The treatment of families in the Australian welfare state, 1984 to 2010

This paper uses Australian Bureau of Statistics' fiscal incidence figures to track trends in the treatment of families with children in the Australian welfare state across the period 1984 to 2010. Our four main findings are that: sole parent families gained while couple families made no net gain; there was no growth in ‘middle class welfare‘; couple families are slightly better off than elderly households in terms of their final incomes, but considerably less well off in terms of their net worth; and stated differences in policy intentions by the major political parties have had little influence on trends in actual government redistribution.     

SOLE PARENT INCOME SUPPORT: CAUSE OR CURE OF SOLE PARENT POVERTY?

The increasing incidence of sole parenthood is justifiably a major concern for policy makers in Australia as elsewhere, not least because it represents an increasing drain on welfare funds. The overwhelming majority of female sole parents, who dominate the sole parent population, and an increasing proportion of male sole parents are in receipt of some form of income support. This article discusses, from an economic perspective, the extent to which the level and availability of income support is an important determinant of sole parenthood and in particular, welfare dependence among sole parents. The Australian sole parent pension program is also discussed and some observations made about the likely outcomes of some of the more recent developments in this program.     

DENIAL AS THE MEANS OF SUPPORTING VIOLENCE

Violence is embedded in Australian culture. Yet versions of Australian history and claims about what it is to be Australian deny such a record. Such denial guarantees that violence will continue: in the treatment of women, children, indigenous people and other vulnerable groups: and through policies which ignore or legitimate brutal or unfair treatment. The means of replacing violence with non-violence depends on attaining social justice through empowerment. This goal focuses on men and emphasises that the debate about an Australian republic is an opportunity to repudiate violence and to set new standards for civil relations in all walks of life.     

Adoption of Vietnamese Children: An Australian Study

This paper briefly reports some of the findings from the first major adoption study involving transracial and transcultural transplantations of children into Australian families. The historical development of inter-country adodption; the world growth of orphan populations; and the controversy and oppostion to adoption across racial arid cultural lines is briefly reviewed. Australian involvement in the adoption of nearly 300 Vietnamese children, of whom 111 were placed in 101 New South Wales families; the outcome of these adoptions; the development and adjustment of the children; and implications of the research are discussed. Positive early outcomes, as well as favourable development and behavioural adjustments, appear to have overcome deprivation, malnutrition and other traumatic ‘early experience’.     

Chronic child abuse and domestic violence: children and families with long‐term and complex needs

It is estimated that up to one million children may have been exposed to domestic violence in the UK, with significant consequences for their social and emotional development in childhood and later life. At a time when the central and devolved administrations in the UK have developed strategies to tackle domestic violence, this paper reports the findings from a study conducted on children in the child protection system with long‐term and complex needs as a result of experiencing domestic violence. The research identifies the characteristics of the children and their families and tracks their careers through the child protection system. The findings indicate that professionals have an awareness of domestic violence, and that younger children with younger parents are most likely to experience prolonged periods in the child protection system. Domestic violence in this context typically co‐exists in families experiencing other difficulties such as substance misuse and socio‐economic deprivation. In conclusion, the paper argues that Government policy and professional practice should primarily be concerned with assessing the risk that men present, rather than the risk that children are at. By reframing professional interventions, men are more likely to be challenged to accept responsibility for their behaviour and the consequences for their families.     

Itinerant Children in the Schools: A Neglected Social Issue

A hitherto neglected area of social and educational research has been the problems faced by itinerant children in their social development, personal adjustment and educational progress. These problems are likely to grow with the increasing mobility of the Australian population. This article briefly explores the issue and reviews research undertaken with geographically mobile families and children of defence force personnel. It recommends further research to delineate the extent of the problems, identify cause-effect relationships and help children and their families to cope with the effects of mobility.     

CALCULATING THE TRUE COST OF PRIVATE SCHOOL EDUCATION: BASED ON A SURVEY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL FEES

