Preparation and transition planning for unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee young people: A review of evidence in England

Most unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people arrive in the UK in their mid teen years. Preparation and planning for transition to adulthood should therefore be at the forefront of the minds of care-givers and social workers. This paper reviews current research evidence on the response of social work services to this group of young people in England, with a particular focus on what is known about the circumstances in which young people may be best prepared for adult life, how they fare in comparison to other young people in public care, and on the challenges presented for pathway planning that arise at the intersection between social work and the asylum determination process. The evidence for England is situated, wherever possible, against evidence drawn from international literature in this field and the need for a broader research agenda (incorporating more longitudinal work on care and leaving care pathways) is highlighted in order to strengthen the evidence base to support policy and practice in this field.     

Social Problems Work: The Cases of Children and Youth

This article reviews the literature on social problems work concerned with children and young people. Social problems work involves assessing particular people, events and circumstances as instances of social problems. We focus on how social problems work is organized within discourses of childhood and youth, how it is a site for holding children and young people accountable, and how normalization is an aspect of social problems work. Our review brings together analytic themes in the literature on social problems and that on children and young people. We also point to topics that might be elaborated upon in future research on social problems work concerned with children and young people.     

Responses of the social work profession to unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the Republic of Ireland

The Republic of Ireland is rapidly developing immigration legislation and policies to respond to its relatively new status as a destination for asylum seekers and refugees within the European Union. New political definitions of asylum seekers and refugees are being constructed in a country with its own history of mass emigration. At the same time, the economic growth that is making Ireland a more attractive destination for asylum seekers and refugees has also fuelled an unprecedented expansion in the employment of social workers. Specialized services are now being developed for unaccompanied children who are seeking asylum. This expansion in the number of social workers and growth in service provision has led to little professional debate about the role of social workers with asylum seekers and refugees. This paper examines the questions raised by the provision of social work services to these children and considers the wider implications for the development of the social work profession and social work practices in Ireland.     

Life's a Gas? The Training Needs of Practitioners and Carers Working with Young People Misusing Volatile Substances

Volatile substance abuse (the deliberate inhalation of substances such as gas fuels, glues, aerosols or other solvent‐based products) by young people does not attract high level attention within the broader arena of drugs education and prevention programmes. Given the prevalence of volatile substances in the lives of vulnerable groups of young people, however, and the risks associated with their misuse, social work education and training might justifiably give a higher profile to the associated needs of young people in need and/or in public care. This paper reports on the findings from a study in England of the training needs of social workers, residential and foster carers in relation to volatile substance abuse by young people, and identifies the implications for further development of training materials and resources.     

Refugee Children in Wales: Coping and Adaptation in the Face of Adversity

This article aims to makes a contribution to redressing a methodological and theoretical imbalance in existing research on refugee and asylum‐seeking children. It draws on two qualitative studies from Wales with children and young people. The samples include unaccompanied minors and children living with families as well as both children who are supported in the asylum system and those who have been granted refugee status. The focus on ecological post‐migratory stressors and coping processes that young people identify as being integral to their well‐being and, once granted status, to how they adapt to settlement includes a selective study of some of the sources of resilience referred to in the children's talk. Recognising the interplay between individual and environment leads to a discussion of both personal attributes and collective cultural identities.     

“When the money's low”: Economic participation among disadvantaged young Australians

As a generational group, children and young people are rarely independent financial actors but are nonetheless active consumers of goods and services related to their social identities and enduring orientations to learning, work and community. Many young Australians, however, do not have adequate access to the financial resources that permit their engagement with youth cultures constructed around commodity consumption nor with services and activities that support their future workforce and civic participation. Furthermore, they negotiate this lack of provision in an overarching political climate that individualises responsibility for disadvantage and its outcomes. This paper draws on stories from over 70 young Australians (11-17) to illustrate how they experience and manage the economic demands of family, schooling and peer cultures. Their accounts add to the growing literature that demonstrates how young people mobilise material and discursive resources but also points to the need for social policy that addresses the multiple material, social, discursive and institutional barriers to their full social inclusion.     

Let's do it! Advocacy,young people and social work education

This paper evaluates a pilot project that aimed to promote the participation of young people in the education and training of social care professionals. An accredited training programme for young people was developed and delivered. The young people involved then participated as educators in a Diploma in Social Work programme. The paper draws on the experiences of project staff, the young people and the social work students, and locates its analysis within the literature on citizenship, children's rights, advocacy and empowerment.     

