‘His mam,my dad,my girlfriend,loads of people used to bring him up’: the value of social support for (ex) offender fathers

This research analyses key findings from qualitative research conducted with (ex) offender fathers and their probation officers. This paper focuses on the critical role of family and social support for (ex) offender fathers who seek to build and maintain relationships with their children. The research reported in this paper shows that the men receive social support, both formal and informal from a wide ranging and complex network of family, friends and practitioners, which facilitates and enables their commitment to fathering. Drawing on social support theory, I argue that identification of support networks recognizes the productive possibilities of vulnerable families which constitute a source of strength and connection to be nurtured in contexts of adversity. This strengths‐based paradigm advocates the need to identify and facilitate family, friendship and professional networks in the context of social work with offenders and their families.     

探索新的关系和生活模式 ——关于成都男同性恋伴侣关系和生活实践的研究

这些年来,李银河提交同性婚姻提案的努力,将同性恋伴侣关系和家庭生活引入了公众视野,但国内学术研究对此尚无涉及。基于对成都“同志”社区的实地研究,本文详细考察了男同性恋伴侣关系和家庭生活的具体实践、追求平等关系、反思现有婚姻制度,以及争取社会承认的努力。研究强调中国社会中的同性之间的亲密关系正在转型,同性恋伴侣关系开始挣脱占据主导地位的异性恋亲属体系,成为一种可供选择的家庭生活模式。同时,借鉴西方近期关于“酷儿”家庭的理论和实践,文章讨论了同性恋伴侣关系对于主流社会和亲属制度的启示,呼吁在制度上给予这样的“草根”实践以更多的承认。     

Agency-Family Partnerships

This paper describes a research and demonstration project in which partnerships are formed between agency social workers and family members of elderly clients. While the social worker retains responsibility for counseling and provision of support to the elderly client, the family member is taught by the social worker to assume responsibility for the case management of services provided to his/her elderly relative. Practice issues which have emerged during the first year of this three-year project include: the generalizability of findings in light of the special characteristics of agency clients, the definition of the agency-family partnership, confidentiality in the context of this partnership, exceptions to family involvement, clients without families, and our experiences with research-practice collaboration. Each of these issues is discussed in this paper.     

Introduction

This research, a secondary analysis of data obtained from the North Carolina Study of Environmental Preferences, explored the interrelationships between personal/demographic variables (age, income, health, educational level, marital status) and family interaction, friendship interaction, and level of community involvement. The relationship of these variables to life satisfaction was then explored through regression analysis. Findings indicated rhe importance of friendship and the relative unimportance of family and community involvement as predictors of life satisfaction. These findings are of particular theoretical import in that they address unresolved questions concerning the roles of these social factors in the lives of the elderly. The implications for social research, social policy, and social work practice are discussed.     

THE USE OF SOCIAL SERVICES BY BLACK AND WHITE ELDERLY

Little is known about the roles of the family, kin, and non-kin support networks in determining the use of social services by the elderly. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the formal and informal support systems in explaining social service utilization by Black and White elderly. Path analytic procedures are used to test an explanatory model of utilization by a national area probability sample of 3.996 non-institutionalized elderly. The findings indicate that informal family support was more important for Black elderly than White elderly. In addition, family aid was found to be supplementary rather than an alternative support system. In the planning, designing, and delivery of social services to the elderly, it is imperative that racial and cultural differences become explicit input factors. Additionally, future researchers have a responsibility to employ research procedures capable of simultaneously dealing with a comprehensive range of variables in investigating this rather complex phenomenon.     

Social Support Training for Abusive Mothers

This paper describes a twelve-week group program designed to help low-income abusive mothers build more effective bases of social support in their daily lives with friends, family and neighbors. The group, conducted at a therapeutic day nursery, was supplemental to ongoing services for maltreated children and their families. The group incorporated training in a range of interpersonal competencies including basic conversational skills, self-protection, and assertion. Sessions were designed around a metaphoric Relationship Roadmap for friendship which visually depicted definitional terms and time frameworks appropriate to various friendship stages. Humor, stress-reduction, and visual aids were components of the teaching process. Individualized goals and skill rehearsal were used to increase relevance and mastery of content. Socialization of mothers to group norms and expectations was enhanced by pregroup induction procedures and by members' previous involvement in an agency-based parenting support group.     

