An analysis of children and young people's calls to ChildLine about abuse and neglect: a study for the Scottish Child Protection Review

In 2001 a young child, who was known to child protection agencies, was murdered by her stepfather. Following a recommendation of an inquiry into her death, a ministerial multidisciplinary review of child protection across Scotland was carried out. The review aimed to promote the reduction of abuse or neglect of children and to improve the services for children who experience abuse or neglect. It was carried out by a multidisciplinary team and the report made 16 recommendations. The review was informed by a series of sub‐projects. This paper describes one sub‐project that aimed to collect the views of children and young people who might have been abused but might not have had contact with child protection agencies. The study was carried out in conjunction with ChildLine Scotland. Call data for one year were made available for quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis was carried out on the counsellors' notes on all calls relating to abuse and neglect taken during a 2‐week period. Children described signi?cant levels of abuse and neglect. Many had told no‐one of the abuse and in particular had not contacted child protection agencies. The paper considers the implications of the ?ndings for the child protection system. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adopted Children's Identity and Information Needs

SUMMARY: It has long been accepted that adopted children need access to information about their origins in order to provide a satisfactory answer to the question ‘who am I?’. Such information is seen as vitally important to the formation of a clear and positive sense of identity in adulthood. This study examines the role that such information plays in the formation of personal identity and analyses accounts from 67 adopters of their children's requests for information about their families of origin. Comparisons are made between adopters whose children maintain contact with their families of origin and those whose children have no contact.     

Including all children: finding out about the experiences of children with communication and/or cognitive impairments

Practitioners and researchers have made progress, in recent years, in seeking the views of children and young people. Less progress has been made in seeking the views of young people with significant communication and/or cognitive impairments. Drawing on the experience of three research projects and one Best Value review, this article details the lessons learnt, and action required, in order to find out about the experiences of this important group of children and young people. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Good practices in Roma education in Bulgaria during the years of transition 1

The aim of this paper is to present good educational practices from Bulgaria that relate to Roma education. In the so‐called Years of Transition, educational conditions changed considerably. Non‐governmental organizations have attempted to promote high‐quality education for Roma children. The Bulgarian Ministry of Education has made various changes in legislation which now allow Roma children to receive mother tongue education as well as intercultural education with a focus on Romani language, culture and history. This paper provides a short overview of projects that have been implemented in kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, as well as adult literacy and education since the time of transition.     

Government-NGO collaboration and sustainability of orphans and vulnerable children projects in southern Africa

Given current donor attention to orphans and children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS, and the need for a new framework that recognizes the complementary roles of nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), this analysis reviews NGO-operated community-based orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) projects in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland. There has been a lack of attention within the field of evaluation to inter-organizational relationships, specifically those with government agencies, as a factor in sustainability. We analyzed evaluations of nine OVC projects funded by the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation for the influence of government-NGO collaboration on project sustainability. For eight of the nine projects, evaluations provided evidence of the importance of the government partnership for sustainability. Government collaboration was important in projects designed to help families access government grants, initiate community-based solutions, and advocate for OVC rights through legislation. Government partnerships were also critical to the sustainability of two projects involved in placing children in foster care, but these showed signs of tension with government partners. In addition to the more common factors associated with sustainability, such as organizational characteristics, donors and NGOs should concentrate on developing strong partnerships with local and national government agencies for the sustainability of their projects.     

(Not) a Hallmark holiday. Experience of family caregivers of a relative with Alzheimer's disease.

1. The holiday season may be an especially difficult time for families that have a relative with a dementia. 2. The three themes identified in interviews with family caregivers of a relative with Alzheimer's disease concerned becoming aware of the relative's symptoms, trying to have one last normal holiday, and deciding how to handle the holidays when the relative was in an assisted living facility. 3. Health care providers can help families by planning interventions to decrease stress during the holiday season.     

Risky Experiences for Children Online: Charting European Research on Children and the Internet

Children’s online experience, especially the risks to which they might be exposed, is an increasingly important policy and research concern. This article reports an analysis of the amount, nature and range of empirical research concerning children’s online experiences across 18 European countries. Research teams in each country have collaborated, as part of the ‘EU Kids Online’ network, to identify, code and compare studies. In all, 235 studies were identified and coded in a publicly accessible data repository. All countries had some available evidence regarding children’s online risky experiences, with strengths mainly in relation to research into access and use; several countries were found to have a richer evidence base encompassing research into online learning, literacy, participation, parental mediation and so forth. Regarding risks, more research focused on potentially harmful content than on risky forms of contact. Key research gaps included research on younger children, into mobile online platforms, and into certain types of online risk. The article concludes by observing the challenges facing researchers in this field, including the time‐sensitivity of research that quickly dates, the difficulty of tailoring research to meet the needs of a demanding policy agenda, the complexity of designing projects that recognise the contextual and contingent factors that mediate children’s online activities, and the ethical considerations that apply when asking children about private, transgressive or upsetting experiences.     

