Substance use among older youth transitioning from foster care: Examining the protective effects of religious and spiritual capital

Among older youth transitioning from the foster care system, this longitudinal study examined the association of religious and spiritual capital to substance use in the past year at age 19. Participants consisted of African American (N = 179) and White non‐Hispanic (N = 133) older youth in foster care. Drawing from social capital theory, it was posited that religious service attendance (a proxy for religious capital) and belief in a spiritual force (a proxy for spiritual capital) would be inversely associated with substance use. Multiple logistic regression results indicated support for the first and second hypothesis for White foster youth only. Among White foster youth, more frequent religious service attendance and greater belief in a spiritual force were associated with a lower likelihood of illegal substance and polysubstance use. No association between religious or spiritual capital and substance use was found among African American foster youth. The findings underscore the importance of conducting spiritual assessments to help ensure older foster youth who have strong religious or spiritual orientations are in environments where they are accommodated and supported.     

Religion and parenting: ignored relationship?

Even though the social work profession has been increasingly sensitized to the spiritual needs of those that they are working with, recent history has demonstrated that professionals lack the knowledge and skills needed for understanding those who are subscribing to strong religious beliefs. The research reported in this paper draws on a qualitative study that examined the perceived caregiving practice of parents from the Seventh‐day Adventist faith community associated with the conservative Protestant sub‐culture. Twenty‐five participants aged 20–50 were invited to recall their experiences of being reared by practicing Adventist parents in the UK. An integrative phenomenological analysis yielded a number of themes that shed light on the relationship between religion and parenting. This paper will focus on the three key ideas that emerged: parenting was influenced by beliefs that parents held; a combination of warm and strict parenting was found with some evidence of stricter upbringing amongst black respondents; responses to parenting reported varied between acceptance and discomfort. The study gave valuable insight into individuals' experiences of a religious upbringing received within a secular environment.     

Families beyond boundaries: Conceptualising kinship in gay and lesbian adoption and fostering

This paper discusses some key findings taken from a qualitative study conducted with gay and lesbian adopters and foster carers in England and Wales. The study examined the experiences of 24 self‐identified lesbians and gay men, who had been involved in adoption or fostering processes since the introduction of the Adoption and Children Act, 2002. This article will explore why participants chose to adopt or foster and their approach to relationships generated through these routes. Findings indicate that gay and lesbian applicants troubled dominant conceptualisations of family and kinship and revealed both heteronormative and nuclear constructions of parenting within adoption and fostering social work. In contrast, participants often demonstrated a reflexive and creative approach to caring for looked after children. This paper will therefore consider how professionals can recognise nuanced or complex relationships, situated beyond traditional frameworks, through drawing upon wider concepts within sociological literature.     

Grief,loss, and separation: Experiences of birth children of foster carers

Previous research identifies the increased exposure of birth children of foster carers to experiences of separation, grief, and loss due to the transient nature of foster care, but little is known about how birth children manage this loss. This paper reports findings from a qualitative study that examined the retrospective experiences of 15 adult birth children of foster carers (aged between 18 and 28 years) in Ireland. Findings suggest that birth children experience grief and loss when foster children leave their families. They report experiencing a range of emotional responses such as guilt, blame, and sadness. A reluctance to discuss their emotional responses with either their parents or foster care professionals was also reported. Instead, birth children developed strategies to manage the loss, such as distancing themselves from the foster care process. The study highlights the importance of social workers and foster carers explaining to birth children why foster children are leaving and, where possible, maintaining contact between birth children and foster children. Additionally, findings indicate the need for birth children to have safe nonjudgmental spaces to discuss their emotional reactions to loss.     

Commitment of Private and Public Agency Workers to Child Welfare: How Long Do They Plan to Stay?

ABSTRACT

Method: Child welfare professionals completing training to work in foster care were asked about reasons for taking their child welfare position, commitment to their agencies, and commitment to child welfare. Analyses compared responses from new public agency foster care workers (N = 100), public agency workers making lateral transfers to foster care (N = 64), and new private foster care workers (N = 105).

Results: Private agency foster care workers were less committed to their agencies and to child welfare and more likely to have taken the position because it was the only one available.

Conclusions: The practice by public child welfare of outsourcing foster care services to private agencies needs to be evaluated. This practice may not benefit children in care and may create organizational problems for agencies.     

Learning to Speak Out About Racism: Youths' Insights on Participation in an Intergroup Dialogues Program

This case study of an intergroup dialogue program explores youth engagement and learning about race in a group setting and includes a youth-led participatory program evaluation. The case study offers insights on the learning experience and context of youth engagement in community-based intergroup dialogues. Themes include (1) discussing race, (2) learning skills to communicate across different races, (3) grappling with privilege and oppression, and (4) developing leadership. Implications for social work practice with groups for community changes are discussed.     

Socratic Dialogue and Self-Directed Group Work: Strengthening Ethical Practice in Social Work

Socratic dialogue is a practical method of philosophical inquiry used to develop ethical and critical thinking among participants. On the other hand, self-directed group work is a practical intervention model based on social justice principles aimed at empowering service users and clients in social work and community work contexts. This conceptual article aims to reflect on a combination of the two models, arguing that group work interventions inspired by Socratic dialogue and self-directed group work may represent a way for social workers to develop a better ethical stance in their practice.     

