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.     

The relationship between maternal depression and child outcomes in a child welfare sample: implications for treatment and policy

Maternal depression is an extremely important parenting variable in relation to child general health. This investigation addressed the issue of maternal depression as it relates to the lives of children seen by child welfare authorities. Maternal depression was investigated in the context of the increasing rate of children coming to the attention of the London and Middlesex Children's Aid Society. A variety of child outcomes including those of particular relevance to child welfare, specifically disorders of attachment and neglect and physical abuse, school‐related variables, conduct disorder and psychological distress, were investigated. The relative contribution of maternal depression along with measures of socioeconomic status and social isolation to childhood risk was examined. Results indicated that the rate of maternal depression doubled during the years 1995–2001. Maternal depression was related to children entering care through wardship. Additional poor child outcomes such as attention deficit disorder, conduct disorder and emotional adjustment were also related to maternal depression. The findings are discussed in terms of treatment and policies that can lower the risk to children through effective intervention with depressed mothers.     

Caregiver depression and child behaviour problems: A longitudinal mixed effects approach

Caregiver mental health has a powerful influence on child well‐being. Both maternal depression and paternal depression predict behaviour problems in young children. However, little is known about the nature of this link over time. The present study leveraged a large sample of at‐risk families to examine the impact of maternal and paternal depression on trajectories of child behaviour from age 3 to 15. Data came from the At‐Home substudy of the Fragile Families and Child Well‐Being Study, which observed a cohort of children born 1998–2000 in 20 large American cities (N = 1,090). Multiple imputation by chained equations addressed missing data to maximize available information without biasing models. Linear mixed effects models tested the association between caregiver depression and child behaviour over 12 years; interaction models tested whether this association changed as children transitioned into adolescence. Results showed caregiver depression is related with increases in both child internalizing and externalizing problems, and these relationships strengthened over time. Findings inform risk trajectories of distinct behavioural problems, shedding light on the development of child psychopathology and highlighting opportunities for intervention.     

Chemically Dependent Mothers and Their Children

This study identified a profile of women and children from families in which maternal chemical use was either an obvious or the primary reason for referral to a public child welfare agency. Data was also collected on a comparison group of families with no indication of chemical abuse. Findings indicated that the two groups had similar problems and service needs. The drug abusing group faced more frequent and intense personal, social and environmental problems.     

Identifying Mother–child Interaction Styles Using a Person‐centered Approach

Parent–child conflict in the context of a supportive relationship has been discussed as a potentially constructive interaction pattern; the current study is the first to test this using a holistic analytic approach. Interaction styles, defined as mother–child conflict in the context of maternal sensitivity, were identified and described with demographic and stress‐related characteristics of families. Longitudinal associations were tested between interaction styles and children's later social competence. Participants included 814 partnered mothers with a first‐grade child. Latent profile analysis identified agreeable, dynamic, and disconnected interaction styles. Mothers' intimacy with a partner, depressive symptoms, and authoritarian childrearing beliefs, along with children's later conflict with a best friend and externalizing problems, were associated with group membership. Notably, the dynamic style, characterized by high sensitivity and high conflict, included families who experienced psychological and relational stressors. Findings are discussed with regard to how family stressors shape parent–child interaction patterns.     

Emotional labour and befriending in family support and child protection in Tower Hamlets

This paper describes the emotional labour and befriending of families in East London by Family Support Workers (FSWs). The study is derived from an evaluation of the Family Welfare Association's Tower Hamlets Family Support Service. A key finding is that engaging the emotions of families enables high quality and effective support in the family home. FSWs win trust and elicit narratives from families, particularly from mothers and children. The narratives of families are a rich source of informing better practice. In line with Government objectives, the participatory work of FSWs helps to balance understanding on family support, health and child protection. According to Government and research, the early identification of child protection issues is particularly important in mitigating their worst effects. FSWs gain trust and early disclosure on child protection cases. This prevents child care problems from deteriorating into child protection issues. FSWs also act as informal advocates and help to balance social service assessments with the views of families. FSWs take a proactive, non‐stigmatizing, non‐intrusive approach to families. FSWs are sensitive and responsive to the emotions, ethnicity and specific needs of families.     

