Names and naming in adoption: Birth heritage and family‐making

In this article, we consider the significance and practices of names and naming in adoption to develop understanding of the issue amongst scholars, policymakers, adoption practitioners, and adoption communities. Research on the topic of names and adoption is scarce and focused mostly on international and domestic adoptions in the United States. We draw on the research literature to critically explore names and naming in adoption through two recurrent and related themes. The first is “birth heritage,” where names, forenames especially, are shown to be important in the approach taken by adopters to their child's birth family and cultural identity. The second theme is “family‐making,” where namesaking and homogeneity of surname emerge, amongst others, as strategies to create, sustain, and display “family.” In gathering together for the first time an otherwise scattered, disparate body of research, our article showcases names and naming as illuminating distillations of key contemporary challenges experienced by families formed through adoption. We conclude our article by considering emergent gaps in existing knowledge and understanding about names, naming, and adoption that might usefully be addressed, to inform professional advice and familial decisions about names, and enhance outcomes for adoptees and their families.     

Digitalization,Street‐Level Bureaucracy and Welfare Users' Experiences

Internet/web‐based forms of communication have increasingly been implemented by welfare agencies. However, there have been few studies of the experiences of welfare service users and the consequences of new technology for welfare service users. To what extent is the new technology adopted by the Norwegian Welfare and Labour Organization (NAV) used, and how do the users apply and experience the new possibilities? Do screen‐to‐screen encounters replace face‐to‐face encounters, and is this trend affected by age, gender, education or type of benefit? To answer these questions, we combine survey data, short‐term fieldwork in welfare reception areas and qualitative interviews with people receiving health and work‐related benefits. Our study indicates that screen‐to‐screen interaction in general does not replace face‐to‐face encounters, as many face‐to‐face encounters are related to screen communication. However, digital competence combined with life circumstances appears to be the source of a new divide between welfare service users.     

‘I Might not Live That Long!’ A Study of Young Women's Pension Planning in the UK

There has been considerable concern about levels of pension saving especially given increases in longevity and rising pension deficits. In particular, the prospects of many future female pensioners have been questioned. As pensions are determined by contributions throughout the life course it is imperative to comprehend the attitudes, knowledge, expectations and savings habits of people from an early age to explore why under‐saving occurs. This is particularly pertinent given recent governments' emphasis on individual responsibility for financial provision in retirement. However, there is little research which focuses specifically on young women's attitudes or planning towards pensions despite considerable concern about the future of women's pensions. This article considers young women's (18–30) attitudes towards pensions and whether they differ according to socio‐economic status by using interviews with 15 women (five in routine and manual occupations, five intermediate, five professional and managerial) about how knowledge and choice, trust, responsibility, risk and uncertainty impact on their pension decisions. It is evident that the ability and willingness of people to contribute to a pension depends, among other things, on the pension offered by employers, the pension requirements in place and immediate financial needs. Therefore this article shows that pension policy needs to take into account women's employment histories, which are often fragmented and diverse, when considering young women's attitudes towards pension saving.     

Adoptive Parents’ Attitudes toward Adoption and Domestic Adoption Development in Korea: Adoptees’ Specific Needs for Origin

This study aimed to find out how Korean adoptive parents were carrying out their adoptions in Korea and to see if adoptive families truly understood the meaning of adoption and their adopted child's specific needs to know about his genetic roots. This understanding on the adoptive parents’ part is needed to help the child to form a self‐identity for his well‐being. The study sample of 352 adoptive parents may be the largest study ever done involving families currently raising their adopted children in Korea. Results showed that families did not seem to understand adoption with its characteristics well. Though families’ satisfaction with the adoption was very high, it appeared that their satisfaction was limited to when their adoptees were young, not being extended to when children became old enough to know of their adoption. For adoption development in Korea, however, it was encouraging that parents’ participation in local (regional) meetings with other fellow adopters from self‐support groups appeared to be the most significant consistent factor in contributing to the families’ understanding of adoption and their positive attitudes for the adoptees’ well‐being and to their satisfaction with the adoption.     

