Interventions to improve supervised contact visits between children in out of home care and their parents: a systematic review

Although the importance of contact between children in care and their parents, when safe, is accepted, there is limited research about supervised face‐to‐face contact. There is no literature that has systematically critiqued how supervised contact can be best delivered. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the evidence for interventions aimed at improving the quality of contact visits between parents and their children who are in out‐of‐home care. Twelve studies were included in this review. Each study was graded and assigned scores according to the presence or absence of each of seven criteria. The studies demonstrated key similarities in the types of interventions provided, although delivery varied across group, individual and educational interventions. Parents reported improved capacity to manage their emotions and parents' satisfaction with the programmes was high. Although there was a lack of large scale, methodologically rigorous studies with long‐term follow‐up, some promising findings were identified: the literature indicates individual family support and group programmes have the potential to improve parent–child relationships and the quality of contact visits. This review suggests that future studies build on current evidence by addressing their methodological limitations and evaluating interventions that can be tailored to meet the needs of individual families.     

The impact of parental incarceration on children's care: identifying good practice principles from the perspective of imprisoned primary carer parents

Parental incarceration has wide‐ranging impacts on families. One key effect may be disruption to the care and legal custody of children, yet few studies have examined processes and outcomes relating to care planning for children of prisoners. This paper presents findings of interviews with 151 primary carer prisoners in two Australian states which aimed to address this research gap. The study examined care planning for children upon parental arrest, sentencing and imprisonment, stability of care arrangements and primary carer prisoners' involvement and satisfaction with care planning. Around one third of prisoners had discussions regarding children's care arrangements at arrest and imprisonment, although the issue was more commonly raised at sentencing. While there was much variation in the stability of care arrangements, children placed in out‐of‐home care experienced the most instability. A minority of prisoners reported being involved in care planning and decision‐making for children upon imprisonment, and around one third rated care planning process poorly. Prisoners were more satisfied with care planning when there were fewer movements of children, where prisoners felt involved with decision‐making, and when police officers, lawyers and corrections staff inquired about the welfare of their children. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

Promoting stability and continuity of care for looked after children: a survey and critical review

This paper reports on a two‐pronged research study: a critical review of reported research concerning continuity and stability for children looked after away from home, and a telephone survey of UK managers responsible for looked after children. The review found limited research in this specific field that met the criteria of the critical review, but reports some evidence in favour of sibling co‐placement, kinship care, parental participation, professional foster care and individualized, multidimensional support. The survey revealed a culture of innovation in this field in the UK voluntary and statutory sectors, but with little evaluation of the independent effects of new interventions. The paper places the research in the context of current policy initiatives in the UK and discusses the implications of the findings for research and practice.     

Parents' Experiences During the Family Reunification Process: A Chinese Context

Family reunification is always an integral part of a permanency plan and is a preferable outcome for children in care. However, reunification is not straightforward, involving many subsequent negotiations between parents, children, and social workers, sparking various emotions and struggles among the involved parties. Current research on parental experiences of family reunification is predominantly of a cross‐sectional nature, and rarely reflects the parents' experience throughout the process. This paper reports the results of a qualitative panel study aimed at exploring the experiences Chinese parents have during the process of children returning home from care. Seven parents were recruited. Data was collected at three time points and informants narrated their experiences from both a retrospective and prospective perspective. The findings showed that all parents struggled to become competent caregivers. Three salient themes were identified: inferiority, adjustment, and challenge. The parents' experiences revealed the prevalence of stigmatization among social work professions toward parents. This study recommends re‐focusing the policy direction and intervention strategies of out‐of‐home care from family coercion to family support.     

Center‐Based Early Childhood Education and Care in China: Policies,Trends, and Implications

The development of early childhood education and care (ECEC) policies and programs in China has been closely intertwined with social, economic, and demographic changes. This article systematically reviews center‐based ECEC policies and programs in China and presents the major trends and implications for future research and policy. The focus of China’s ECEC policy has shifted from health and custodial care to nurturing and child‐centered education since the economic reforms and the one‐child policy were launched in the late 1970s. Empirical data show that the costs of ECEC services have been continuously increasing. Both the number of children enrolled and the overall enrolment rates have declined during the late 1990s but they have increased slightly since 2001. The ECEC programs vary substantially in every regard by urban or rural residence, type of organization, and region. The quality of center‐based ECEC programs in China is still quite low, indicated by their high child–teacher ratios and low levels of education among principals and teachers relative to developed countries. Children living in rural areas or less developed regions and those from low‐income families suffer from fewer resources and lower quality ECEC as compared to their peers. These problems must be addressed by future policy interventions.     

Suicidal behaviour in transition‐aged youth with out‐of‐home care experience: Reviewing risk,assessment, and intervention

The rates of suicidal behaviours in youth with out‐of‐home care experience, particularly those who are on the verge of emancipation, appear to be alarmingly high. The purpose of the current study is to highlight the rates of suicidal ideation and behaviour in these youth, illuminating the empirical risk factors that may increase their vulnerability. We offer a review of screening measures and suicide interventions that may hold promise for administrators, practitioners, and researchers who wish to provide comprehensive assessment for transition‐aged youth with out‐of‐home care experiences and effectively treat those who may be at the highest risk.     