The cost of a child's education should not be a mystery to consumers, yet little has been published about the true costs, and it is no simple task for parents to calculate. This paper seeks to fill a gap in the research literature that exists in relation to informing parents and educationalists alike as to the true cost of private school education. The term cost is used in the economic sense as encompassing not only the price paid for the product (school fees) but also the opportunity cost to the family in terms of what they forego in order to finance private schooling. Identifying opportunity cost is a useful means of assessing the impact of factors, other than financial, that are influential in determining whether or not private education is purchased. From a survey of South Australian private schools, we have been able to provide a detailed account of the price variations between the fees charged, as well as identifying a variety of additional ancillary charges. Based on the survey figures, we have projected the amount of money that needs to be taken out of the family budget in order to pay for a child's private schooling. At the time the survey was conducted the cost of private school education across three strata, on average, ranged from $13,400 to $42,246. We calculated that incremental family pretax incomes of between $20,303 and $64,009 would be required to fund this education. The amounts represent an opportunity cost to a family whereby money could be put to alternative uses such as home renovation, an overseas holiday, or a buffer against unexpected life events. We conclude that the outlay is substantial for many families and that greater transparency of all costs is needed for families to make informed financial plans to accommodate the overall cost of education for their children.     

The over-representation of indigenous children in the Australian child welfare system

Similar to other wealthy countries with colonised indigenous populations, Australia's indigenous children, those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent, are seriously over-represented in the child welfare system. The specific dimensions of this problem warrant detailed examination. It is useful to consider factors such as rates of entry to care, length of stay and the nature of services provided in order to understand the problem more fully. This article uses child protection, out-of-home care and juvenile justice administrative data to examine the levels of disproportionality at key decision points in the child welfare system. The data show that child welfare interventions are persistently more intrusive for indigenous children, and that levels of disproportionality have not improved over time. More comprehensive child and family welfare policies are needed to address indigenous disadvantage. Despite calls by indigenous community agencies for more input to decision-making, their participation in the Australian child welfare system remains marginal.     

Ableism and economic rationalism in Australian immigration

This article is an analysis of the current immigration policy in Australia from the perspective of critical social work. The analysis is based on the outcomes of the immigration applications of three families of children with disabilities. It is argued that, as seen in the experience of the three families, Australian immigration policy is markedly underpinned by ableism and economic rationalism, rendering the assessment process to determine immigration eligibility patently discriminatory against people with disabilities and their families. Such discriminatory practice is seen as a challenge for social work practice.     

‘The Whole Family Suffered,So the Whole Family Needs to Recover’: Thematic Analysis of Substance-Abusing Mothers’ Family Therapy Sessions

ABSTRACT

Substance-abusing mothers and their children are more likely to experience a range of social, behavioral, and psychological difficulties. Despite the significant challenges faced by these families, little is known about their experiences in treatment. The current study analyzed 12 sessions of family therapy using thematic analysis to identify common themes that arose during discussion between substance-abusing mothers and their children during family therapy. Mothers’ ages ranged from 28 to 35 years old, and the children's ages ranged from 12 to 14 years old. Four therapy sessions from 3 families were coded for a total of 12 therapy sessions. An ecological framework was used to classify themes, in which themes related to each level of the families’ ecological systems were identified. Thematic analysis of the therapy sessions indicated that mothers and their children primarily discussed topics related to their relational and emotional needs. The findings indicated that mothers with substance use disorders and their children have unique treatment needs that should be addressed when the mother seeks treatment. More research is needed to further clarify and confirm the observations in this study. In particular, future research should include a larger sample and quantitative methodology.     

Aboriginal Children Belong in the Aboriginal Community: Changing Practices in Adoption

The placement of aboriginal children has been the responsibility of white social workers attached to state welfare agencies. Many of these children have been fostered or adopted by white families and have had little or no contact with the aboriginal community. Aboriginal people are now voicing opposition to such practices and are calling for an end to inter-racial adoption. They want the placement of all aboriginal children to be in the hands of the aboriginal community and are seeking to establish aboriginal placement agencies. These, and other demands, were voiced by an aboriginal task group at the recent First Australian Conference on Adoption.     

Do peer effects mediate the association between family socio‐economic status and educational achievement?

Differences in levels of academic achievement according to socio‐economic status (SES), and parental education in particular, have been a persistent feature of Australian education systems. Young people with highly educated parents are more likely than their peers with low‐educated parents to attain high levels of achievement at school. Students with low levels of achievement are less likely than their high achieving peers to complete Year 12 and are more likely to experience negative post‐school outcomes. The SES of the neighbourhood, and in particular, the school attended, has also been found to have an effect on levels of both academic achievement and attainment. For this paper, we conduct analyses of National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy test scores for four cohorts of secondary school students attending government schools in the Australian Capital Territory to examine the associations between parental education, school attended and levels of educational achievement. Our findings show that students with university‐educated parents achieve at much higher levels than their peers with low‐educated parents and that attending a school with a higher proportion of students from educationally disadvantaged families has a negative effect on educational achievement.     