Child care subsidy and child maltreatment

This study examined the relationship between receipt of child care subsidies and child maltreatment investigations in a sample of low‐income mothers in Illinois. We expected that receiving child care subsidies would have a protective effect on child maltreatment risk and therefore decrease the likelihood of child protective services investigations. Using structural equation modelling, we tested the direct and indirect paths of the receipt of child care subsidies to physical abuse or neglect. We found only direct effects of receiving child care subsidies on both physical abuse and neglect investigations. The findings suggest an important protective role of child care subsidies in the lives of low‐income families.     

Exploring approaches to child welfare in contexts of domestic violence and abuse: Family group conferences

This article sets out to explore service provision for families affected by domestic violence and abuse. For most families where there are child protection concerns, there are possibilities for intervention from child welfare agencies and domestic abuse services, but these have been criticised as having distinct and disconnected practice cultures and orientation. Recognising this divergence, in this paper, we advocate for safeguarding children affected by domestic violence and abuse using the family group conference (FGC) model. This offers possibilities for a coherent response that integrates both child‐ and women‐centred concerns in a holistic approach to family safety and well‐being. Furthermore, it is well documented that safeguarding work involves professionally‐led decision‐making that is pre‐occupied with the management of risk. FGCs, however, promote a partnership approach that engages families in a more democratic decision‐making process. As such, FGCs offer families the opportunity to develop their own safety and support plans for the protection and care of children recognising the family's inherent strengths.     

Avoidance and confrontation: social work practice in relation to domestic violence and child abuse

Action on the relationship between domestic violence and child abuse has been slow to emerge in mainstream child protection agencies. This paper reports a qualitative study of child protection files. Particular attention was given to the issues for Asian families. Initially the numerous strategies which social workers and other professionals at child protection conferences used to avoid the issue of domestic violence are explored. However, there was also a small, but emerging, pattern of child abuse in the context of domestic violence being taken seriously. In each of these cases strong expectations were placed on women to separate from or remain separated from men who were violent. These expectations were backed by 'threats' or the actual accommodation of children often with little interagency support for women undertaking this difficult and dangerous task, or before women were ready to undertake this separation. Suggestions are made about aspects of the organizational context which need to change if good child protection is also to include appropriate protection and support for the child's mother.     

Ethnic Differences in the Effects of Parental Depression on Preschool Children's Socioemotional Functioning

The present study describes the depressive symptomatology of 393 parents of prekindergarten children and assesses ethnic differences in the depression scores of these parents and their differential consequences for children's social competence. Data are drawn from the National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL) classroom study, a national, longitudinal study examining the quality and outcomes of prekindergarten programs operated in schools or under the direction of state and local educational agencies, and the supplemental NCEDL familial and social environments study. Analyses indicated that Latino parents were more likely than African‐American and White parents to be depressed. However, as reported by both parents and teachers, behavioral outcomes for African‐American children of parents with elevated depressive symptomatology were worse than children of their Latino and White counterparts. Interactions between ethnicity and depressive symptomatology emerged in the parent‐child relationship, with African‐American parents with elevated depressive symptoms reporting significantly greater levels of conflict in the parent–child relationship than their non‐depressed counterparts. African‐American parents with elevated depression scores were also less likely to be in marital relationships than their non‐depressed counterparts. Among African‐American families, parent–child conflict served as a mediator of the effects of parental depression on child outcomes. Implications for intervention are discussed.     