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.     

The challenges presented by parental mental illness and the potential of a whole‐family intervention to improve outcomes for families

Parental mental illness (PMI) can negatively affect the lives of all family members, and there is acknowledged need to work with family and social contexts to promote recovery. However, programmes undertaking such work remain rare and knowledge concerning mechanisms through which PMI impacts families and through which recovery might be achieved is underdeveloped. This paper outlines a new family intervention programme and presents evidence from focus groups with 16 professionals into their experiences of work with families with PMI. Evidence suggests that interactional effects of PMI, family communication and family relationships are key to understanding its impacts, but professionals are liable to struggle to engage with these due to concerns over stigma, lack of skills and low confidence. Positive impacts on practice were achieved through raising awareness of the whole‐family context in relation to PMI, building confidence to raise and engage with PMI and the provision of structured tools for use with families. Positive impacts on the lives of family members were then achieved by professionals in relation to symptoms for the ill parent, the burden on children and overall family well‐being, strongly mediated through improved family communication, understanding and relationships. Implications for policy and practice are considered.     

Globalization and Social Work: International and Local Implications

Globalization can seem a remote process, related only to theeconomic and commercial world. However, it impacts (differentially)on the work opportunities and living conditions of populationsaround the world and has also influenced thinking about welfarepolicies, including through state provision. It thus has implicationsfor the practice and education of social and community workersin both affluent and poverty stricken states. In addition tosocial professionals who seek opportunities to work internationally,globalization is also affecting the practices of those who wouldpreviously have seen their work as essentially rooted in localconditions and community needs. This paper therefore gives someexamples of the ways in which local practice may have cross-borderand international dimensions, drawing on experiences in thechild-care field, particularly in the UK and European context.The author indicates how international social work courses areaiming to equip specialist international social workers, whilealso arguing for the development of educational programmes whichprepare ‘local’ social workers for practice in aninterdependent world.     

Co-parenting and parenting behaviour: The role of parent mental health for mothers and fathers in the postnatal period

The relationship between co-parenting, parent mental health and parenting remains unclear for parents during the postnatal period, particularly fathers. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to investigate these relationships for families in the postnatal period. Routinely collected self-report data from 138 mothers and 138 fathers participating in Family Foundations, a co-parenting intervention facilitated by a community health service in Melbourne, were used. Path analysis revealed that for mothers, more supportive co-parenting was associated with fewer mental health difficulties and, in turn, low parenting hostility and high parenting warmth. For fathers, supportive co-parenting was associated with fewer mental health difficulties, which was associated with low parenting hostility but not parenting warmth. Co-parenting was also directly associated with parenting warmth and hostility for fathers. The findings highlighted some key differences between mothers and fathers and the importance of interventions targeting the co-parenting relationship during early childhood.     

Befriending Services for Culturally Diverse Older People

Befriending services may address loneliness and social isolation amongst older people. However social diversity is rarely reported in investigations of befriending services. The views of non-users are also rarely explored. In this research, we explored older adults’ experiences of, and attitudes towards, a befriending service, among service users and non-service users, drawing on interviews and focus groups with 76 older adults, 10 volunteer visitors, and 20 service providers. Participants agreed that the befriending service helped alleviate social isolation and loneliness and that supportive services to foster connection are needed. Barriers to engagement included lack of knowledge, appropriateness of services and feeling undeserving. The befriending service was most successful when a match went beyond a transactional ‘professional-client’ relationship to resemble genuine friendship, underpinned by mutual interests and norms of reciprocity and reliability. We also identified five clear ideas about what characterizes an ideal supportive service; supported opportunities for getting out, genuine and reciprocal relationships, reliability, visitor characteristics, and connecting people to their culture. Befriending adds to social networks, and enhances connectedness to the community. Loneliness is alleviated when mutually beneficial and genuinely reciprocal relationships develop. However, group interventions or connections to community groups may be more appropriate for some.     

Concurrent associations between mothers’ references to internal states and children’s social understanding in middle childhood

Although it is well established that features of maternal speech are associated with children’s social understanding in the preschool years, few studies explore this relationship in middle childhood. Within the context of a prospective longitudinal study of a representative community sample of families (subsample n = 207, mean age = 82.88 months), we investigated concurrent associations between mothers’ internal state language and aspects of 7‐year‐olds’ social understanding, including children’s understanding of belief and spontaneous references to internal states during free play. When sociodemographic, maternal, and child characteristics were controlled, mothers’ references to their own cognitions were associated with dimensions of children’s social understanding. Our findings suggest that exposure to others’ perspectives contributes to children’s advanced understanding of minds, which has implications for interventions that foster social understanding.     