The impact of parental incarceration on children's care: identifying good practice principles from the perspective of imprisoned primary carer parents

Parental incarceration has wide‐ranging impacts on families. One key effect may be disruption to the care and legal custody of children, yet few studies have examined processes and outcomes relating to care planning for children of prisoners. This paper presents findings of interviews with 151 primary carer prisoners in two Australian states which aimed to address this research gap. The study examined care planning for children upon parental arrest, sentencing and imprisonment, stability of care arrangements and primary carer prisoners' involvement and satisfaction with care planning. Around one third of prisoners had discussions regarding children's care arrangements at arrest and imprisonment, although the issue was more commonly raised at sentencing. While there was much variation in the stability of care arrangements, children placed in out‐of‐home care experienced the most instability. A minority of prisoners reported being involved in care planning and decision‐making for children upon imprisonment, and around one third rated care planning process poorly. Prisoners were more satisfied with care planning when there were fewer movements of children, where prisoners felt involved with decision‐making, and when police officers, lawyers and corrections staff inquired about the welfare of their children. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

Downscaling,Upgrading or Linking? Ways to Realize Micro‐Insurance

Micro‐insurance is seen by many as a promising tool to improve the social protection of low‐income earners. This assumption is supported by the positive experience of existing micro‐insurance schemes. At the same time, however, many schemes have failed to organize sustainable insurance arrangements that are affordable for the poor and near‐poor. The question is thus which institutions are best able to arrange for micro‐insurance. Formal institutions such as public agencies or commercial companies are usually too distant in social and spatial terms from the target group of micro‐insurance and face severe difficulties in downscaling. Informal institutions, however, such as self‐help groups or grassroots NGOs, usually lack the know‐how, experience and capacities to design and manage insurance arrangements. They need powerful partners to upgrade. An alternative would be that formal and informal institutions cooperate in providing micro‐insurance. This article argues that such a linking approach is superior to both the downscaling and upgrading approach.     

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.     

Parents who wait: Acknowledging the support needs and vulnerabilities of approved adopters during their wait to become adoptive parents

There is a significant amount of existing research exploring adoption policies, processes, and the experiences and safeguarding of children. However, although much research has children at the focus, little research has been conducted into the experiences of approved and waiting adopters. Where research has included adopters, focus tends to be on how adopters can aid an adoptive placement and what support they can provide to an adoptive child. In this article, the experiences of approved and waiting adopters are at the centre. This article reports on a digital ethnographic research project, which used unobtrusive methods to conduct a thematic analysis of over 600 posts made by waiting adopters on publically available UK online adoption forums in 2015. Online posts discussed the perceived over‐recruitment of adopters; the decision‐making behind adopters' initial preferences; and the negative emotional effects of the waiting period following approval. This article argues that more consideration needs to be given to the needs of and support for approved adopters whilst they wait for an adoptive child.     

Organizational factors and child participation in decision‐making: differences between two child welfare organizations

Children in residential care tend to be less content with the quality of care arrangements and participation opportunities compared to children in foster care. This study explored possible differences in social workers' views about child participation and service quality. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test if any differences may be explained by collaboration between professionals' and social workers' work engagement. We found that social workers from residential care services seem more prudent in letting children participate in case planning compared to social workers planning for foster care. Social workers' judgements of service quality were also highly affected by their organizational affiliation, but personal factors such as work engagement may also play a part. The differences we found regarding social workers' attitudes towards participation and their rating of service quality are associated with organizational culture. Understanding how organizations shape social workers' decisions to include or exclude children in care planning may help gain a more comprehensive understanding of what is needed to take the participation agenda forward.     

The inclusive family support model: Facilitating openness for post‐adoptive families

Open adoptions have increased over the past few decades, and although guidance for considering and creating open adoption agreements exist, one area of needed post‐adoption support is helping adoptive birth/first families navigate open‐adoption relationships after finalization. Adoption agencies have a responsibility to assist adoptive parents, who may have fears and concerns about openness, see the potential benefits rather than only the challenges. This article describes a practice model designed by one agency to help families navigate post‐adoption openness. The Inclusive Family Support model is conceptualized through the theoretical perspectives of family systems theory, ambiguous loss and disenfranchised grief, and the transtheoretical model of change. We highlight the major dimensions of the model, how it will be implemented and evaluated at one agency, and discuss implications for practice and policy.     

