Research Review: In a rush to permanency: preventing adoption disruption

Since the late 1990s, US, UK and Canadian policy have increasingly focused on improving permanency outcomes for looked‐after children. Although the ideal permanency outcome of reunification is attained for about half of the children entering out‐of‐home care, an increasing number of children are adopted each year. The vast majority of adoptions are stable and secure, but concerns about adoption disruption haunt child welfare workers when making this important permanency decision. Despite a variety of definitions employed in the literature, adoption disruption is a general term used to describe the failure or breakdown of an adoptive child’s placement. Studies dating back to the 1970s have reported adoption disruption rates and the characteristics associated with those involved in such cases. This paper reviews available research, principally from the United States, and offers possible explanations for the wide range of reported disruption rates in the literature. After reviewing the research, practice implications for improving adoption outcomes and suggestions for future research are presented.     

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.     

After Safety,What is the Goal of Child Welfare Services: Permanency,Family Continuity or Social Benefit?

Child welfare services have multiple goals, including child protection, family continuity, and achievement of legal permanency so children can end their involvement with child welfare services and have a lifetime family. These goals are not all achievable to the same extent in all cases. American child welfare policy has, in the last few years, become more definitive about the priority of child protection above family preservation. Now, situations which involve safety risks that are too great do not require any efforts at reunifying children to their biological homes. Less clear in American child welfare policy and practice is the value to be placed on other factors – particularly when a child cannot return home and will need an alternative adoptive family. Practitioners often emphasize family continuity – that is, the opportunity to maintain contact with the biological parent and extended family members – as a key decision making consideration. Yet, family continuity does not necessarily predict a successful transition to adulthood that is healthy for children or provides social benefits to the community. This paper explores the rationale for expanding child welfare decision making criteria by adding longer-term outcomes and the likelihood that children will eventually generate social benefits.     

Children in permanent foster care in Sweden

The Swedish child welfare system has no permanency planning as we know it from, for example, the United States and Great Britain. Regardless of whether the child is placed in foster care with or without the parents’ consent, the law requires semi-annual reviews and there is no time limit set on reunion. Nevertheless, there are foster children who remain in the foster home throughout the whole of childhood, on terms similar to permanent foster care or adoption. This paper concerns a selection of findings from a research project entitled ‘Is there a difference in being a foster child?’. Foster children aged 10–11 were interviewed three times and the children’s perspective was focused on, complemented by the perspective of their foster parent(s). When interviewed about their relationship to their natural family as well as to the foster family, and about having a sense of family belonging and expectations for the future, 11 of the 22 children perceived their stay in the foster home as permanent and regarded themselves as belonging only to the foster family, although all of the children had contact with their birth parents. The study concerns the children’s views as well as those of the foster parents. The perception of permanency in the absence of a legal option of permanency is discussed.     

'I can see parents being reluctant': perceptions of parental involvement using child and family teams in schools

The purpose of this study is to examine the attitudes beliefs, and perceptions of school and community personnel regarding parental involvement via the implementation of child and family team meetings. Interviews were conducted with 10 school and community personnel in a high school in a small county in the south-eastern region of the USA. Several themes emerged from the data, including the definition of parental involvement, parental work and life circumstances, and parental esteem and position within schools. Findings suggest that school and community personnel hold conflicting beliefs regarding parents' desire and ability to be involved in their children's schooling. Recommendations for social work practitioners' implementation of child and family team meetings in the school context are provided.     

Family participation in child protection practice: an observational study of family group meetings

Over the past two decades, child protection authorities internationally have begun to implement models of family participation in child protection decision‐making. Debate exists about the extent to which these models promote family involvement in decision‐making. While a significant body of research on family and professional experience and perceptions of models of family participation in decision‐making has emerged, there has been little observational research of these approaches. In this paper, we report on observational data from 11 family group meetings (FGMs) in a child protection context in Queensland, Australia. Under Queensland child protection law, these meetings are referred to as an inclusive process for child protection decision‐making and planning. We draw on observational data to analyse how family inclusion in child protection decision‐making is facilitated, or limited, by the FGM process. We consider tensions in the realization of a participatory ethos in child protection services systems and discuss what practitioners can practically do to enhance family participation in child protection decision‐making.     

Achieving permanency for youth in foster care: assessing and strengthening emotional security

For some youth in foster care, the closest family or family‐like relationships are with the foster parents with whom they have lived for extended periods of time. Nonetheless, child welfare agencies often do not explore these relationships and the potential they may hold for youth for legal permanence through adoption or guardianship. Recognizing that social workers often lack resources to help them initiate permanency conversations, Casey Family Services, a direct service child welfare agency in the USA, developed a tool that social workers can use to explore youth's sense of emotional security with their foster parents and foster parents' sense of claiming and attachment with youth in their care. The research literature that suggests that emotional security is a critical component of successful permanence provided the foundation for the development of the Belonging and Emotional Security Tool (BEST). When used with youth and foster parents, the BEST was found to advance meaningful permanency conversations. The authors provide case examples of its use and discuss future directions for using the BEST and broadening its application.     

