Experiences of the maternal role and support in mothers with cognitive limitations who have children in placement

In Sweden, when needed, children of mothers with cognitive limitations are placed in foster homes. There is a lack of knowledge about the mothers with cognitive limitations, their experiences of their maternal role, whether they get the support needed to maintain the relationship with their children, and whether the support system is adapted to mothers with cognitive limitations. The aim was to describe the experiences of the maternal role and support given in mothers with cognitive limitations who have children in placement. An explorative and qualitative design was used. Eleven respondents were interviewed with support from a study‐specific guide. A model representing the respondents' experiences revealed one theme “Struggling, dependent and frustrated mothers,” and three categories: I am a mother, I am dependent on an incomprehensible system, and I reluctantly accept my situation. Mothers with children in placement experience a threat to their identity and experience a need to alter their maternal role. They need adapted support to understand the decisions made and facilitate the cooperation with child protection services and the foster home. Offering service adapted to their cognitive limitations could be helpful for the struggling, dependent, and frustrated mothers.     

Practice challenges at the intersection of child protection and mental health

This paper examines the complexity of collaboration between child protection and mental health services, where a parent has a mental illness and there are protection concerns for children. The paper reports on data from focused in‐depth interviews with 36 child protection workers, adult mental health workers and child and youth mental health workers. Data were analysed thematically, using NVivo to facilitate data management and analysis. Two dimensions were identified. The first, the process of collaboration, relates to four factors that assisted the collaborative process: communication, knowledge, role clarity and resources. The second dimension considers the challenges presented to collaborative work when a parent has a mental illness and a child is in need of protection, and identifies issues that are inherent in cases of this kind. Two types of challenge were identified. The first related to characteristics of mental illness, and included the episodic and/or unpredictable nature of mental illness, incorporating information from psychiatric and parenting capacity assessments, and the provision of ongoing support. The second type of challenge concerned the tension between the conflicting needs of parents and their children, and how this was viewed from both the adult mental health and the child protection perspective. Implications for policy and practice are identified in relation to the need for service models that provide ongoing, flexible support that can be intensified or held back as needed.     

Recurrent grief in mothering a child with an intellectual disability to adulthood: grieving is the healing

Much of the literature on mothering a child with a disability focuses on grief in the context of diagnosis, with a paucity of longitudinal studies focusing on ongoing grief as the child moves through the life stages. This qualitative study explores the existence of recurrent grief within the lived experience of six women, in mothering their children with intellectual disability through to young adulthood. Informed by the differing theories of grief and disability, the study considers mothers' perception of the experience of recurrent grief as influenced by personal and societal factors, with a focus on its triggers, its manifestation and its amelioration. The findings have relevance to social work practice, policy and research in revealing the necessity for ongoing support and advocacy for mothers of children and young adults with intellectual disabilities.     

Thrown back: Reintegration experiences of National Guard/Reserve mothers of young children

Few studies have examined the experiences and perceptions of servicewoman mothers and their children, even as an increasing number of them have experienced deployment and combat exposure. The present paper describes a qualitative study that explored National Guard/Reserve (NG/R) mothers' experiences with mothering and co‐parenting during reintegration and their perceived priorities, supports, challenges and needs. Interpretive phenomenological analysis of seven in‐depth qualitative interviews produced themes including reunion and loneliness, the importance of time, help seeking and gendered experiences. Notably, all participants transitioned immediately back into primary caregiver roles upon homecoming, and several described how difficult it was to readjust while privately dealing with unmet mental health needs. Findings underscore the importance of a flexible suite of service options that meet key needs, most importantly, child care, social–emotional support for children and peer‐based parenting support specific to servicewoman mothers. For NG/R mothers, who may live far from base, community‐based services are essential, but as participants described, civilian social workers and other professionals must develop specialized knowledge, skills and experience to provide appropriate support.     

“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.     