An Evaluation of Social Support Intervention 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 PL4 8AA, UK. Summary The significance of maternal depression to social work practicein child and family care has become increasingly apparent inrecent years. Social support, furthermore, is a concept (aswell as a reality) which provides a major focus for social workpractice. Indeed, social support, it is also clear, is of considerableimportance in helping prevent depression. This paper seeks toexamine social support work carried out by social workers inrelation to depressed mothers in child and family care. In particularit seeks to evaluate the quality of that intervention in thelight of key problem areas associated with high levels of supportneeds, the extent to which social workers target support needsthrough direct, indirect and informal supports, and the extentto which particular interventions are associated with a higheradequacy of support experienced by these depressed women. Thepaper finds a certain degree of haphazardness in social workers’targeting of support needs, although in some areas of indirectsupport, in particular, their targeting is reasonably accurate.There is little evidence of any one form of intervention beingassociated with more adequate support with one significant exception,relief care of children. The paper concludes that social workersneed to develop a keener awareness of support deficits so thatthey are targeted better; they need to monitor more carefullyinterventions carried out by other agencies and professionals;and they should look to relief care of children as a major formof intervention to support these women.     

Mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect: does it really make a difference?

Mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect has its origins in the USA, where model statutes for laws designed to introduce this process were first drafted in the early 1960s. Indeed, every state and the District of Columbia passed a child abuse reporting law between 1963 and 1967. Some 10 years later, in 1977, New South Wales was the first Australian state to pass comparable legislation. Mandatory reporting of suspected cases of child abuse and neglect is now in place in all Australian states and territories, with the exception of Western Australia. The question considered in this paper is: ‘What evidence is there that children are abused and neglected less in jurisdictions where mandatory reporting exists by comparison with jurisdictions where it does not exist?’ This question is examined by way of a comparison between two states, New South Wales and Western Australia. This paper also raises questions about the cost of mandatory reporting and the extent to which it diverts financial resources away from support services for families. There is also a question about the new New South Wales child protection legislation that extends mandatory reporting and possible negative consequences for ordinary families. The final question is about the role assigned to health care and education professionals under this legislation.     

“She was accused of colluding with the mother”; the training and support needs of parent‐and‐child foster carers: A qualitative study

Parent‐and‐child foster placements are used to accommodate parents with their children, either when the mother is a looked‐after child or as a setting for a parenting assessment. Despite this being a specialized role with significant potential for affecting outcomes for disadvantaged families, there is currently a lack of accessible learning opportunities for foster carers on the physical and mental well‐being of women with complex needs such as a history of domestic abuse, substance abuse, perinatal mental ill‐health, or having a learning disability. Parent‐and‐child carers experience some unique stresses and value the support of others with similar experiences; this kind of peer support is currently largely absent. This qualitative study has used ten focus groups with foster carers, eight interviews with mothers, and nine interviews with supervising social workers, to inform the development of an online learning resource and a social media‐based peer support network for parent‐and‐child foster carers.     

User-centred responses to child sexual abuse: the way forward?

Two parallel surveys were carried out based in the north-east of England and Cumbria: one ascertaining statutory social work services provided for child and adult survivors of sexual abuse, the other drawing upon the perceptions of adult survivors of child sexual abuse about existing and desirable forms of provision for adults and children. The surveys indicate the need for greater genuine partnership between service users and statutory agencies in the field of child sexual abuse, similar to that which is being pioneered in the field of adult care and disability. A community-orientated response to sexual abuse, centred on service-users, is required if one of the largest social problems facing us today is to be effectively challenged.     

Social work,poverty, and child welfare interventions

The relationship between children's material circumstances and child abuse and neglect raises a series of questions for policy, practice, and practitioners. Children and families in poverty are significantly more likely to be the subject of state intervention. This article, based on a unique mixed‐methods study of social work interventions and the influence of poverty, highlights a narrative from practitioners that argues that, as many poor families do not harm their children, it is stigmatizing to discuss a link between poverty and child abuse and neglect. The data reveal that poverty has become invisible in practice, in part justified by avoiding stigma but also because of a lack of up‐to‐date research knowledge and investment by some social workers in an “underclass” discourse. We argue, in light of the evidence that poverty is a contributory factor in the risk of harm, that it is vital that social work engages with the evidence and in critical reflection about intervening in the context of poverty. We identify the need for fresh approaches to the harms children and families face in order to support practices that engage confidently with the consequences of poverty and deprivation.     