Siblings and Sexual Orientation

Abstract

Lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGBs) often have heterosexual siblings. The authors have conducted several research projects comparing siblings of different sexual orientations, given that siblings usually have the same ethnicity, race, parental socioeconomic status, and religious background. This review article presents research on LGBs and heterosexuals, all recruited via siblings. In general, heterosexual siblings are more mainstream in terms of being in long-term relationships, having children, belonging to a formal religion, and having more contact with their family of origin. LGB siblings are more politically liberal, more highly educated, and have moved away from their families of origin. The article speculates about how siblings who grow up in the same families could be so demographically different in adulthood.     

Child support wage withholding and father–child contact: parental bargaining and salience effects

Past research on child support finds that father–child contact increases as support payments increase. Enforcement policies such as wage withholding also may affect father–child contact even when the amount of support paid is not affected if they change bargaining power between parents or the salience of fathers’ child support obligations. I develop a model of the salience of child support obligations which predicts that introduction of automatic withholding will reduce contact between noncustodial parents and children independent of payment amount. I then examine whether paying child support via wage withholding affects fathers’ frequency of contact with their children and their provision of in-kind support using instrumental variables and bounded OLS techniques for selection on unobservables. Withholding appears to decrease father–child contact. Withholding effects do not occur when payments are made to government agencies or courts but are present when payments go directly to the mother, consistent with bargaining models. More frequent payment schedules are associated with more contact, consistent with salience effects.     

‘Absent fathers’ or ‘reorganized families’? Variations in father‐child contact after parental break‐up in Norway

Two trends affect modern fatherhood simultaneously: on the one hand, there is an increased emphasis on paternal involvement in the lives of young children. On the other hand, rates of parental break‐up have increased, and fathers often live apart from their children. Norway is a country in which both trends are very strong. This article looks at the patterns of contact between non‐resident fathers in Norway and their children, focusing on the extreme ends of the distribution: fathers with weekly contact, and fathers who have not seen their children in three months or more. After a brief overview of recent developments in Norwegian family policies, some key dilemmas and tensions in modern family life are identified. One relate to commitment in cohabiting relationships, another to the tension between commitment to children from previous relationships and new partners. A third factor that is taken into consideration, is poverty. In the empirical analysis, we find no difference in the odds for having frequent/ very infrequent contact between formerly married and formerly cohabiting fathers, nor between fathers who live alone and fathers who have repartnered. Poverty is however a strong indicator of loss of contact.     

Baby boomers and their entourage

The post-war generation of baby boomers has witnessed major transformations in family life as well as being at the vanguard of them. A study undertaken in Paris and London in 2006 among 90 individuals born between 1945 and 1954 reveals, however, strong relationships with ageing parents and adult children. Family groups based on local or dispersed entourages, with regular contact and the exchange of support, are clearly identified. Other configurations include families where affective ties persist but contact between the baby boomers and their entourage is less frequent. Few baby boomers have replaced family members with friends or remain socially isolated. These results show that the rise of individualism associated with the baby boomers has not weakened inter-generational ties, although tensions exist between the demands of family solidarity and individual projects.     

Discrete Trial Instruction vs. Mand Training for Teaching Children With Autism to Make Requests

The present study compared the effects of discrete trial instruction (DTI) and mand training on the acquisition of independent requests in 6 children with autism. Two multiple-probe designs across participants were conducted with 3 participants receiving mand training followed by DTI and the other 3 receiving DTI followed by mand training. Eye contact and challenging behaviors were also assessed across conditions. Results indicate that 5 of 6 participants made more independent requests and acquired requesting faster in the mand training condition, had slightly better eye contact in the DTI condition, and fewer challenging behaviors in the mand training condition. Overall, the results indicate that mand training is a more efficient method for teaching children with autism to make requests.     

Not just any direct experience will do: recasting the multicultural teaching practicum as active,collaborative and transformative

Providing a teaching practicum where university students preparing to be teachers can interact with children from different cultures has been widely praised as an effective means to improve teachers’ cross‐cultural sensitivity and teaching effectiveness. However, some research suggests that direct experience with minority children may in fact serve to confirm racist or stereotypical perceptions, particularly in school settings. This paper describes and analyses a community‐based practicum taking place in the USA, where university students and children at a Latin American Community Center completed long‐term collaborative projects. These projects provided the active focus around which we hoped that students and children would form relationships that transcended and transformed the kinds of relationships they might form in schools, where institutional constraints help structure the roles people play and the expectations they have of each other.     