An ecological approach to social work with children and families

This paper examines research into the social ecology of parents and children, with particular reference to the effects of social support on family functioning and outcomes for children. The historical failure of social work in the UK to successfully apply the findings from this area of research to mainstream work with children and families is considered in the light of the prevailing child protection discourse. Challenges to this discourse are now beginning to emerge from developments in both research and practice. The implications of these developments for the construction of a new discourse, which recognizes the wider social and political factors that shape the family environment, are discussed. It is argued that there is sufficient research evidence available to demonstrate the potential of community social work strategies, which enhance the social support networks of families, to significantly reduce the incidence of child abuse. A number of successful action-research projects of this nature are considered.     

Who is supported? Social security for families with children between family law and social security regulations in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom

Individual and collective welfare lies at the heart of deliberations about contemporary welfare states. It is not always recognized that social security provisions interact closely with systems for the support of families and for labour market participation. This paper focuses on the interaction of institutional arrangements providing social security for families with children. The analytic framework incorporates family and marital law and social security provisions. Three European welfare states, Belgium Germany and the United Kingdom — with divergent systems of family support — are compared in detail. Among the questions to be posed are: How do these societies organize their support and family-related activities? And what are the rights for individual women, men and children? Among the indicators to be considered are whether the basis for entitlement to social security is individualized or based on a collective unit such as the couple or the household; the extent to which access relates to marriage status or the legitimacy of the children; and the employment-related or universal nature of benefit. The different family models underlying institutions are analysed.     

Social Support and its Correlation with Loneliness and Subjective Well-being: A Cross-cultural Study of Older Nepalese Adults

Population aging in Nepal is a recent phenomenon, due more to demographic changes than to socio-economic development. The study had three goals: to analyze the social support exchange among elderly men and women; to discover the main sources of support in loneliness and subjective well-being in the elderly; and to study the cross-cultural differences in support among elderly Chhetri ( N  = 137, mean age = 69.1 [7.2] years) and Newar people ( N  = 195, mean age = 68.8 [7.7] years) in one ward in Kathmandu. The data were collected using face-to-face interviews. The dependent variables were loneliness and subjective well-being (SWB). The results for both ethnic Chhetri and Newar respondents show that their major support comes from their children living in the same household and their spouses. I conclude that the sources of social support and social support exchange are similar between the two castes/ethnicities and that there are no cross-cultural differences between them in terms of support for loneliness and SWB-life stability, although there are cross-cultural differences in their SWB-life satisfaction. Providing social support to friends and neighbors appears to be related to less loneliness and increased SWB in both castes/ethnicities.     

Ageing and Family Dependency

The ‘graying’ of Australia's population has generated much debate within government, demographic, health and social service circles in recent times. Current and projected shifts in population structure towards greater numbers of ‘dependent’ populations raise a number of complex issues in regard to resource allocation in both income support and service provision. Service issues revolve around questions of whether public or private provision will resolve the care issues for dependent elderly people. It is argued that contrary to popular opinion, family care is well entrenched within the framework of social care, and that the solution of community care, posited in relation to the rising levels of chronic illness and dependency within the elderly population, is actually an attempt to place more responsibility of care on to the family. It is further suggested that family care is, in fact, care by women who themselves are in a state of dependency. Citing evidence from a study conducted by the authors, the paper argues that family care imposes heavy burdens upon women and families and suggests that social policy should, firstly, actively bolster family care through the provision of supportive and supplementary services; and secondly, broaden its intent by exploring other options of care for elderly people. The latter response is important because without it, family care will only help to reinforce and sustain the dependent status of women.     

The life satisfaction of elderly Chinese widows living alone and those living with adult children

Care of China's elderly population is of concern due to its projected growth as well as to changes in elder care patterns related to shifting social and economic conditions. Increases in life expectancy and, therefore, in the duration of widowhood, particularly for women, magnifies this concern. Studies that examine the living arrangements and life satisfaction of elderly widows in China are limited. This study of 147 elderly widows, both men and women, examined differences in the life satisfaction of those who live with their adult children and those who live alone. This study also examined whether the relationship between living arrangement and life satisfaction was moderated by levels of family and community support. According to study findings, elderly widows living alone have higher life satisfaction than those living with their adult children, and this effect remains with the introduction of controls for health status, family support, community support, gender, age, income and educational level. Further, neither family nor community support moderate the relationship between living arrangement and life satisfaction, although each exerts a direct effect on life satisfaction.     

