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.     

Parton, Howe and Postmodernity: A Critical Comment on Mistaken Identity

Correspondence to Carole Smith, School of Social Work,, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, Dover Street Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL Summary In their contributions to the debate about social work, modernityand postmodernity Parton(1994) and Howe (1994) argue that therecent changes in social work practice can best be understoodas features of, or responses to, the postmodern social orderin which it is located. This has led, they argue, to an increasingfragmentation of the profession and an undermining of its formalknowledge base. We will argue here that, not only does suchan argument oversimplify the nuances of the ‘postmodernity’question, but it represents a misreading of the pressures affectingpractice at this time, which are more properly attributableto the operation of the discourses and ideologies of a particularphase of late capitalism and high modernity.     

Dying and Bereavement, Spirituality and Social Work in a Market Economy of Welfare

Correspondence to Margaret Lloyd, School of Social Work, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL Summary This paper examines the contribution of social work practiceto the care of people who are dying or bereaved. It considerscurrent challenges to traditional practice arising from societaland organizational change, reaffirming the importance of thesocial work role but arguing that, in order to face those challenges,social workers must broaden their perspective to incorporatea spiritual dimension. The paper draws on a research study conductedby the author.     

A Profile of Adult Placement Carers

Correspondence to Andrew Gage, Manchester City Council Social Services Department, Adult Homefinding Team, Fenham, 5 Moorfield Road, West Didsbury, Manchester M20 8UZ. Summary This study examines the social and personal characteristicsof the people providing support in their own homes (adult fostering)to people with severe learning disabilities. Comparisons aremade with the general population on social and personal areas.A typical carer is identified and the results lead into issuescurrently affecting carers. Links are drawn between carer characteristicsand service user quality of life which require further study.     

Accommodation and Employment: A Survey into the Circumstances and Expressed Needs of Users of Mental Health Services in a Northern Town

Correspondence to Barbara Hatfield, Mental Health Social Work Research and Staff Development Unit, University of Manchester, Department of Psychiatry, Mathematics, Tower, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL. Summary A sample of 120 mental health service users in a Northern Townwas interviewed about satisfactions and expressed needs in arange of life domains. Most of the 120 users were male, in theolder age ranges, and not in current partnerships. Most hadservere and long-term conditions. Living situations includedhospital wards, hostels, a group home, living with family orfriends, and living alone. The domains of accommodation andemployment are discussed in this paper. The majority of peopleexpressed themselves as ‘satisfied’ with their accommodation,although a sizeable monority were not satisfied. Lack of choiceof alternatives emerged as an underlying feature of ‘expressedsatisfaction’. A sizeable group expressed the need forhelp in obtaining employment, particularly those living in thecommunity. It is argued that for consumer choice to have a realisticmeaning, people with severe mental illnesses need the experienceof choice from more than one alternative.     

A Study of Post-Adoption Contact in Compulsory Adoptions

Correspondence to Murray Ryburn, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT Summary This study examines post-adoption contact between adopted childrenand their birth relatives where adoption orders have been madeagainst the wishes of birth parents following contested courthearings. This area of adoption practice has received very littleresearch attention and the results of this study are surprising,indicating unexpectedly high levels of post-adoption contact.     

What Makes Good Foster Parents?

Correspondence to Brian Minty, Lecturer in Psychiatric Social Work, Department of Psychiatric, University of Manchester, Stopford Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT. Summary The assessment of prospective foster parents is an importanttask based on skilled, but largely unevaluated, methods. Thisstudy attempts to describe the characteristics, personal backgroundand motivation of all the foster mothers used by two inner cityteams who had had at least one child placed with them for ayear or more. The chief motivations and childhood experiencesof the foster mothers were compared with ratings made by thefostering officers of their excellence as foster parents. The study confirmed that two motivations for fostering, whichhave often been held to be reasonably good predictors of ‘success’in caring for deprived children, were, in fact, associated withan acknowledgement on the part of experienced fostering officersthat the parents who claimed to act from such motives had agood capacity to fulfil the demanding role of a foster parent:firstly, a desire to parent a child, when it was impossibleto conceive a child of one's own; and secondly, an identificationwith deprived children as a result of unhappy experiences inchildhood—experiences which the foster mothers had hadthe resilience to cope with, and use creatively. In addition,it emerged (somewhat to our surprise) that foster parents whoclaimed to act from motives of social concern and altruism werealso seen by fostering officers to have demonstrated a realability to foster children. Nearly three-quarters of the foster mothers were emphatic thatthe experience of fostering had enhanced the quality of familylife. For childless couples, the satisfaction seemed to comefrom caring for children; but for couples who had children oftheir own, the satisfaction seemed particularly to lie in helpingchildren who had been deprived of a normal home life, and inbringing up children whom they could not see as extensions ofthemselves.     

