demographically the clientele fell largely into three groups—theelderly, young families and children. The main problem groupingsconsisted of those with physical disabilities or suffering fromfrailty in old age, those with financial and environmental problems,and families with disturbed relationships and child care problems.Most of the clients had short-term help and at the end of sixmonths only 11% of the referrals were still open. Distinctive profiles emerged when comparing the routes by whichclients with different types of problems reached the area officeand the help they got once they had passed its threshold: (a) The elderly and disabled, mainly referred by the healthservices, received predominantly practical help. (b) Those with financial and material problems, largely self-referred,received information, advice and referral to other agencies. (c) The disturbed families, referred by many different sources,received detailed exploration, assessment and casework. Those clients who were passed on for more extended help to thelong-term teams—some 10% of the intake—were mainlythe very vulnerable elderly and disabled persons, and childrenwho had been taken into care or who were in need of surveillanceand protection for other reasons. The study raises questions about the methods of service deliveryin response to the demands made on the area office and discussespossible changes in approach towards more community-orientedpreventive work.     

An Act of Empowerment: The Children, Young Persons and their Families Act (1989)

Correspondence to Marie Connolly, Department of Social Work, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 1, New Zealand. Summary In 1989, New Zealand introduced child protection legislationthat embraces a model of family decision making. The model,based on traditional indigenous decision-making practices, hasrevolutionized social work with children and families in thechild care and protection area. This paper considers the developmentof the legislation in terms of its antecedent factors and itsvision. It looks particularly at some of the care and protectionprovisions of the legislation, and explores, by use of casestudy, some of the issues of using a family decision-makingprocess as a practice model.     

Examining the Causes of Stress in Families with Severely Mentally Handicapped Children

Summary Though it is recognized that the presence of a mentally handicappedchild may be a source of stress for a family, less is knownabout precisely which impairments are particularly stressful.This question was investigated in a study of 200 families withseverely mentally handicapped children living in two healthdistricts in South East England. Interviews were carried outwith the people responsible for the day-to-day care of the childrenand stress was measured by means of the Malaise Inventory. Theresults suggested that the highest levels of stress were associatedwith the presence of a child with behaviour disorders or withmultiple impairments; the stressfulness of these conditionswas exacerbated by adversity. A regression analysis showed thatthe factors causing most stress in carers were, in order ofimportance: behaviour problems in the child, night-time disturbance,social isolation, adversity in the family, multiplicity of impairments,difficulty in settling the child at night, problems with thechild's health, problems with the child's appearance, and moneyworries. The article ends with recommendations for the developmentof services aimed at reducing stress in families with mentallyhandicapped children.     

The Significance of Past Abuse to Current Intervention Strategies with Depressed Mothers in Child and Family Care

Correspondence to Professor Michael Sheppard, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon, PL6 7EW, UK. Summary There is now considerable evidence that a high proportion offamilies subject to child and family care social work interventioncontain depressed mothers. There is also evidence that the presenceof clinical depression is associated, amongst these clients,with child abuse. Vulnerability to both depression and childabuse have been traced back to the early child-care experiencesof those who are currently parents, expressed in child abusein terms of intergenerational transmission, although it is alsoclear for both that further factors also contribute to thisvulnerability. Despite the link between maternal depressionand child abuse, we have little evidence about the processesand mechanisms, based on social workers judgements about thesituation, by which families with depressed mothers are morelikely than other clients to be involved with intervention forchild abuse. This paper seeks to ‘map’ the pathwaysand the intermediate mechanisms which provide the link betweenthe experience of past abuse and social workers interventionstrategies. Drawing on theoretically significant factors, itfocuses on the following variables: the experience of past abuse,the mother's attributed character, attachment and bonding, childbehavioural problems and intervention strategy. The paper demonstratesa number of significant ‘paths’ through which familiesbecome subject to one or other intervention strategy. It showsthat, while an emphasis on needs assessment is to be welcomed(Department of Health, 1999), they need to be considered (i)within a theoretical framework which helps social workers makesense of, and respond to situations and (ii) through an understandingof longitudinal dimensions (key factors in mothers' earlierlife) which are aspects of this theoretical understanding.     

Quality Control in Child Care

Correspondence to June Thoburn, School of Ecnomics and Social Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TS Summary This article takes as its starting point recent evidence aboutpoor practice in child care social work. It identifies a largenumber of mechanisms for ensuring quality control, and considerswhy they appear to be having so little effect. The writer suggeststhat because of the complexity of cases and the need for direction,and also because of disagreements about what is ‘quality’in child care, bureaucratic or procedural mechanisms have seriouslimitations as the major means for ensuring good practice. Shefocuses on the statutory review as the solution most frequentlysuggested but concludes that too much is being expected of it. Whilst accepting the need for procedural, inspectorial, judicial,and political checks and for more appropriate resources forfamily support, she suggests that the main remedy for poor practicemust lie in professional mechanisms. These include increasedspecialization, more time, improved training, and consultation.The weight of evidence and the intractable nature of the problemmay call for drastic measures, such as the introduction of theApproved social worker(child care).     

A Qualitative Study of Social Work Assessment in Cases of Alleged Child Abuse

Correspondence to Dr Dorothy Scott, School of Social Work, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia 3052. Summary While there has been considerable theorizing about how socialworkers think and act, there has been relatively little researchin this area. In the study reported in this paper, in-depthinterviews and observations of practice were used to explorethe process of assessment undertaken by Australian social workersin a hospital specialist service and in a statutory child protectionservice. Using a semi-longitudinal approach which ‘shadowed’10 families (17 allegedly abused children), highly detaileddata were collected from 42 observations of practice and 123interviews with 12 hospital social workers and 15 child protectionworkers on how their assessments evolved over the life of thesecases. While there were some individual differences betweenpractitioners within each organization, of greater significancewere the marked differences between the two groups in the variablesto which they attended. Both groups tended to adopt a proceduralizedmodel of practice which narrowed the range of factorsconsideredin assessment.