Nonresidential fathers with children in foster care: A descriptive study in the United States

This study used the data from 64 nonresidential fathers who had their children placed in foster care to describe their characteristics. The survey included questions about demographic background and personal challenges, the father's involvement with his child in foster care, the father's relationship with the mother, barriers to the father's involvement, and the relationship with child welfare agencies and workers. The average age of the participants was about 39 years, and the majority of them were African American. About 70% of the fathers reported low levels of education. Almost 69% of fathers reported frequent face‐to‐face contact with their children. On average, the participants were arrested 2.6 times, and it ranged from 0 to 34. More research is necessary to learn more about these fathers, develop programs to help them become a viable source for permanency option, and become more involved in their children's lives.     

Access to Childcare in Europe: Parents' Logistical Challenges in Cross‐national Perspective

A burgeoning comparative literature has identified the centrality of childcare policy and provision in promoting parental, and specifically maternal, participation in paid employment across countries. This literature has focused on the importance of macro‐level institutional arrangements, with a special emphasis on variation in availability of, and access to, formal early childhood education and care services. However, there has been limited comparative exploration of what this means in practice at the micro‐level: the everyday challenges parents face when attempting to navigate the childcare system and the labour market simultaneously. Taking inspiration from human geography literature on the concept of ‘space–time fixity’, we present cross‐national findings on the logistical challenges of arranging childcare. Evidence is drawn from interviews with parent‐ and childcare‐related organizations in six European countries: Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK. Our research provides a richer understanding of childcare availability than would a sole focus on formal childcare services, by elucidating the difficulties parents face in organizing access to these services, which can be a challenge to some extent even in contexts where childcare services are comprehensive and affordable.     

High‐frequency family contact: a road to nowhere for infants

Understanding the practices which support the best interests of infants when placed in out‐of‐home care in the first year of life is a significant challenge. A study based in Victoria, Australia, explored the practice by the Children's Court of ordering high‐frequency contact (4–7 days a week) with the infant's mother and father when they are placed in care in the first year of life. A literature review revealed little attention to the issue of frequency of family contact for infants. An audit of case files of all infants in care in mid‐2007 showed that at 1 year follow‐up, there was no difference in the reunification rate for children with a period of high‐frequency contact and those with less contact with their mothers and fathers. Focus groups revealed deep divisions of opinion about high‐frequency family contact which are played out in the adversarial Children's Court system in Victoria. The study highlights the complexity of understanding and supporting the attachment relationships at this critical period in the infant's life.     

Openness and Contact in Adoption: A Child-centred Perspective

Correspondence to Beverley Hughes, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, School of Social Work, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL. Summary This paper reports the findings of a study on the views of birthparents on openness and contact and, in the light of the findings,examines the current trend towards a presumption in favour ofdirect contact between birth parents, child and/or adopters.It argues for a child-centred approach which must discriminatemore clearly between the implications for the child of differentpost-adoption arrangements. The assumptions underlying a presumptionin favour of direct contact are critically reviewed.     

‘It's about the whole family’: family contact for children in kinship care

Contact with family for children in care is identified as a right under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, such contact often presents challenges because of the protective concerns that have led to care arrangements being made. The Family Links: Kinship Care and Family Contact research study explored the nature and extent of family contact in kinship care, with a particular focus on the circumstances that create positive contact and foster family relationships. Findings included evidence of a large proportion of parental contact that was negatively affecting children's well‐being, and was sometimes unsafe. By contrast, the frequent contact that children were enjoying with their siblings and wider family was reported to be mostly positive and supportive. Kinship carers described a range of services needed to facilitate more positive parental contact and to enable children to keep contact with significant family members.     

