The policy context of leaving care services: A case study of Northern Ireland

The transition of foster youth from state care to independent living has received increased research, practice, and policy attention in the United States and in many other countries. Most contributions to this literature have focused on documenting poor outcomes across various dimensions of need in the young people's lives whereas little attention has been given to the policy context in which the responses to those needs are being developed. In this article, we argue that there is a pressing need for better understanding of how the policy context can both promote and impede the development of appropriate services. To illustrate our argument, we use Northern Ireland as a policy case study both because of recent initiatives underway there in regard to youth transitions from state care and because of the heightened political sensibilities associated with it as a society. We draw attention to the socio-political historical context, a number of intersecting social policies, and the place of social work as a key occupation involved in delivering service improvements. We conclude by suggesting that this case study not only highlights the need to address similar aspects of the policy on youth transition from state care in the United States but also demonstrates the benefits of reflecting on policy development and implementation elsewhere in the world.     

Prevalence of children with disabilities in the child welfare system and out of home placement: An examination of administrative records

This article explores the prevalence and characteristics of children with disabilities within the child welfare system using administrative data from the State of Minnesota. This study finds that more than a fifth (22%) of children with substantiated maltreatment are labeled in administrative records as having a disability, and more than one quarter of children (27.9%) over age five. The most common type of disability among children with substantiated maltreatment was emotional disturbance, while other common disabilities included intellectual and developmental disabilities and learning disabilities. Using logistic regression, this study finds that children with substantiated maltreatment with disabilities were about two times more likely to be in out of home placement than children with substantiated maltreatment without disabilities.     

Exploring the specific needs of an understudied group: Children with intellectual disability in residential child care

Children and adolescents who live in out of home care in the child protection system are considered to be vulnerable to manifesting mental health disorders as well as other types of difficulties. This risk is greater in the case of children who display any type of disability. The aim of this study is to profile the state of health and well-being of a group of children presenting intellectual disability who live in residential care in a Spanish autonomous community and to compare these results with their non-disabled peers.     

Journey towards independent living: resilience processes of women leaving residential care in South Africa

Among the many youth transitioning to young adulthood, a group that has been found to be particularly vulnerable is young people transitioning out of care, particularly residential care. Research on this population of youth has burgeoned over the past few decades, but in South Africa it remains limited. This article focuses on the resilience processes that facilitate better transitions of young women out of care and towards independent living. It replicates the research design of a previous study with young men, with the aim of determining to what extent the resilience process of young women are similar to those of men. A sample of nine women was purposively selected, interviewed in-depth and data analysed using grounded theory methods. The findings indicate that the same resilience process found among male care-leavers are evident also in the narratives of female care-leavers, confirming the findings of the previous study. However, these processes had a slightly stronger relational focus among women than was seen among men. The authors conclude that similar resilience-building programmes can be implemented to prepare both males and females for leaving care.     

Academic engagement and performance: Estimating the impact of out-of-home care for maltreated children

Using data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being II, the authors examined whether being placed in foster care was associated with school engagement and performance. The authors used propensity score matching to compare children who had similar demographic characteristics, maltreatment histories, and prior levels of school engagement. Children who were in foster care at wave 2 were found to have higher levels of cognitive engagement in school compared to children who were maltreated but never removed from their homes. It is recommended that children who are maltreated but remain in their familial home receive additional intervention related to their educational engagement.     

Therapeutic alliance between youth and staff in residential group care: Psychometrics of the therapeutic alliance quality scale

Therapeutic alliance has been frequently studied in individual counseling sessions; however, research on therapeutic alliance in residential settings for youth with mental health diagnoses has been limited. This may be due, in part, to the presence of multiple service providers often in caregiving roles. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric quality of a widely utilized measure of therapeutic alliance used in psychotherapy with youth in residential care where the treatment is provided by a trained married couple. We also compared the relationship between youth ratings of their male and female service providers, as well as examined correlations in ratings between youth and staff on therapeutic alliance. Finally, we investigated the direction, magnitude, and trajectory of change in therapeutic alliance over a 12-month period following admission into residential care. The method was a longitudinal assessment of 135 youth and 124 staff regarding therapeutic alliance over the course of 12 months or discharge from services. Results indicated strong psychometric properties and high correlations for youth ratings of both their male and female service providers. However, the correlation was low between youth and service provider ratings of alliance. Longitudinal analyses indicated that rates of therapeutic alliance changed over time.     