‘I want to be better than you:’ lived experiences of intergenerational child maltreatment prevention among teenage mothers in and beyond foster care

The growing body of research on teenage motherhood in foster care has largely focused on the risks involved for both mother and child, yet these mothers depict a much more complex picture of their own experience of becoming and being mothers. The current study employed interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore 18 in‐depth, qualitative interviews from six participants on the meaning and experience of motherhood among teenage mothers in foster care and in the years immediately after ageing out. This study focused on a particular dimension of motherhood: participants' efforts to break the cycle of child abuse and neglect with their own children. Two themes emerged as characteristic of these experiences: (i) treating children well/parenting differently and avoiding the system; and (ii) reducing isolation and enhancing support. Given the increased likelihood of the children of teen mothers – particularly those who have been maltreated – becoming involved with the child welfare system, study findings suggest possible strategies for disrupting cycles of intergenerational child welfare involvement generated by young mothers themselves. Practice implications for addressing possible substance abuse, mental health and relational and parenting needs are discussed.     

Domestic Violence and the Exemption from Seeking Child Support: Providing Safety or Legitimizing Ongoing Poverty and Fear

This article examines the experience of low‐income women on welfare in Australia and the process of seeking child support from a violent ex‐partner, contrasting this with research from the United States and the United Kingdom. Women in Australia who fear ongoing or renewed abuse as a result of seeking child support are eligible for an exemption. However, the exemption policy does not necessarily provide the intended protection of women and children from ongoing abuse and poverty. The exemption policy route also produces an unintended outcome whereby the perpetrators of violence are financially rewarded as they do not have to pay child support. These outcomes are shaped by a complex interaction of personal, cultural and structural forces that make the process of seeking child support for women who have experienced violence extremely problematic. The article demonstrates how in Australia, as in the US and UK policy contexts, the needs of women and their children are compromised by the details of policy specification and the way policies are implemented within the different systems.     

Non‐abusing mothers' support needs after child sexual abuse disclosure: A narrative review

The role of maternal support has been perceived as vital throughout the recovery process of sexually abused children. However, it is important to look at the concept “support” from the perspective of non‐abusing mothers' personal needs. This narrative review of the literature aimed to find out how non‐abusing mothers' need for support in their responses to disclosure of child sexual abuse has been recognized. A comprehensive search on Jyväskylä University Library interface yielded 12 academic articles based on empirical research. These articles were selected from those considered to have sufficiently investigated support for non‐abusing mothers and included a mixture of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed‐method research. The data consisted of peer‐reviewed online articles published in English between 2000 and 2017. Four themes emerged from the thematic analysis: improving the quality of the whole social support network for non‐abusing mothers; being blamed, maternal guilt, and shame; anger; and coping strategies. The findings show that the support needs of non‐abusing mothers are usually explained based on their interaction with sexually abused children. However, it is necessary to listen to women's needs independently of their mothering role. If these mothers are better understood, not only they, but also their children, could be empowered.     

Using Child Services: The Importance of the Mother–Child Relationship and Maternal Social Support

Gaps between children’s need for clinical services and receipt of services create a risk for negative child outcomes, therefore, it is important to identify factors that bolster parental use of child services. Attachment theory lends support to potential power of both parent–child relationship quality and the social support received by the parent in promoting service utilization and ultimately child outcomes. Study 1 uses a sample of 8-year-old children and their mothers to examine the roles of service use as a mechanism linking maternal social support and child behavioral outcomes. Study 2 uses a sample of 12-year-olds and mothers to more closely examine deficits between service need and the role of mother–child relationship quality in explaining the link between maternal social support and service deficits. Overall, this study highlights the importance of maternal social support and the parent–child relationship in predicting child service utilization, with nuanced results.     

The well‐being of children of parents with a mental illness: the responsiveness of crisis mental health services in Wellington,New Zealand

Little is known about how mental health services consider the parenting role and the well‐being of children when assessing parents with acute mental illness. This paper investigated how crisis mental health services addressed child well‐being in the Wellington region, New Zealand. This mixed‐method case study included: (i) an audit of the electronic clinical records of all adults presenting to the crisis assessment team; (ii) interviews with 22 key informants; and (iii) a documentary review. We found that data about children were not systematically collected. Less than half of (49 of the 104) the records of patients who were parents included information on their child's well‐being; only six (6%) contained a specified plan for action. The focus for services was the adult patient. Key informants were unclear about their role. They identified inadequate training and institutional support, inflexible funding models and limited availability or inappropriateness of referral services as problems. They saw a need for children to become more visible, for collaborative working to improve the use of existing services and for new funding models, resources and roles. Existing national policy documents contained little guidance and no practice guidelines were in use. These were lost opportunities to improve support for the parenting role and promote child well‐being.     