Children's understanding of mental ill health: implications for risk and resilience in relationships

Research shows that having a parent with a mental health problem has associated risks for children, but some families seem very resilient and do not always suffer these difficulties. In order for social workers to be able to support the development of resilience in families who appear to be at risk, we need to understand what factors may ameliorate some of these risks. Research seems to suggest that children who can conceptualize their parent's mental health problem as something 'outside' their representation of that parent as an attachment figure are likely to have better outcomes than children who see the mental-health problem as part of, and embedded within, their representation of that parent. However, in order to develop an understanding of how this conceptualization affects attachment relationships and outcomes, we need to know what children understand by mental ill health. We also need to consider how this conceptualization might be changed, and it appears that parents, other attachment figures and other support figures may play a key role here. This paper provides a selective review of the research area and discusses the mechanisms which may govern this complex process. The review concludes with recommendations for future research and practice.     

Can increased educational attainment explain declining Indigenous fertility?

Prior research shows that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are more likely to have children and have more children, on average, than non-Indigenous women. However, like those of the total Australian population, fertility rates of Indigenous women have been declining since the 1970s. The decline has been more significant in recent years. Between 2006 and 2016, an increasing proportion of Indigenous women postponed childbirth from their teens into their 20s and 30s, leading women to have fewer children over their lifetimes. During the same period, there was a rapid increase in educational attainment among the Indigenous population. This paper examines educational gradients in fertility among Indigenous women and whether the observed fertility decline is linked with the increased educational attainment. Using data from the 2006, 2011 and 2016 Australian Census of Population and Housing and applying a shift-share decomposition analysis, we find that education has been a big driver of falling fertility rates in non-remote areas. In remote areas, education has had a much smaller effect (except for youngest women).     

Key questions in considering guided practice for vulnerable Australian children

Anna Yeatman and Joanna Penglase (August 2004) provide a useful review of the literature on ‘Looking After Children’ (LAC), a guided practice system for children living in out‐of‐home care. In summarising the polarised debate, the authors point to an unresolved situation in which advocates have uncritically adopted individualised care planning, as a way of improving outcomes in child welfare while critics have not offered alternatives for systemic reform. This is an area of troubled social policy and the debate cannot rest here. This paper suggests a number of pressing research questions to be addressed. The urgency of the issues and the characteristics of local service systems mean LAC needs to be evaluated in the Australian context, taking into account the local experience and participation of children, families and their social workers.     

THE IMPACT ON FAMILIES OF REPORTED CHILD ABUSE OR NEGLECT

In order to evaluate the impact upon children and families of reported child abuse and neglect and the subsequent interventions, the casenotes of a random sample of substantiated cases (N=151) dealt with by the South Australian child protection agency were searched. The goal was to identify information concerning service delivery and changes for family members in the ensuing six months. Results relevant to both of these are presented and evaluated. An important corollary finding of this work was the absence of detailed information about outcome in the casenotes. We argue that this absence of feedback to child protection workers and policy-makers is likely to have detrimental effects on both worker morale and the quality of the services provided.     

Economic Stress in Lives: Developmental Perspectives

A major task for research on the social costs of economic stress is to trace how macrosocial changes affect increasingly smaller social units and ultimately those microsocial phenomena that directly influence children in their families. In this paper, we specify linkages between macroeconomic change and children's development by tracing deprivational effects through family adaptations in the household economy and in personal relationships. Our findings from research on children and families of the Great Depression are discussed in relation to an interactional model of the process by which families adapt to stressful times.     

How parents' income,time and job quality affect children's health and development

The advent of the Global Financial Crisis reminds us that modern epidemiological research has consistently demonstrated links between the socio‐economic circumstances of families and children's health and development. Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, this article firstly examines the evidence for intergenerational transmission of socio‐economic disadvantage from parents to young children. It then examines parents' jobs as another source of social inequality. Results confirm that children's healthy development is affected by family income, by parents' hours of work and by the quality of parents' jobs. Job combinations that include long work hours of mothers and fathers and poorer quality jobs are associated with elevated rates of parental mental health problems, less time spent in developmentally important activities with children, and socio‐emotional developmental difficulties for children. The evidence suggests that these effects are greater within low income families. These findings highlight the need for social and economic policies to move beyond simplistic notions of promoting parental workforce participation as a way of reducing the adverse effects of social disadvantage. A more nuanced approach is required that considers the additional impacts of the quality and characteristics of jobs, especially for the parents of young children.