Nonresidential fathers with children in foster care: A descriptive study in the United States

This study used the data from 64 nonresidential fathers who had their children placed in foster care to describe their characteristics. The survey included questions about demographic background and personal challenges, the father's involvement with his child in foster care, the father's relationship with the mother, barriers to the father's involvement, and the relationship with child welfare agencies and workers. The average age of the participants was about 39 years, and the majority of them were African American. About 70% of the fathers reported low levels of education. Almost 69% of fathers reported frequent face‐to‐face contact with their children. On average, the participants were arrested 2.6 times, and it ranged from 0 to 34. More research is necessary to learn more about these fathers, develop programs to help them become a viable source for permanency option, and become more involved in their children's lives.     

Welfare Workers' Cultural Models of Domestic Violence

ABSTRACT

Despite progress in policies and services for domestic violence, service use remains lower than the need suggests. This study, an analysis from a larger project on social service providers, examines welfare workers' shared beliefs about domestic violence. Using a mixed method design utilizing pile sorts (n = 38; 11 child welfare and 29 financial assistance), a survey (n = 57; 24 child welfare and 33 financial assistance), and in-depth interviews (n = 3; two child welfare and one financial assistance)—workers organized their ideas about factors that contribute to domestic violence, rated the factors along key dimensions of meaning (importance, controllability, characteristics of victims or perpetrators, and cause or effect), and shared experiences of their work with domestic violence cases. Financial assistance and child welfare workers organized their beliefs similarly demonstrating consensus on the importance of the factors, and shared beliefs about the factors that were causes and effects of domestic violence. In interviews, child welfare workers emphasized their focus on systems and collaboration. Despite areas of agreement, child welfare and financial assistance workers did not demonstrate consensus on ideas about domestic violence overall. The findings have implications for practice, specifically for improving responses to domestic violence and increasing the use of domestic violence services.     

Familiar subjects? Domestic violence and child welfare

Historically, domestic violence and child welfare have been seen as largely separate concerns. Over the last decade domestic violence has finally gained a place on social work agendas, partly as a result of linking domestic violence with child protection issues. Whilst welcoming the extent to which domestic violence is being taken seriously, we raise concerns about the dominant feminist perspectives guiding this project. We argue that current feminist theory is based on fixed and essentialist gender and generational categories which are unhelpful in understanding the complexities of family situations and family processes. Instead we argue for the relevance of relational understandings of gender, power and violence developed from feminist post-structuralist and psychoanalytic theorists. In doing so, we challenge accepted feminist understandings of domestic violence, and question the basis upon which dominant feminist approaches claim an unviolable alliance between the interests of women and children.     

Risk assessment and domestic violence – how do child welfare workers in three countries assess and substantiate the risk level of a 5‐year‐old girl?

This paper examine how a sample of 301 child welfare workers in Norway, England and California, USA assess risk in cases of domestic violence. Decisions in child welfare cases are made under a high degree of uncertainty, and by using the vignette method, we explore whether child welfare systems and risk assessment approaches result in different assessment of risk level and substantiations. We find both cross‐country differences and similarities: Norwegian workers consider the risk level to be significantly higher than their peers in England and USA. However, workers' justifications for and identification of decisive factors in the case are strikingly similar across countries. These similarities are observed for both high‐risk and low‐risk assessors, and they may exist due to widespread knowledge about domestic violence and its negative consequences. We argue that the international differences in risk level assessments are due to system differences in the countries studied.     

Research Review: Engaging men: a multi‐level model to support father engagement

While there is a growing body of work on using fatherhood as an opportunity to engage men in strategies to prevent child maltreatment and further acts of domestic violence, there is limited research on engaging fathers in strategies to prevent domestic violence from occurring. To fill this gap in the literature, this paper explores existing father engagement frameworks used in child and family services and supports a multi‐level model of father engagement for domestic violence primary prevention. Drawing together evidence about father engagement from a range of studies, including the more general parenting literature, we describe factors that influence father engagement based on an analysis of the literature. These factors include accessibility, staff attitudes and behaviours, programme marketing and the format of service provision.     

A Review of Research on Welfare and Domestic Violence

In this article we review the growing body of research literature on domestic violence and welfare. We summarize and critique the existing research on domestic violence and welfare in several areas: prevalence of domestic violence among women receiving welfare; the relationship of domestic violence to theiremployment; and physical health and mental health, child support, andevaluations of policies and programs. We also raise some methodological concerns that can inform interpretation of existing data. We examine the relevance of the research for practice and policy, particularly for the implementation of the Family Violence Option. This review includes published research as well as unpublished studies presented at recent conferences.     