Is Domestic Abuse an Adult Social Work Issue?

Within a global profession with a stated definition that includes ‘promoting social change and development, social cohesion and the empowerment and liberation of people’ (online), it would be expected that the issue of domestic abuse would be integral to the training and role of all social workers. This article reports on research, which highlighted both a lack of understanding of the role of adult social worker within cases of domestic abuse and also a desire for further training around the issue. However, this article sets out how the current UK (in particular, English) context of social work marginalises the issue of domestic abuse within practice with adults. This marginalisation has been achieved through the construction of domestic abuse as a children and families issue and limited duties, powers and resources within statutory work to support victims/survivors in their own right, rather than as ‘failing’ parents. However, the article argues that the role of social work education should be wider than teaching to the current policy or procedures and instead encourage a wider appreciation of the social, historical and political context. The article concludes with tentative suggestions for how domestic abuse could be considered within the social work curriculum for adult practitioners. This is in acknowledgement that social workers can be well positioned for the detection, investigation and support of those experiencing abuse.     

Introducing a Research Project into Social Work Practice—A Model for the Future?

In this article the author, a social work practitioner, suggests that the knowledge and experience of practitioners and researchers need to be harnessed so that innovative practice can be developed within local authority Social Services. The views of children and young people were sought as a way of enhancing service delivery. Young people were consulted through a Focus Group about the policy and practice of Child Protection Conferences. Interviews were also undertaken with 11 young people who had been the subject of a Child Protection Conference to find out what they thought about the preparation stage, the conference itself and the follow up they received after the conference.

The author concludes that young people can make a valuable contribution to the development of universal services and managers and social work practitioners need to find ways to routinely incorporate consultation with children and young people into social work practice. This has implications for social work education, not only in ensuring that consultation skills with service users are built into the curriculum, but in encouraging innovative practice in the workplace.     

Higher education and civic engagement

This paper focuses on the relationship between social engagement, particularly civic engagement, and education. It is well known that more highly educated people are more likely to engage in voluntary work in formalized settings. It has been difficult to disentangle the effect of higher education from that of family origin and occupational socialization. This paper examines the effects of tertiary education on the social and civic engagement of young people, using the British Household Panel Study. The social and civic activity of young people is observed in their late teens, before entering the labour market or tertiary education, and compared with that of the same young people in their early 20s, after completing tertiary education courses or gaining labour market experience. It was found that the social and civic engagement of young people who would enter higher education was higher in their late teens than that of their peers who did not enter. However, higher education had a small additional effect on civic engagement, for both young and mature students. The children of professionals were the social grouping most likely to be involved in civic activities. The relationship of higher education, professional occupations and family socialization is discussed.     

Young children's reasoning about the effects of poverty on people experiencing it: A qualitative thematic analysis

This study examined how economically disadvantaged children conceptualize the causes and consequences of poverty. The study sample included 30 children (age 6–9 years) who completed individual interviews. Thematic analysis was used to analyze interview data, beginning with initial codes that were then collated into themes. The following themes emerged from coding of interview content: material resource deprivation of people in poverty; academic, social, and emotional consequences of lacking material resources; personal competence of the non-poor and incompetence of people in poverty; and honor and honesty in people in poverty. Perceived trait weaknesses of people in poverty were also discussed but were less prominent than references to external, resource-based attributions for negative beliefs about people in poverty. This study reflects the voices of young economically disadvantaged children, elucidating their beliefs about the causes and consequences of poverty. The findings may be useful to researchers interested in the mechanisms by which poverty impacts children's psychological development and academic functioning as well as to practitioners (teachers, social workers, therapists) who work with low-income children.     

What mental health professionals in Israel know and think about adolescent problem gambling

Mental health professionals are well versed in addressing multiple adolescent risky behaviours and play a primary role in the identification of and referral process and service provision for young people who engage in such behaviours. Given their ‘person-in-environment’ approach, training in multi-sectoral collaboration, and awareness of social policies, social workers are especially equipped to provide needed mental health services to young people. The aim of the current study was to examine Israeli mental health professionals’ awareness of and attitudes towards adolescent high-risk behaviours, including gambling. Child psychologists, social workers and school counsellors (N = 273) completed an online survey addressing concerns related to high-risk behaviours. Findings revealed that social workers perceived gambling as being among one of the least concerning adolescent mental health issues and reported feeling the least confident in their abilities to provide services to young people with gambling problems. The results suggest the importance of youth gambling addictions being incorporated into social work training curricula.     