Citizen‐agency versus state‐agency at the frontline in prisons and probation services: A systematic literature review

Street‐level bureaucrats play a key role in the delivery of public services to the citizens with whom they interact. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta‐Analyses approach, we rely on a street‐level perspective to report a systematic review of 46 studies about officer–offender interactions in prisons and probation services. In doing so, we examine how correctional officers articulate state‐agency – whereby they focus on the implementation of rules and policies – and citizen‐agency – whereby their decisions regarding offenders are based on judgements of offenders' worth. Our results provide evidence that frontline work in prisons and probation services stems from a mix of citizen‐ and state‐agencies in which the former is prioritized over the latter: when rule enforcement allows it, correctional officers often make discretionary decisions based on professional judgements rooted in professional norms. In this respect, the managerial and actuarial approach to risk management and public protection involved by contemporary correctional reforms comes with new role expectations that conflict with correctional officers' rehabilitative ideals. At the same time, the literature provides many instances of officers coping with workload in order to meet policy objectives and organizational demands while maintaining satisfactory working conditions. In other words, there is an increasingly elaborate and fragile articulation of state‐ and citizen‐agencies at the frontline, in prisons and probations services. We conclude with some implications and an agenda for future research.     

Prosodic Modification and Vocal Adjustments in Mothers' Speech During Face‐to‐face Interaction with Their Two‐ to Four‐month‐old Infants: A Double Video Study

The purpose of this study was to examine 32 mothers' sensitivity to social contingency during face‐to‐face interaction with their two‐ to four‐month‐old infants in a closed circuit TV set‐up. Prosodic qualities and vocal sounds in mother's infant‐directed (ID) speech during sequences of live interaction were compared to sequences where expressive behaviours were decoupled by presenting either the mothers (Replay 2) or the infants (Replay 1) with a replay record of the partners' former behaviour in a Live 1–Replay 1–Live 2–Replay 2–Live 3 design. Overall, the mothers produced significantly higher amount of ID speech during the live sequences. Compared to the Live 1 sequence, there was a significant reduction in mothers' ID speech during both replay sequences. However, the mothers only recovered ID speech after the Replay 2 sequence, not after the Replay 1. These findings suggest that the emotions signalled by the mothers' ID speech is affected by the contingency of the infant responses.     

Governing Nature: The Re‐Regulation of Resources,Land‐Use Planning,and Nature Conservation*

The ongoing neoliberalization of local and regional economies is contributing to quite profound changes in the ways resources, land uses, and nature are managed. Consider in this regard the changing role of the state ¹ 1Hereafter the term “state” refers to a national or federal government as distinct from, e.g., “State of New Jersey”. within North America and Europe. For a good part of the 20th century, state intervention in land‐use planning, resource management, and nature conservation was motivated primarily by national development goals, including a desire to ensure the territorial‐economic integrity of the nation state. Although there is always variation within countries resulting from such factors as the uneven spatial distribution of natural resources, the variety of arrangements for allocating powers and responsibilities among territorial units of government, and different cultural attitudes toward nature, there was nonetheless a discernible trend toward the nationalization (Europe) or federalization (United States) of resource management, land‐use planning, and nature conservation. At the very least, in most countries the state played a strong coordinating, regulatory, and financial role in relation to the management of nature within its territory.     

From Street‐level Bureaucrats to Street‐level Policy Entrepreneurs? Central Policy and Local Action in Lottery‐funded Community Cancer Care

Recent contributions to the policy implementation literature have applied Kingdon's model of ‘policy windows’ to the implementation of policy on health inequalities in the UK, and have identified the key role played by ‘policy entrepreneurs’ at local as well as national level. Despite this, the picture that emerges is of frustration of central policy intentions at the local level, alongside frustration of local aspirations by the centre. This article explores the relationship between central policy and local implementation in the context of a Lottery‐funded initiative to develop community cancer care in the UK. We examine the relationships: between the BIG Lottery Fund and central government; between BIG and the cancer care projects it funded; and between the projects and their local economy of cancer care. We found evidence of success both in vertical cascading of policy and in local policy innovation; 83 per cent of projects succeeded in obtaining continuation funding at the end of their Lottery funding. We suggest that this was due, in part, to two features of Lottery funding and accountability that combined to differentiate it from the other policy initiatives studied. They meant that projects were ‘buffered’ not just from national policy churn, but also from competing local priorities. In the ‘protected space’ that was thus formed, ‘street‐level policy entrepreneurs’ played a key role in developing cancer care innovations for adoption by mainstream funding agencies.