Family Configurations and Child-Care Patterns: Familes with Two or More Preschool-Age Children

Objectives . This article examines the extent to which mothers must find child-care arrangements for more than one preschool child and, when they do, the strategies they adopt to juggle their work and family roles. Methods . We use national data from numerous studies with information on fertility and child care among employed mothers with children. Results . We find that it is a common life-course experience for mothers to need child care for two or more preschool-age children. Employed mothers' preferred strategy for child care for their multiple preschool-age children is to place all preschoolers in the same type of arrangement, choosing parental care more often and center care less often than employed mothers with one preschooler. Conclusions . Previous child-care research has ignored the complexities parents face when they must make child-care decisions about all their preschool-age children simultaneously. Child-care decisions need to be studied within the family and household context.     

The bumpy road to ‘becoming’: capturing the stories that teenage mothers told about their journey into motherhood

Understanding the experience of women who become mothers during their teenage years is central to ensuring that the support that is offered is appropriate to meet their needs. This paper reports on a small part of a larger ethnographic study that captured the lived experience of young mothers who were between the ages of 16 and 19 years that potentially typifies and illuminates the experiences of young women who become mothers in their teenage years. By collecting data from narrative interviews as well as participant and non‐participant observations over an extended period of time it was possible to identify how the young women experienced a range of difficulties as they made their transition into motherhood. Drawing on the findings, this paper argues that this transition for teenage mothers can be significantly different from the experience of older mothers, and it identifies the importance of appropriate support to mediate the challenges that they face. Understanding the young women's journey to ‘becoming’ is critical when planning services because if their experience of support is negative, it can lead to increased levels of maternal stress and reluctance to engage with support services.     

What parents value from formal support services in the context of identified child abuse

Parents whose children are identified as having experienced or being at risk of experiencing significant harm potentially provide an invaluable dimension to our understanding of the circumstances that result in child abuse or neglect and how best to respond to these invariably complex situations. This paper reports findings from a study of the experiences of six parents.
In-depth interviews were conducted with four mothers and two fathers who had been referred to an intensive family support service by the Queensland statutory child protection authority. Using a critical ecological perspective, the study focused on identifying and understanding the experiences of the parents in using formal family support services, including aspects of service delivery that were helpful or unhelpful. Parents also commented on their experiences of statutory child protection services.
Service components and worker qualities that parents identified as being helpful included being accessible, targeted and integrated and being able to meet a continuum of needs, from a micro to a broader level. Their reports provide invaluable insight into how formal family support services, including child protection services, can better meet the needs of parents in addressing the recurring problem of child maltreatment.     

信息沟通技术与母职 一项关于香港菲佣的实证研究(英文)

随着全球化的发展和跨国移民的增多，跨国母亲已经成为家庭研究和性别研究的重要课题之一。香港的菲律宾家庭佣工，作为香港一个庞大的跨国母亲群体，近年来也引起了学术界广泛的关注。本文探讨香港的菲佣，作为跨国母亲，如何利用现代化的信息沟通技术（手机和因特网）重新建构她们的母职。本文基于笔者于2010年在香港进行的定性研究获得的资料，从两个层面探讨现代化信息沟通技术与母职建构之间的关系：（1）香港的菲佣如何利用手机和因特网所带来的便利沟通为他们远在菲律宾的孩子提供情感支持和帮助；（2）香港的菲佣如何利用现代化信息沟通技术教育并指导孩子的成长与发展。通过比较信息沟通技术在香港普及前后菲佣的母职建构方式，我们发现，频繁且便利的远程通讯使得跨国母亲们能够克服地理隔绝带来的不便，为她们的孩子建构一种母亲的‘虚拟在场’。通过这种‘虚拟在场’，跨国母亲们从情感和道德两个层面履行其母亲职责。在情感层面，菲佣们利用手机和因特网传达她们对孩子的关心和问候、为生病的孩子提供情感支持、并且为孩子们解决实际的问题；在道德和教育层面，菲佣们利用现代沟通技术指导孩子的功课、帮助他们养成良好的生活习惯，并对孩子们的一些不良行为进行教导和规训，不仅重新建构了她们的母职，而且为“母职”一词提供了新的诠释。     

Strategies for survival: users' experience of child welfare in three welfare regimes

This paper draws on research into child welfare services in France, Germany and England which compares the subjective experience of mothers who have been in contact with family support and child protection agencies in the three countries. The mothers' stories suggest that successful help‐achieving strategies differ according to the nature of the child welfare regime, and that behaviour which is effective in getting a good response in one country may work less well elsewhere. The stories of two mothers in each of the countries have been chosen to demonstrate how the structures of different social welfare regimes affect the efforts of welfare users to get the help they need.     