Aging in the Third World

The relationships between the generations in Third World countries are changing as migration and industrialization erode traditional family responsibilities for supporting the elderly. It is no longer possible to assume that, as a matter of course, old people will be looked after by their families. Social change leads to an eroding of the support systems. The author finds growing evidence of this breakdown in Asia, particularly in Singapore, Hong Kong, and other highly industrialized centers. Singapore, for example, has reinstituted the compulsory study of filial piety in an attempt to push the younger generation into assuming its traditional responsibility toward the old. There has also been a significant decline in the status, prestige, and support given old people in Indonesia, although politicans insist that the family will always take care of its elderly. 2 reasons for this breakdown are 1) the impact of the mass media and 2) the increasing involvement of the younger generation in non-agricultural jobs which often involve a move to the city and away from dependence on a patriarch. Many Third World countries are in a twilight stage, between the traditionally strong structure of family support and government systems of social security.     

Towards Accountability in Social Work: Long Term Social Work in an Area Office

Summary This article reports the results of monitoring the social workof two long term teams in an area office throughout one yearwith the help of a computerized Case Review System. It describesthe characteristics of some 1,400 long-term cases of whom 61%were disabled, visually handicapped and/or elderly and 22% presentedproblems related to children and families. One of the outstanding features was the concentration on surveillanceand review visiting which was reported for nearly three quartersof these cases and was considered the most important socialworker activity in two fifths of them. In over half of theselong term situations no change was expected and nearly threequarters of the cases were to remain open indefinitely. Another striking feature was the somewhat uneven distributionof social work resources among the different problem groups.Although the physically disabled and/or elderly outnumberedthe child/family problems by two to one, they made up only 20%of the cases allocated to individual social workers, while almostall the child and family problems were allocated amounting to35% of all individual caseloads. But the disabled and elderlyreceived far more domiciliary services and aids to daily living. This exercise has brought into sharp focus the question of howto ensure continuous support and surveillance for the very frailelderly, as the occasional social work visit did not appearto be the appropriate means of support, rarely anticipatingor averting crises. The data highlight the challenge which chronically disorganizedand disturbed families present to social work skills. The outcomescast doubt on the wisdom of closing, within the intake stageas low priority, relatively early family problems, and on thesharp division into intake and long term teams. The general issue emerging is the need to formulate more precisesocial service strategies for those who require long term careby others to some extent—the very old and frail, the chronicallyphysically and mentally disabled and children in long term care—andwhat specific contributions social workers can usefully maketo this enterprise.     

The 'Consumer Principle' in the Care of Elderly People: Free Choice and Actual Choice in the German Welfare State

In the mid-1990s, together with new long-term care legislation, the German welfare state introduced care markets and consumer choice between family care and different types of formal care. However, instead of using the new option to choose publicly funded care by long-term care agencies, the majority of elderly people in need of care continued to decide in favour of care exclusively provided by family members. The article examines how the persistence of family care in spite of the new options of consumer choice can be explained, using data from representative surveys on the care of elderly people in Germany and the results of guided interviews by the authors with family members involved in care. The findings indicate that there are two main reasons. The first is that elderly people and their families orient their behaviour towards traditional care values in which the first priority is given to mutual support between spouses and generations. The second reason is that elderly people on the one hand and care agencies on the other have substantially different definitions of a good quality of care.     