Differential parenting and children's social understanding

In the current study, a curvilinear association was examined between differential parenting and children's social understanding as measured using standardized assessments and behavioral observations. Social understanding was comprised of theory‐of‐mind and behavior indicating understanding of others’ minds (i.e., cognitive sensitivity and internal state talk and reasoning during sibling interactions). Data came from a community sample of 372 children (51.6% males; M age = 5.57, SD = 0.77), their younger siblings (M age = 3.14, SD = 0.27), and their mothers who were observed in their homes. We hypothesized that in families with higher levels of differential parenting, both favored and disfavored older siblings would display poorer social understanding, but that disfavored children would be more negatively impacted. Results from a hierarchical regression analysis indicated an inverse linear effect, rather than a curvilinear relationship, between being favored by mother and siblings’ social understanding. Specifically, disfavored older children showed higher levels of social understanding when interacting with their favored younger sibling. This relationship remained significant after controlling for variables such as age, SES, and language. Findings suggest that differential parenting plays a role in children's ability to understand others.     

Reconstruction of post‐war social work: Experience from former Yugoslavia as an inspiration

Immediately after the civil war among the nations of former Yugoslavia that took place 1992–1995, Swedish members of the social work faculty were recruited by UNICEF to support the organising of foster homes for war‐orphaned children. Around 20 projects, some initiated by UNICEF and others by SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) were also organised with Sarajevo University as the main location of the administration. At the request of the Parliament of Republika Srpska, a new school of social work was established at the University of Banja Luka. This was a successful project thanks to network collaboration among the faculties of social work in the former Yugoslavian nations and with academic contributions from universities from Sweden and Berlin. In this article, the two social welfare projects based in Sarajevo and Banja Luka are presented. Together with an accompanying group of experts, I found that an explorative mindset and an abductive approach were helpful tools in dialogues with our partners in the developing world.     

Depression in the Profession: Social Workers' Experiences and Perceptions

This study reports the findings of interviews with fifty socialworkers who volunteered to describe their personal experiencesof depression in the workplace. The findings confirm the literatureon the stresses of social work and provide an account of theways in which the social workers sought to reconcile their mentalhealth needs with their role as professionals. The study suggeststhe potential for those working at all levels in social workagencies to support social workers who are experiencing depression.At a time of shortages in the profession in the UK, and of effortsto enable those with mental health problems to remain in orreturn to work, the experiences of those social workers interviewedillustrate the managerial, training and human resource imperativesto provide more supportive workplaces.     

Youth Participation and Community Change

The Bedouin community in the southern Negev desert in Israel is a population in transition. The article describes how deliberate intergroup dialogue enhanced the ability of a group of teachers from the community to discuss the complexities of the transition within a supportive group setting as a starting point to facilitate social change.     

Black African Children and the Child Protection System

This paper explores black African children’s experiencesof the child protection system in the UK. The central focusof the paper is a review of the available literature on thesocial circumstances and environmental influences affectingmany black African families involved in the child protectionsystem; specific parenting practices and care-giving environments;and their experiences of social work and other professionalinterventions aimed at safeguarding and promoting the needsof African children. This paper examines these themes to elucidatethe factors that contribute to the provision of effective, culturallycompetent interventions with black African children at riskof significant harm. It suggests that there are a number oftensions inherent for professionals in working with culturallydiverse African families such as reconciling different beliefsand behaviours concerning child-rearing practices; affirmingthe parenting practices of these families in the engagementprocess; adopting a strengths-based orientation whilst at thesame time safeguarding and promoting the welfare of vulnerablechildren. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implicationsfor practice.     

Possibilities for Intervention in Domestic Violence: Frame Analysis of Health Care Professionals’ Attitudes

ABSTRACT. Violence is a serious problem, and social and health care providers are in a key position for implementing successful interventions. This qualitative study of 6 focus groups with professionals (n = 30) examines the health care professionals’ ways of framing a domestic violence intervention. Of special interest here is how professionals see their own roles in the process of recognizing and helping victims of domestic violence. By using Erving Goffman's frame analysis, this study identifies several frames that either: a) emphasize the obstacles to intervention and justify nonintervention, or on the contrary, b) question these obstacles and find justifications for intervention. The possibilities for intervention are further explored by analyzing the ways in which the dynamics between the different frames allow redefinition of domestic violence interventions. Despite the challenges involved in a domestic violence intervention, there seems to be potential for change in personal attitudes and reform of professional practices. The research findings underline the role of social and health care professionals as members of a larger chain of service providers working collaboratively against domestic violence. Implications for practice and directions in policy and future research are suggested.     

Third award: A follow‐up study of patients discharged as “improved” 1

In this study, the author researched his clinical practice in a community mental health center with six parental couples whose latency-aged children suffered from prevalent separation anxiety disorder symptoms. Through thematic analysis of the anamnestic process recordings of 53 parent sessions, the author's speculation on the effectiveness of the supportive psychodynamic psychotherapy techniques to psychodynamic clinical social work practice with parents was confirmed. Nine of thirteen supportive psychodynamically grounded therapy techniques were highlighted, whereas the clinical practice produced three more. The techniques permeated and shaped the author's clinical social work intervention, and a follow-up confirmed the reduction in mental health symptoms for the children and also increased parental satisfaction in response to the interventions.