Problematising Australia's Nanny Pilot Program as evidence‐based policy: A reconstruction of the problem of childcare

In a notable departure from long‐standing childcare policy in Australia, in January 2016 fee relief was extended to nannies providing in‐home care in a 2‐year pilot program. This policy is significant as fee relief is not tied to the meeting of regulatory requirements designed to ensure quality early learning and care for young children. Drawing on Carol Bacchi's approach to policy analysis, this paper extends previous problematising of evidence‐based policy by highlighting the value of first considering how a policy ‘problem’ has been constructed. We propose that the nanny pilot is an ideologically driven policy that has emanated from a construction of childcare that is adult (parent)‐centred and marginalises the needs and interests of young children. Accordingly, certain evidence is privileged while other evidence is ignored, with the ensuing policy focused on economic imperatives rather than quality early learning and care experiences for young children. We draw on an analysis of parent, peak body and researcher submissions to the Productivity Commission's 2013–2014 childcare inquiry, nanny‐focused research, and data from three national surveys to explore the limitations of such a policy approach. The utility of problem reconstruction as a means of disrupting policy‐informed evidence and the legitimisation of purported evidence‐based policy is considered.     

Searching for effective interventions for foster children under stress: a meta‐analysis

Foster children experience a lot of stress because of their life histories and changes in their family circumstances, such as foster care placement. It is important that foster parents recognize the early signs of stress in foster children and learn how to act in a non‐threatening and understanding manner. Family‐based interventions may help in this. In this paper, we report on a meta‐analysis of studies (n= 19) of the effectiveness of such interventions. All studies used a pre‐test/post‐test design. Both problem behaviour in foster children and the parenting skills of foster parents improved by 30%; however, none of the interventions were specifically intended to help young children (<4 years) to cope with stress. The importance of interventions for young foster children is discussed, as well as the necessary elements these interventions should include.     

Patchwork of promises: A critical analysis of immigration policies for unaccompanied undocumented children in the United States

In 2014, the United States saw a greater than 50% increase in the number of unaccompanied children from Mexico and Central America arriving at the U.S./Mexico border, and unaccompanied children continue to migrate to the United States in consistent numbers. The dramatic increase of 2014 exposed gaps in policies aimed at supporting unaccompanied children as they await legal adjudication. This paper begins with a historic review of immigration policies in the United States aimed at supporting unaccompanied migrant children. An analytic review is provided of existing immigration policies in the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, highlighting the competing paradigms created by missions of security‐focused policy versus child‐centred policy. A close examination of the values that influenced policy development in this area is included, along with a discussion of how social work practice can infuse elements of social justice into immigration policy reform. Areas for future research to reform immigration policy focused on supporting unaccompanied undocumented minors are highlighted.     

Is Personalization the Right Plan at the Wrong Time? Re‐thinking Cash‐for‐Care in an Age of Austerity

As personalization has dominated the policy agenda for reform in social care, its roll‐out as a mainstream option has coincided with global programmes of austerity which have targeted services for disabled people. Was this simply bad timing or was its implementation always part of the agenda for reform? Whilst the principle of cash‐for‐care schemes drew strongly on promoting the independence and autonomy of disabled people, early incarnations of direct payments policy in the UK were initially at least in part rolled out in light of potential cost savings to social care budgets. This article explores these and other issues in light of evaluations of the Scottish government's self‐directed support (SDS) test sites (2009–11) and implementation of subsequent legislation enforcing models of SDS in Scotland from April 2014. Discussion draws on the authors’ recent book (Pearson et al. 2014) to reflect on what the evidence can tell us about radically transforming social care at a time of global austerity.     

Issue Information

In 2017, the number of applications for care orders in England and Wales was the highest ever recorded at 14,207. This is a significant factor, contributing to the rise in the number of children who are looked after, which is at the highest level since 1985. The authors reflect on the recently published Care Crisis Review 2018, a sector‐led review, which examines the reasons for the rise in care proceedings and the number of children in care. The review sought to identify changes to policy and practice within local authorities and the family justice system, in an attempt to divert cases away from the family courts and to reduce the number of children in care, where it is safe to do so. Whilst the legislative framework is largely effective and the system generally works well, there is insufficient funding and resources to meet the needs of children and their families when they seek help, regardless of whether this is at an early stage or when they are in crisis and most in need of care and protection.     

Family Provisions at the Workplace and Their Relationship to Absenteeism,Retention, and Productivity of Workers: Timely Evidence from Prior Data

Using data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this study provides timely evidence on the effects of on‐site child care at the workplace and employer‐provided family leave on worker absenteeism, turnover, and productivity. The study found that workplaces with on‐site child care compared with workplaces with no on‐site child care had lower rates of absenteeism and higher ratings for worker productivity. Workplaces that had a family leave policy also had lower rates of absenteeism than workplaces that had no such policy in place. Analyses also suggest that workplace characteristics, such as presence of a human‐resources manager or union representative, are associated with higher worker productivity. Firm size, mission, and shift work were other predictors of worker performance. The findings argue strongly for an extensive, new workplace survey that can elucidate how parents today manage to abide by new workplace agreements while still handling the demands of family life.     