Strategies to handle the challenges of intimacy in night-time home care services

The provision of intimate and personal care constitutes a challenge for both careworkers and care recipients and is still a neglected area of research. An observational study of the interaction between the careworkers and care recipients in night-time home care services was conducted in a large municipality in Sweden. The results were analysed in light of previous research and theorising on strategies for handling intimacy in intimate care. The study highlights what appears to be a tension between the ways in which the recipient of care is conceptualised as an active consumer of care in present-day guidelines and the strategies chosen on the part of both caregivers and care recipients, when intimacy and integrity is most at stake, and framed as it is by the care recipients’ situation of dependency and vulnerability. Home care services night-time was shown to be a case that markedly differs from many other settings of intimate care, but in the interactional routines intimate care came forth as a smooth and minimally obtrusive activity. The careworkers and care recipients engaged in strategies such as disattention, eye-discipline, middle-distance orientation, and objectification, thereby serving the purpose of balancing the transgressions of thresholds of intimacy.     

The contribution of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to understanding and promoting the interests of young people making the transition from care to adulthood

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) acknowledges that young people without parental care are entitled to special support and assistance from the State. In detailing their expectations, the UN Committee have issued Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children which recognise that State parties have a number of responsibilities towards care leavers. The paper explores how the UNCRC reporting process, and guidelines from the Committee outlining how States should promote the rights of young people making the transition from care to adulthood, can be used as an instrument to track global patterns of change in policy and practice. Content analysis of State Party Reports and Concluding Observations from 15 countries reveals that to date there has been limited engagement with understanding and promoting the needs of this group in the reporting process; although where a government is committed to developing legislation and practice then this does find its way into their national reports. Data supplied by affiliates of the International Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood from Care (INTRAC) reveals that national concerns, political ideology, public awareness, attitudes and knowledge of the vulnerability of care leavers influence service responses to protect and promote the rights of this group and the attention afforded to such issues in reports to the Committee. Findings also suggest that global governance is not simply a matter of top down influence. Future work on both promoting and monitoring of the impact of the UNCRC needs to recognise that what is in play is the management of a complex global/national dynamic with all its uneven development, levels of influence and with a range of institutional actors involved.     

Exploring emotional aspects of care and control in social work with children and families - a single case analysis of conversation

ABSTRACT

In this article, I explore how emotions are displayed and dealt with on a communicative level in face-to-face encounters between social workers and parents in a child welfare setting. The analysis draws upon detailed analysis of a whole encounter between a social worker and a parental couple who have recently had their new-born daughter placed in foster care. By examining the way emotional stances are expressed and responded to I discuss how orientations toward institutional tasks and goals create constraints for the display, recognition and validation of clients’ emotion displays. I consider the communicative challenges this poses for the parents and the social worker and the implications these may have for the client–worker relationship.     

‘Fuck It,Shit Happens (FISH)’: a social generations approach to understanding young people’s imaginings of life after school in 2016–2017

ABSTRACT

This article uses a social generations approach to explore the lives of young people transitioning to life after schooling. Drawing on ethnographic research in England during the geopolitical uncertainty of 2016–2017, we track the trajectories and narratives of six individuals. The research begins with final year pupils in schools talking about their futures, during and after their A-Level exams. We then follow these individuals on routes to Higher Education and employment, exploring how they are socialised into imaginings of the future and/or struggle to inhabit these futures. A deeply ingrained, modernist, neoliberal reckoning of future time is normalised through experiences of schooling. However, this logic is troubled profoundly in the transition to life after school. Young people’s experiences in an unpredictable present run in stark contrast to the ordered trajectory of future action they have been socialised to expect. Amidst this uncertainty, ambivalence towards shaping the future (‘Fuck It, Shit Happens’) can in some ways feel like the most agentic stance to take. Furlong et al.’s (2011) social generations approach to understanding youth transitions reveals how we must critique the very concept of ‘the future’ if we are to understand the reality of youth transitions in the present.     

Child day care and the employment of AFDC recipients with preschool children

In the context of recent federal initiatives to increase the affordability, accessibility, and quality of child care for the working poor, this article examines the degree to which expanding the supply of publicly subsidized child care in local communities may promote, through employment, the independence from welfare and economic self-sufficiency of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients with preschool-aged children. In a telephone survey of a random sample of 232 AFDC recipients who participated in a larger federally sponsored demonstration project in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, many respondents reported the lack of available child care as a barrier either to employment or to the attainment of a preferred job. Although it is concluded that increases in the availability of subsidized child care should be a component of any strategy to increase the level of employment participation, continuity, and success for this population, the results underscore the need for a multi-faceted intervention strategy to reduce the welfare dependency and to increase the economic self-sufficiency of these parents. Implications for further research are suggested.The data for this investigation were collected under Authorization No. 89-3-WR-NC-008 to the North Carolina Department of Human Resources from the Division of Program Evaluation, Office of Family Assistance, Family Support Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. Additional support was provided under Grant No. 5-44232 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University Research Council, Office of Research Services. The views and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or the official position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the North Carolina Department of Human Resources.He received his Ph.D. in Family Science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1981. He is a specialist in work and family linkages, policy analysis and evaluation, and survey research methodology. He served as principal investigator on the child care evaluation study that is the basis for this article.He received his Ph.D. in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin in 1982. He is a specialist in evaluation and research methodology, information dissemination and use patterns in public sector agencies, and welfare policy and initiatives. He served as project director for the study described in this article.     