The Cost of Parenthood: Unraveling the Effects of Sexual Orientation and Gender on Income*

Objectives. Prior research has repeatedly shown that parenthood affects employment outcomes; mothers have, on average, lower wages and are less likely to be hired than childless women. Some research indicates that this effect of parenthood on employment outcomes is dependent on sexual orientation. In particular, lesbian mothers might be treated more like childless women by those making employment decisions. This article examines the degree to which the lesbian wage advantage can be explained by lesbians avoiding the motherhood wage penalty experienced by heterosexual women. Methods. Drawing on 2000 U.S. Census data, this issue is first explored via ordinary least squares regression equations that estimate the effect of having a child present in the household on income. The Blinder‐Oaxaca method is then employed to decompose the earnings differential between heterosexual and gay individuals. Results. Results indicate that lesbians appear to experience a motherhood advantage that increases their wages by approximately 20 percent. Further, results support the notion that lesbians receive different returns to the presence of children in the household than do heterosexual women. Approximately 35 percent of the wage differential between lesbians and heterosexual women is attributable to differences in returns to child rearing. Conclusion. These findings have relevance for state and federal anti‐discrimination laws and work/family policies, as they provide further insight into the role that gender, and gender‐based assumptions, play in determining employment outcomes.     

Family support services buffer the effect of child welfare notifications on child removals

Previous studies have found mixed results about the effects of family support services within the child protection system. The purpose of the study is to examine whether family support services are associated with the need for child removals at the community level. The material of the study consists of Finnish municipalities (N = 292) and their child protection indicators. Linear regression analysis was conducted to analyse the associations between the dependent variable (child removals) and the main predictors (child welfare notifications and family support services). It was found that family support services are associated with child removals. The more children there are in family support services, the more there are also child removals in a municipality. The key finding of the analysis is that a higher rather than lower proportion of clients in family support services buffers the increased effect of demand (child welfare notifications) on child removals better. In this sense, the demand for child removals is not only associated with the characteristics of children and families but may be partly explained by the role of family support services in a municipality. The present study underlines the significance of a system-level approach to child protection.     

Safe at home? Housing decisions for women leaving family violence

Internationally, domestic violence policy has shifted towards supporting women to stay at home with the perpetrator of violence excluded. However, the practical realities indicate that this is a complex arena in which the rhetoric of rights for “women and children to stay in their own home” needs to be underpinned by additional support to provide safety and protection for those choosing this option. The current study examines decision making about accommodation options and the role of civil protection orders among 138 women accessing domestic violence support services in Victoria Australia. It shines a light on the intersection between justice responses and the housing needs of women and their children leaving a violent relationship. Our findings reveal that for this sample of women, staying in their own home left them more open to breaches of intervention orders than those who re‐located. In spite of the frequency of breaching, a majority of women believed that they were safer with the protective order in place. We conclude that supporting women to “stay at home” with the perpetrator removed may be a pathway to safety for only a minority of women particularly if support from police and courts is not proactive and reliable.     

How do Australian adult mental health clinicians manage the challenges of working with parental mental illness? A phenomenological study

Adult mental health clinicians face a range of challenges that hinder their use of family‐focused practices when working with consumers who are parents. The purpose of this study was (a) to examine clinicians' experiences when working with parents and (b) identify strategies they found to be effective when working with parents. Eleven Australian mental health clinicians were recruited who regularly worked with consumers who are parents. Semistructured interviews were conducted within a qualitative paradigm and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Themes were identified which related to (a) managing sensitive parenting conversations, (b) making decisions about child safety in unclear or unpredictable situations, and (c) working with child protection services. Participants had developed strategies for managing the challenges of the first two practice issues and suggested organizational changes that could facilitate collaboration with child protection services. The findings highlight that the challenges of working with parents with mental health issues cannot be addressed with a one‐size‐fits‐all approach. Initiatives to facilitate the effective support of parents and their children need to be informed by contextual factors, including clinical practice.