Policy transfer,social pedagogy and children's residential care in England

Much concern has been expressed about the quality of care and poor outcomes for looked‐after children (‘children in care’) in England, especially regarding residential homes. This paper builds on a recent evaluation of the piloting of the continental European model of social pedagogy (SP) in English residential care. It does three things: it considers the theoretical social policy literature on policy transfer and its implications; discusses European residential care for children and the discipline of SP; and reflects on these debates and the situation of children's residential care in England. The paper concludes that there are some major hurdles to a widespread implementation of SP in England. This particularly concerns the differing social, professional and political context of children's residential services across neighbouring countries.     

Inequalities in English child protection practice under austerity: A universal challenge?

The role that area deprivation, family poverty, and austerity policies play in the demand for and supply of children's services has been a contested issue in England in recent years. These relationships have begun to be explored through the concept of inequalities in child welfare, in parallel to the established fields of inequalities in education and health. This article focuses on the relationship between economic inequality and out‐of‐home care and child protection interventions. The work scales up a pilot study in the West Midlands to an all‐England sample, representative of English regions and different levels of deprivation at a local authority (LA) level. The analysis evidences a strong relationship between deprivation and intervention rates and large inequalities between ethnic categories. There is further evidence of the inverse intervention law (Bywaters et al., 2015): For any given level of neighbourhood deprivation, higher rates of child welfare interventions are found in LAs that are less deprived overall. These patterns are taking place in the context of cuts in spending on English children's services between 2010–2011 and 2014–2015 that have been greatest in more deprived LAs. Implications for policy and practice to reduce such inequalities are suggested.     

Child Well‐Being Scales (CWBS) in the assessment of families and children in home‐care intervention: an empirical study

This paper reports research carried out in Italy designed to investigate the usability of Child Well‐Being Scale (CWBS) for the outcome evaluation of home‐care interventions for vulnerable families and children in need. Using a pre‐ and post‐test design, the study traces the changes in 18 vulnerable families and 23 children in need included in a programme of home‐care intervention over a period of 11 months. All the families and children were assessed twice: at intake and at the end of the intervention (after 6 months). Furthermore, 10 families and 11 children had a longer intervention and were assessed three times. Moreover, two focus groups involving 13 home‐care workers and 11 face‐to‐face interviews were used to collect practitioners' points of views on CWBS. The results generally support the idea that families' and children's situation improved over time, as shown by an improvement in almost all of the considered dimensions after 6 months and after 11 months. Specifically, the families improved more on household adequacy in the long term while children on the child performance dimension improved in the short term. Practitioners reported that CWBS was an aid to multi‐professional decision‐making, as the systematic evaluation of the subscales was a practical base upon which to activate shared decision‐making during the casework.     

The turn to optional familialism through the market: Long‐term care,cash‐for‐care,and caregiving policies in Europe

Cash‐for‐care (CfC) schemes are monetary transfers to people in need of care who can use them to organize their own care arrangements. Mostly introduced in the 1990s, these schemes combine different policy objectives, as they can aim at (implicitly or explicitly) supporting informal caregivers as well as increasing user choice in long‐term care or even foster the formalization of care relations and the creation of care markets. This article explores from a comparative perspective, how CfC schemes, within broader long‐term care policies, envision, frame, and aim to condition informal care, if different models of relationships between CfC and informal care exist and how these have persisted or changed over time and into which directions. Building on the scholarly debate on familialization vs. defamilialization policies, the paper proposes an analytical framework to investigate the trajectories of seven European countries over a period of 20 years. The results show that, far from being simply instruments of supported familialism, CfC schemes have contributed to a turn towards “optional familialism through the market,” according to which families are encouraged to provide family care and are (directly or indirectly) given alternatives through the provision of market care.     

Nonformal education for improving educational outcomes for street children and street youth in developing countries: A systematic review

Tens of millions of children and youth (up to 24 years of age) live and work on the streets of developing countries. Most of them are forced to leave formal education. As a potential solution, nonformal education (NFE) interventions have spread worldwide. However, no previous attempt has been made to address the state of evidence regarding effectiveness studies of NFE for street children and youth. This review addresses this gap by conducting the first systematic review concerning the effectiveness of NFE for improving educational outcomes for street children and street youth. The search was conducted in 35 structured electronic databases and numerous organizations and experts were also contacted. The screening of 9,271 titles resulted in the identification of zero prospective effectiveness studies with a counterfactual. Lessons are drawn from the highest quality excluded studies to inform future evaluations that seek to address this knowledge gap. Key Practitioner Message: ● Practitioners should implement comparable intake and monitoring assessments to track changes consistently over time; ● Programs informed by critical pedagogy and empowerment‐based approaches may improve behavioral outcomes; ● Programs that work with street children and street youth should clarify how they identify their target population.