Speed Mentoring in Teaching and Learning: Young people with experience of the care system mentor social work students

The value of listening and talking to young people with experience of the care system has been recognised as a vital and positive contribution to social work students' learning. A model of co-production was used to develop a series of speed mentoring events whereby social work students placed in local authority children and family settings were mentored by young people with experience of the care system. This tentative review of this small-scale project shares the authors' critical reflections on the value and reliability of this model, for evaluating the outcomes of co-productive mentoring relationships between young people and social work students. The reversal of the power dynamic between student and service user contributed to the unsettling of assumptions about each other and empathy for each other's role. The student authors reflect on learning about the child's experience that has influenced their practice. The mentor authors welcomed the opportunity to participate in the development of ‘young people friendly’ social workers. Suggestions are made as to how this model could be developed to contribute to a more systematic approach to the role of service users in mentoring, advising and contributing to the supervision process of students and social workers.     

Beyond control: the criminalization of African asylum seekers in Israel

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the discursive process of criminalization of African asylum seekers in Israel. The Israeli case illuminates the way that marginalized social groups are constructed as a criminal threat, thus becoming a focal point of moral panic. Using content analysis, in-depth interviews and observations, we assert that the criminalization of asylum seekers is facilitated by their portrayal as ‘infiltrators’ who are beyond state control. State authorities’ ostensible inability to keep asylum seekers under surveillance is dialectically constructed along two main axes: the private space axis and the public space axis. On the private space axis, the asylum seekers are portrayed as unidentified people living beyond the authorities’ field of vision whose largely unreported criminality is directed against vulnerable asylum seeker women and children in the private sphere. At the same time, asylum seekers are portrayed as a prominent, faceless and animalistic presence in public space, a presence that breaches physical-spatial borders as well as social-cultural boundaries, thereby undermining the social order. Thus, asylum seekers are viewed as conspicuously invisible. This rhetoric connects border violation with criminal activity; emphasizes the pent-up potential for violence by asylum seekers; and blurs the lines between criminal threat and security threat.     

QUESTIONS AND HINDSIGHT: WORK WITH ZARA,AN ASYLUM SEEKING CARE LEAVER

Psychodynamic ideas are used to think about social work with an asylum‐seeking young woman with mental health problems. Questions are raised about her needs and our response to them in relation to her individual history, the organisation and the wider socio‐economic context. These lead to reflections on adolescence and the leaving care task, non‐dependence, loss of home and homelessness, fear of madness, attitudes to difference and asylum seekers and institutional racism. Failure and learning from it is also a theme.     

‘Nobody should feel alone.’ Re-introducing socially excluded,cultural and ethnic minority children and young people to educational and vocational opportunity

This article reports on some of the findings from a five-nation study of projects working to re-introduce cultural and ethnic minority children and young people to educational training and work. It focuses upon the work of independent mediators in Anderlecht (Brussels) and Den Helder (Holland) in facilitating communication and collaboration between students, families, welfare and criminal justice agencies, schools and colleges and employers. In particular it considers the mediator's role in bringing together the ‘minimum sufficient network’ of professionals and resources necessary to make an ‘intelligent’ response to a problematic situation and the consequent emergence of new forms of ‘meta-professionalism’.     

青年压力来源与社会支持系统优化策略

现代社会给青年提供了前所未有的发展机遇,也使青年承受着超出以往任何时代的生存压力．2011年,对山东城市在业青年进行的社会心态调查显示：当前青年的压力主要来自经济压力、工作压力、子女教育压力三个方面。研究表明：传统的家庭支持系统是青年应对经济压力和人生重大选择的主要支持力量,非正式社会支持系统和家庭共同构成青年情感支持的主要力量,正式的社会支持系统对青年的支持作用尚未得到充分发挥。建立相对完备的社会支持系统,需要从社会保障、组织覆盖、舆论影响、心理疏导等方面提升优化。     

Children and Poverty in Ireland

SUMMARY: The life chances of children and young people can only be understood in the context of their material circumstances. Through a review of what is known about children and poverty in Ireland today, North and South, this article highlights the causes and impact of poverty and makes the case for more resources to be committed to children and their carers in the interests of both social justice and economic prudence.     

Training issues in churches

The national and local frameworks of the Christian churches in the UK provide important resources to families and to young people and children. To promote awareness and effective responses to child abuse, training needs to address organizational issues and individual learning, and should do so at community, regional and national level. In training within churches, the part played by beliefs and values cannot be overlooked. Key concerns are identified and discussed.