An Approach to the Management of the Assessment of Practice Placements

Correspondence to Annie Hudson. Lecturer in Social Work. Faculty of Economic and Social Studies, University of Manchester. Manchester M13 9PL Summary This article addresses some of the issues and problems inherentin the assessment of practice placements. and discusses theefforts of one course to devise a method of managing the assessmentprocess. It begins with an identification and brief discussionof those problems, then moves on to review the development ofthe method and describe the system as it currently operates.The second part of the article discusses the need for continuingattention to both the design of the system and its implicationsfor the roles of those most involved, with particular emphasison the role of the tutor. The article concludes by posing somequestions raised therein which have relevance for current debatesabout the future of social work training.     

The Quality of Life of the Chronically Mentally Ill: A Comparison of Public, Private, and Voluntary Residential Provisions

Correspondence to J. P. J. Oliver, Lecturer in Psychiatric Social Work, Department of Psychiatry, University of Manchester, Rm 11.11, Mathematics Tower, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13. Summary A pilot survey was undertaken as part of a long-term investigationof the needs which people with chronic mental illness have forcommunity support. The main purpose of this preliminary exercisewas to develop relevant measures of need. particularly measureswhich give due weight to the assessments which chronic patientsmake of their own quality of life. Results have particular relevancein the light of the ‘White Paper’ on community care,Caring for People and the National Health Service and CommunityCare Act, 1990 because the survey considered patients' experienceof life in three distinct types of resettlement facility: thepublic, the private and the voluntary. While differences inregimes, the personal characteristics of residents and objectivequality of life were noted, no differences in subjective qualityof life (either in general or in specific domains of life) werenoted from one type of facility to another. These results andtheir implications are discussed.     

The Long-term Outcome of Reunions Between Adult Adopted People and their Birth Mothers

Summary Increasing numbers of adult adopted people are searching forand having reunions with their birth relatives. Although a growingnumber of studies now exist that have looked at the search andreunion process, few have examined reunion outcomes over thelong term. The present study investigated the experiences of48 adult adopted people who first had contact with their birthmothers at least eight years prior to the survey. Outcomes wereexamined in terms of the adopted person's evaluation of theirown adoption experience, and the frequency of contact, if any,currently occurring between the adopted person and their adoptiveand birth mothers. Although over half of adopted people werestill in contact with their birth mother eight years or morepost reunion, the number still in touch with their adoptivemothers was higher still. Furthermore, of those still in contactwith both their adoptive and birth mothers, the frequency ofcontact was more likely to be higher with the adoptive motherthan with the birth mother. The results are discussed in termsof the search for identity, filial relationships, genetic relatednessand affectional bonds formed during childhood.     

Huntington's Chorea and the Young Person at Risk

Correspondence should be sent to J. R. Korer, Mental Health Research Unit, Manchester University, Department of Psychiatry, Stopford Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT. Summary Social workers increasingly find themselves involved with familiesin which one or more individuals suffer from genetic disease.Huntington's chorea is such a condition and has serious implicationsfor other individuals, both in the nuclear and extended family.This paper explores some of the likely responses of young peoplein such families and how they can best be helped. A social workerneeds to be aware of the differing responses to varying degreesof risk and how young people in the situation can be advisedand helped. It follows on from an earlier study (Korer and Fitzsimmons,1985) which looked more specifically at family life within thesefamilies.     

Beyond Retroduction? -- Hermeneutics, Reflexivity and Social Work Practice

Correspondence to Susan White, University of Manchester, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, Williamson Building, Oxford Road, Manchester Summary Over the last three decades qualitative research methodologieshave been in the ascent within social science. Yet social workevaluation studies have tended to be quantitative in nature,conventially relying upon the generation of criteria againstwhich interventions are retrospectively judged. The generationof such criteria inevitably depends upon pre-suppositions, whichin themselves go unresearched. As a consequence the .sense makingactivities on which social work interventions depend are renderedimmune from critical analysis. This reflects a broader tendencyfor social work to cling to naive realist epistemologies, whichare arguably obsolete within the interpretive paradigm in whichits activity is properly located. By examining the debates withininterpretive social science, this paper argues for an approachto social work assessment which avoids the pitfalls of naiveobjectivism and the nihilism of anarchic relativism, whilstretaining creativity, imagination and hope.     

The Nature of Child Neglect

Correspondence to Brian Minty, Lecturer in Psychiatric Social Work, University of Manchester, Department of Psychiatry, Mathematics Tower, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL. Summary The paper discusses the nature of child neglect, and draws onthe existing literature to provide evidence that neglect canbe extremely damaging to children. This is in contrast to theviews we hear personally from some social workers: that neglectis simply the consequence of material poverty, or a conditionthat need not arouse the same degree of professional concernas physical or sexual abuse. We report on a study of neglectfulfamilies, in which we have attempted to devise a simple instrumentfor quickly detecting the probable existence of neglect. Useof this instrument confirmed that among families referred toan NSPCC Child Protection Team there was a strong associationbetween physical and emotional neglect. Working on the use ofthe first questionnaire we have developed a second and shorterScale of Parental Caregiving, which has yet to be tested inpractice.     