Managing Work and Care: A Difficult Challenge for Immigrant Families

This paper explores the strategies used by immigrant families to reconcile work and care for young children in Finland, France, Italy and Portugal. Drawing upon interviews with couples or lone parents who have children below age ten, it shows that immigrant families rely on a diversity of work/care strategies. These strategies include extensive delegation of care (mostly to formal or non‐familial informal care), negotiation of care within the nuclear family (both partners sharing the care responsibilities as well as older child care), mother‐centredness (mothers cutting back on working hours), child negligence (leaving children alone) and the superimposition of care upon work (taking children to work). Almost all immigrant families, but especially first‐generation ones, suffer from the absence of close kin networks to support childcare, strong pressure to work and from work (long or atypical hours) and various integration problems such as social isolation, lack of information on services, and problems with housing. However, our findings show that migration patterns, among other factors, have a significant impact on work/care strategies. Highly qualified “professional migration” is more associated with extensive paid delegation (often private and high‐cost), “marriage migration” with mother‐centredness, and “unskilled worker migration” with low‐cost solutions supplemented by workplace care, older child care and negligence. First‐generation unskilled worker migrant families are more exposed to occupational and residential segregation, atypical working hours, low earnings and difficulties in managing work and care for young children. Findings point to the still weak regulatory function of the different welfare states in the protection of these families.     

Maternal depression and children’s false belief understanding

Children of depressed mothers show substantial social impairment, which increases their risk for developing depression. Theory of mind understanding forms the basis of social functioning, and is impaired in children of currently depressed mothers. Models of risk emphasize that a history of any maternal depression confers risk to later psychopathology. Therefore, we tested a novel model of the impact of lifetime maternal depression on children’s false belief understanding that accounts for three primary factors that scaffold this understanding: maternal mental state talk, and children’s executive functioning and language abilities. Children aged 41–48 months with a maternal lifetime history of major depressive disorder (MDD; n = 19) performed significantly more poorly on the false belief battery compared to those without (n = 44). Further, lower levels of mental state talk, child executive functioning, and child language ability were significantly associated with poorer false belief scores. However, the relation between maternal MDD and children’s false belief performance was not mediated by any of these factors. These results indicate that maternal depression predicts poorer false belief understanding independently of other crucial scaffolding variables, and may be a social cognitive mechanism underlying the intergenerational transmission of depression.     

Maternal Emotion Socialization in Maltreating and Non-maltreating Families: Implications for Children's Emotion Regulation

This study investigated the socialization of children's emotion regulation in physically maltreating and non‐maltreating mother–child dyads (N = 80 dyads). Mother–child dyads participated in the parent–child emotion interaction task ( Shipman & Zeman, 1999 ) in which they talked about emotionally‐arousing situations. The PCEIT was coded for maternal validation and invalidation in response to children's emotion. Mothers were also interviewed about their approach to emotion socialization using the meta‐emotion interview‐parent version ( Katz & Gottman, 1999 ). The meta‐emotion interview‐parent version was coded for maternal emotion coaching. Mothers also completed measures that assessed their child abuse potential and abuse‐related behaviors as well as children's emotion regulation. Findings indicated that maltreated children demonstrated fewer adaptive emotion regulation skills and more emotion dysregulation than non‐maltreated children. In addition, maltreating mothers engaged in less validation and emotion coaching and more invalidation in response to children's emotion than non‐maltreating mothers. Finally, maternal emotion socialization behaviors mediated the relation between maltreatment status and children's adaptive emotion regulation skills.     

Australian child protection services: A game without end

Hansen P, Ainsworth F. Australian child protection services: A game without end This article argues that Australian child protection services are based on an error of logical typing. Across time, this has led to an over‐reliance on mandatory reporting legislation, a forensic/investigative/prosecutorial model of practice, a risk‐averse organisational culture and zero tolerance of any imperfections in parenting practices which are defined as child abuse and neglect regardless of their severity. All of these positions ignore powerful social stressors that surround complex family situations where abuse and neglect can occur. It is proposed that this error of logical typing is confirmed by the well‐documented fact that Australian child protection services have for more than two decades been unable to prevent or reduce the incidence of child abuse and neglect. For this article, New South Wales is used as the exemplar state.