Parenting groups for parents whose children are in care

Excluding very severe child abuse cases, biological parents are usually encouraged to maintain contact with their children in care. Parent‐child contact is often considered important because it can maintain the child's psychological identity and well‐being. It can also maintain parent‐child attachment and in some cases facilitate reunification. Improving parenting skills is viewed as an important method by which contact between children and their biological parents can be enhanced. However, mainstream parenting groups are often unsuitable for parents whose children are in care for a number of reasons. There is stigma involved with having children in care, such parents have very complex lives and there are reduced opportunities to practise skills learnt with their children. Groups designed specifically for parents whose children are in care appear to be a promising approach to improving the quality of contact between these parents and their children. This paper will review group‐based approaches to working with biological parents whose pre‐school‐aged children have been placed in care. The paper will also report the findings of a research project designed to identify key facilitators and barriers to parental involvement in a group‐based programme which includes contact between parents and their children who have been placed in care. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

LEGISLATING LOVE: The Effect of Child Support and Welfare Policies on Father–child Contact

Reducing non-marital childbearing and making nonresidential fathers take greater responsibility for their children were identified as goals of numerous policy changes since the 1980s. Child-support award rates for children born to unmarried parents have been quite low historically, leading lawmakers to focus on increasing both award and payment rates for this group. Nonmarital fathers are also much less likely to have contact with their children. Although evidence suggests that policy efforts increase child support awards and receipt, the link between child support policies, child support outcomes, and father-child contact has received less attention. This paper uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation on children born between 1985–1997 to investigate the relationship between child-support award and receipt and the amount of contact that fathers have with their non-residential children. Since it is likely that both of these behaviors are, in part, determined by unobservable characteristics of the father, we estimate an instrumental variables Tobit model. The model is identified by our assumption that child support policy variables can impact child support awards and payments, but father-child contact cannot be directly legislated. Our results suggest that there are unintended, but desirable effects of child support establishment and collection. Policies to collect child support not only increase financial resources to families, but through their impact on payments increase visitation and contact between these children and their fathers. The estimated impact of receiving child support on contact is more than 27 days per year.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Economic Association, Washington DC, January 2003 and the Annual Meetings of the Association of Public Policy and Management, November 2003. Support from NICHD Grant # HD30944 is gratefully acknowledged. We would like to thank Suzann Eshleman for excellent computer programming and James Scully for providing us with data on genetic testing laws.     

Children's Engagement as Urban Researchers and Consultants in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Can it Increase Children's Effective Participation in Urban Planning?

Children conducting research and engaging in ‘adult’ domains such as urban planning challenge perceptions of children as merely ‘adult becomings’ — perceptions which, along with lack of pathways for participation, have largely excluded children from effective participation in the public realm. This paper considers two urban participatory projects in Aotearoa/New Zealand: in the first, children (10–13 years) researched peer perceptions of Auckland city life; in the second, they were consulted by Auckland Council on the redevelopment of a city square. We reflect on processes and outcomes, and the extent to which facilitating such projects may increase children's meaningful participation in urban planning.     

How to Build an Intentional Android: Infants' Imitation of a Robot's Goal‐Directed Actions

This study examined whether young children are able to imitate a robot's goal‐directed actions. Children (24–35 months old) viewed videos showing a robot attempting to manipulate an object (e.g., putting beads inside a cup) but failing to achieve its goal (e.g., beads fell outside the cup). In 1 video, the robot made eye contact with a human before and after it failed the action. In another video, the robot did not make eye contact with the human adult. Only in the former condition did children “imitate” the robot's “intended” but unconsummated actions (e.g., putting beads inside a cup). When the robot did not make eye contact, children performed poorly, at the baseline level. These results suggest that human‐like gaze behaviors, not human‐like morphology, may play an important role in young children's imitation of a nonhuman agent's goal‐directed behaviors.     

Support for Openness in Adoption Placements-What can we learn from New Zealand?

SUMMARY: The placement for adoption of older children and those with special needs brings into focus the practice of open adoption whereby there is some form of continuing contact, including face to face contact, between birth and adoptive families. This in turn raises issues about the support needed to maintain such links. The paper discusses the progress made in New Zealand towards open adoption. The views of social workers, birth and adoptive families on face to face contact are reported and arguments for and against post-adoption support for open adoption are examined.     

Immigration and Entry into the Cultural Mainstream

This research focuses on the absorbing society, and examines a process by which immigrants entered and changed the cultural core of the absorbing society. It analyzes the development of an ethnic holiday, the traditional ethnic Mimouna holiday of North African immigrants in Israel, into a national holiday and into part of the dominant culture. The research concludes that this process evolved mainly as a result of the political activism of immigrants from North Africa and a weakening of the hegemony. It may also illuminate the sometimes crucial role of immigrants in moving the boundaries between the center and the periphery.     

Involvement With Past‐Union Children and Couple Childbearing Intentions

Parents with children from both past and current unions create complex stepfamilies. The author investigated the association of past‐union children with intentions for a second or third child in the current union of 1,739 couples in the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study. Both partners' reports of their own resident and nonresident past‐union children as well as fathers' reports of involvement with nonresident past‐union children create a comprehensive measurement of past‐union children. The analysis revealed that coresident past‐union children were more closely associated with childbearing intentions than were nonresident past‐union children and that weekly contact with nonresident children had a stronger link to intentions than did payments. These results suggest that the value of the past‐union children as siblings and the time commitment made to these children are particularly salient to parents' decisions about further childbearing in their current union.