Caregiving in Transition in Southern Europe: Neither Complete Altruists nor Free-riders

In the framework of the SOCCARE Project, focusing on families dealing with a double front of care for children and frail elderly people, similarities can be found in Italy, France and Portugal beyond their different welfare regimes. The comparison of family histories and caregiving strategies, by the methodology of case‐matching, gives an interesting overview of the relationship between the debate on social care and that on the intergenerational contract. The paper aims to understand which are the available combinations of family, informal and institutional resources making a heavy burden of care “acceptable and still normal”: this focuses both typical situations of each country and common features through the countries. The results show how changes in the representations of obligation and duty in the intergenerational pact produce different outcomes and demands in welfare systems. The analysis of shifting boundaries between the public and private spheres in care provides useful policy recommendations, aimed at improving choices and “sustainable” responsibilities of individuals, families and social networks. Sustainable policies seem to be more dependent on family and structural types and resources of networks than on different welfare and services support.     

年龄间的社会分化和农村家庭养老制度的资源困境

本文关注的是中国农村社会和农村家庭中不同年龄和代际间的社会平等问题。文章描述了农村老年人的物质生活和社会生活状况,指出农村老年人群体性的相对贫困现状,以及老年人生活质量和社会经济地位的弱化与农村整体生活水平逐步提高之间存在结构性矛盾,认为农村以年龄和代际为界的社会分化业已形成。文章还通过对家庭养老制度面临的资源困境的分析,进一步解释了经济、社会和文化变迁是如何通过改变农村的家庭制度和家庭中的代际关系对老年人的生活及其权力和权利状况产生影响的。     

老年人孤独感差异及影响因素分析

文章利用调查数据分析贵阳市不同老年群体孤独感的差异状况,考察了个人特征、家庭关系和社会关系三个层面对老年人孤独感的影响。结果发现:在老年人孤独感差异方面,有配偶与无配偶老年人之间的差异最为明显,城乡之间及不同年龄、收入和文化程度之间的差异也较为明显,但男女性老年人之间的差异不明显;在回归分析结果中,家庭关系变量对老年人孤独感的影响最强,社会关系变量其次,个人特征变量的影响强度最弱。     

Social Ties and Life Satisfaction of Older Persons:

Social ties, including family relationships, friendship ties, and community involvement are expected to inhance the life satisfaction of older people. But relationships among the social ties and the relative importance of these ties to life satisfaction remain unclear. To examine these relalionships, we analyzed data from more than 2,300 small-town Iowa respondents who were 50 years of age or older. Our results tended to support those reported in a previous article in this journal, particularly on the success of friendship ties and the failure of family relationships to predict life satisfaction. We found an even stronger relationship between community involvement and dissatisfaction with life, however. In addition, we analyzed data from four communities separately and found relationships varying substantially among them, thus influencing our conclusions.     

A sense of belonging in a changeable everyday life – a follow‐up study of young people in kinship,network, and traditional foster families

This in‐depth follow‐up study of 15 foster youth shows the importance of an ‘open foster family’, open to letting the foster youth into the family life and to cooperating with the adolescent's birth family. Previous findings about the importance of negotiations, mutual rituals, and having fun together in foster families for the creation of social bonds and belonging are strengthened in the follow‐up interview. A lack of these mutual practices is observed prior to disruptions. Most adolescents still living with the same foster family feel a sense of belonging to both their foster and birth families, especially when both families cooperate. This is most evident in kinship families. Over time, adolescents in traditional foster families have also strengthened their social bonds to the foster family, which makes the difference to youth in network foster families less pronounced than in the previous study. Despite life changes, above all changing schools and peers, most adolescents reveal personal agency by still coping with their situation. However, therapeutic support is now more common than 1 year ago, for girls in particular. Methods used are interviews, network maps and text responses (‘beepers’).     

Family support, social capital, resilience and adolescent coping

All too often young people are excluded in practice from the general policy and professional consensus that partnership and participation should underpin work with children, young people and their families. If working with troubled and troublesome young people is to be based on family support, it will require not only the clear statement of that policy but also demonstration that it can be applied in practice. Achieving that involves setting out a plausible theory of change that can be rigorously evaluated. This paper suggests a conceptual model that draws on social support theory to harness the ideas of social capital and resilience in a way that can link formal family support interventions to adolescent coping. Research with young people attending three community‐based projects for marginalized youth is used to illustrate how validated tools can be used to measure and document the detail of support, resilience, social capital and coping in young people's lives. It is also suggested that there is sufficient fit between the findings emerging from the study and the model to justify the model being more rigorously tested.