A Model for the Comprehensive Assessment of Older People and Their Carers

Correspondence to Beverley Hughes, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL. Summary Although local authorities and social service departments arein the process of developing systems of assessment in relationto care management, there has been little debate about the principleswhich ought to underpin assessment processes, nor about thepurpose, scope, and content of comprehensive assessment witholder people. This article discusses these issues and proposesa framework for comprehensive assessment with older people andtheir carers, derived from development work with social workersin a number of local authorities. Of particular importance isthe need for comprehensive assessment to embody meaningful mechanismsfor user and carer participation and empowerment; to acknowledgenot only need and risk but strengths and resources; to regardthe older person as the centre of a network of personal, familial,and social factors which together determine her or his qualityof life and level of risk. The implications for practitionersare examined.     

Split in Two: Experiences of the Children of Schizophrenic Mothers

Correspondence to Jeni Webster, Lecturer in Psychiatric Social Work, University of Manchester, Department of Psychiatry, Williamson Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL. Summary The children and families of 28 schizophrenic women were interviewedto assess the amount of burden they experienced in the formof disruptions and problems as a consequence of the schizophrenia.Different styles of coping emerged within the family patternsthat related to behaviours associated with schizophrenia, therole of the fathers, the stages of development of the children,and the adverse effects on the family and the children.     

Child Protection: Balancing Paternalism and Partnership

Correspondence to Martin C. Calder, Child Protection Unit, Salford Social Services Department, Avon House, Avon Close, Little Hulton, Manchester M38 OLA Summary There have been a great many protracted and heated debates aboutthe practice of state intervention and control of family lifein recent years. Indeed, the Children Act (1989) was draftedafter the Cleveland Inquiry highlighted the lack of consulationwith parents and the lasting effects of ill-considered intrusioninto family life, and embraced the philosophy of partnership.Social workers operating in the child care and child protectionareas need to balance the contradictory notions of paternalismand partnership, in the knowledge that they will be pilloriedby the popular press when they get it wrong. This paper attemptsto contrast the two concepts in their philosophical and socialwork contexts, and moves on to recommend frameworks for helpingto balance them when they are operationalized. It is essentialto consider this particular debate in the wider political andeconomic contexts, particularly where uncertainty and the lackof resources are ever-present features.     

Ethical dilemmas in social research: no easy solutions

Correspondence to Bernard Gallagher, Research Fellow, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Manchester, Dover St., Mancester M13 9PL. Summary Ethical dilemmas have been encountered in many areas of socialresearch and have at times been the subject of much controversy.Despite this, the problem of how to tackle ethical dilemmashas received little attention in the literature. As a result,researchers faced with these dilemmas have little knowledgeto draw upon, and groups associated with research, such as participatingagencies and ethics committees, may not fully appreciate allthe issues involved in dealing with ethical dilemmas. Theseissues are not only philosophical in nature but relate alsoto the methodological and practical implications of followingone, rather than another, ethical principle. The researchersencountered a number of ethical dilemmas in their research inchild protection. By discussing different approaches to solvingethical dilemmas, they intend to show that this is a complexproblem and one which, along with ethics in general, requiresgreater attention in the literature.     

Non-Statutory Mental Health Social Work in Primary Care: A Chance for Renewal?

Correspondence to Malcolm T. Firth, Honorary Research Fellow & Senior Psychiatric Social Worker, 'DEAL', Department of Psychiatric Social Work, 12th Floor, Mathematics Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. E-mail: malcolm.firth{at}mhsc.manchester.nhs.uk Summary The current status of evidence-based practice in the field ofmental health has led some to question the potential for innovationif social work practice is organizationally proscribed or reducedto a dogged adherence to methodological orthodoxy. Conversely,social work's value base is esteemed disproportionately to itsevidence base. Changing service contexts in the UK, particularlythe emergence of Primary Care Trusts as gatekeepers and commissionersof health and social care services, are providing opportunitiesfor social work to develop a new presence and purpose. The authorsdescribe their work in a small-scale service based in primarycare that anticipated these opportunities, by a retrospectivestudy of 120 cases. A new evidence base that derives directlyfrom practice is suggested as a way forward for social workeducation and training, as well as for service and professionaldevelopment.     

A code of ethics for social work and social care research

Summary This Critical Commentary is the final product of the Economicand Social Research Council sponsored seminar series, TheorisingSocial Work Research to appear in the BJSW. The special editionof the British Journal of Social Work published in August 2000carried several key papers arising from the seminar series aswell as reports of some of the events themselves. The responsibilityfor drafting the Code of Ethics for Social Work and Social CareResearch fell to me and although discussed at the Luton Seminarand at the final conference in Manchester, the text presentedhere is much as it first appeared. This is simply to reaffirmthat it has no particular status and is reproduced in the Journalas a prompt to further discussion, precisely the purpose itwas to serve for the seminar series. Before reproducing the Code, it might be helpful to revisitsome of the main points which were raised in the paper presentedat the Luton Seminar which set the context for the Code (Butler,2000).     

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.