What do service users think of evaluation? Evidence from family support

Programme evaluators increasingly strive to capture how service users experience child and family welfare programmes. Yet user involvement is rare in a more routine form of evaluation: performance measurement. This paper considers how service users' perspectives can help improve the performance indicators that inform child and family service funding, management and planning. Qualitative research, conducted in family support contexts in New South Wales, Australia, identifies five user‐defined domains upon which indicators can be based. As well as showing how parents judge service quality and outcomes, the findings also show how they experience data collection, and how they prefer to participate in the routine performance measurement and monitoring that informs child and family welfare provision.     

Preventing Domestic Violence in the South Asian Context: Men's or Family Involvement?

Globally there is a growing tendency to involve men in preventing domestic violence. Since men are the main perpetrators of violence against women, proponents of men's involvement argue that men must be involved to prevent men's violence against women. Conversely, opponents of men's involvement argue that involving men would not bring about the expected outcome, since men's involvement is challenging, particularly in the cultural context, and men intentionally perpetrate violence against women. In this paper, an attempt has been made to critically justify the suitability of men's involvement and to find a more culturally acceptable alternative for preventing domestic violence against women in South Asia. This article critically discusses theories related to the sociocultural understanding of domestic violence, insightfully presents domestic violence in this regional perspective, argues the pros and cons of men's involvement, and proposes family involvement as a culturally suitable approach to prevent domestic violence.     

Child protection in China: Changing policies and reactions from the field of social work

This article offers a general review of the development of national policies on child protection in China. It offers an in‐depth analysis of related legislation enacted between 2010 and 2015 that have had an impact on child protection and related historical, cultural and legal issues. Furthermore, in the study we examined the emerging role of social work in preventing and responding to child abuse and neglect in China. Major findings of the research include: (i) policies concerning child protection have been highly influenced by Confucianism and its perspective of the child as family property; (ii) child protection regulations on accident reporting, custody transfer, and surrogate care are gradually being refined and improved, although the legal system for child protection is still incomplete and needs further substantiation; and (iii) the involvement of non‐governmental organisations (NGOs) and social workers has enhanced the child protection system. Key Practitioner Message: ? Policies concerning child protection have been subject to an immense impact by Confucianism, placing strong responsibility on family members in providing childcare although the child is viewed as part of the family's property; ? After 1949, the newly founded socialist political structure began to exert a significant influence on welfare and child welfare policies. Because the Confucian perspective emphasised family and parental responsibility, government in China has traditionally not been heavily involved in policies that interfere in the internal workings of families; ? Since the shift toward an open‐door policy in 1979, child protection policies in China have begun to develop, with a child welfare network gradually spreading to cover the majority of children. Moreover, child protection is generally supported by the legal system, within which regulations on accident reporting, custody transfer and surrogate care are gradually being refined and improved. However, despite the huge progress achieved in recent years, there are significant deficits in its implementation and monitoring; ? The involvement of non‐governmental organisations (NGOs) and professional social work services has promoted a child protection system.     

Responding to child maltreatment: Comparison between the USA and China

A recent study estimated that over one‐fourth of Chinese children have suffered maltreatment (Fang et al., 2015 ). However, the current child welfare policy in China is limited to orphans, abandoned children, and children with disabilities. Also, there is very little comparative research in China on Chinese and other countries’ child welfare systems. The purpose of this study was to analyze applicable US and Chinese child welfare policies, identify gaps in Chinese policy regarding child maltreatment, and make recommendations for a policy agenda for improving child welfare in China based on cultural values and existing policy structures. Results show that China has considerable capacity to make improvements in child protective services, foster care, and adoption policies. Based on the results of this study, several implications are provided to develop China's child maltreatment policy to increase children's outcomes of well‐being, safety, and permanency. Key Practitioner Message: ? To understand the background and system of current Chinese child maltreatment policy; ? To review US child maltreatment policy and its implementation to identify gaps in the Chinese child maltreatment system; ? To provide policy suggestions to develop Chinese child maltreatment policy and provide recommendations for social work education and practice in China.     

A programme evaluation of the Family Crisis Intervention Program (FCIP): relating programme characteristics to change

This study evaluated the Family Crisis Intervention Program (FCIP), focusing on crisis, child safety, family functioning and child behaviour problems. Questionnaires were completed by 183 families in crisis and their FCIP worker. After FCIP, the crisis had decreased and child safety had increased. Although problematic family functioning persisted after intervention, improvements were found in parent–child interaction, parenting stress, parental competence and child behaviour problems. Crisis change, safety change and improved family functioning were associated with programme characteristics, especially the therapeutic relationship, analysis of the crisis situation, duration of the intervention and the solution‐focused approach. The discussion addressed implications of this study with regard to outcome measures in the evaluation of family crisis intervention and the importance of particular programme characteristics.