Journey towards independent living: a grounded theory investigation of leaving the care of Girls & Boys Town,South Africa

The journey out of care and towards independent living is a challenge for many care-leavers. There has been little research into the social processes involved in this care-leaving journey. This paper presents the results of a grounded theory investigation into the care-leaving journeys of nine young men who had, several years previously, been in the care of Girls & Boys Town in South Africa. Working from a resilience perspective, with an ecological emphasis, four central social processes emerged that together explain the care-leaving experiences of the participants. These processes are striving for authentic belonging; networking people for goal attainment; contextualised responsiveness and building hopeful and tenacious self-confidence. These four processes are located within contextual boundaries and at the social environmental interface. The paper presents these processes in detail, drawing on selected narratives of the participants and integrated with additional theory. It is hoped that this paper may contribute to theory building concerning care-leaving processes and enhance youth care practices for youth in care and leaving care.     

Constructing a sense of home: Place affiliation and migration across the life cycle

This study of place identity analyzes how mobile Americans construct a sense of home through place affiliations. Based on interviews with 432 migrants to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, this research indicates that migration does not preclude an emergent sense of home but that migration at different stages of the life cycle does produce different patterns of place affiliation. Where younger migrants more often base their identity on affiliations of friendship, family, and emotional self-attributions, older migrants do so in terms of dwelling and prior experience with place. Thus, this study challenges the view that place identity is eroded by mobility, arguing instead that place identification must be understood within the process of life cycle change and place mobility.     

The association between perception of relationship with caregivers and behaviours of youth in foster care: a child and caregiver perspective

The transition into foster care can be difficult for children. Research has consistently shown an increased risk for children in foster care to exhibit higher levels of problem behaviours in comparison to youth in the general population. The purpose of this study was to analyse the associations between the youths' perception of their relationship with their caregiver on their perception of their own internalizing and externalizing behaviours as well as the youths' perception of the relationships with caregivers and how caregivers report of youths' internalizing and externalizing behaviours. This study utilized the secondary data from the general release version of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being [National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (2009) Introduction to the wave 1 general and restricted use releases, Nation Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, Ithaca, NY]. Significant relationships between youths' perception of relationship with their caregiver were found with both youth perception of internalizing behaviours and caregiver perception of internalizing and externalizing behaviours. Results are explained with implications for practice, training, research and policy.     

Factors affecting user participation for elderly people with dementia living at home: a critical interpretive synthesis of the literature

ABSTRACT

Professional caregivers are expected to facilitate user participation for people with dementia. At the same time, an increasing number of elderly people with dementia are now being cared for at their homes. Research is scarce on user participation for people with dementia, especially for people with dementia who live at home. This article aims to systematically and critically review the factors affecting user participation for elderly people with dementia living at home from the viewpoint of the patients, family caregivers, professional caregivers and researchers. A systematic literature search and critical interpretive synthesis were conducted. The search yielded 1,957 articles. In total, 112 full-text articles were retrieved, of which 27 met the inclusion criteria. Five broad analytical themes were identified during the analysis: individual characteristics, professional caregiver characteristics, decision characteristics, relational characteristics and organisational characteristics. The results show that the value placed on user participation can differ between family caregivers and professional caregivers. People with dementia still experience stigmatisation, preventing user participation, and relations with both family and professional caregivers play a key role in enabling user participation for people with dementia.     

Independent living services,adjudication status,and the social exclusion of foster youth aging out of care in the United States

Recent policy changes have increased the availability of independent living services (ILS) to foster youth aging out of care in the United States. Yet, it is possible that youth who are also involved in the juvenile justice system may have trouble accessing these services. This study uses a social exclusion framework to examine associations between independent living service receipt, adjudication status, and early adult outcomes for youth aging out of the U.S. foster care system. Outcomes and ILS receipt data for 7412 older youth from the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) were used for this study. Chi-square tests and logistic regression models were used to explore the relationships among adjudication status, ILS, social exclusion, and social connectedness at age 19. Findings indicated that postsecondary education support and education financial services at baseline were related to a higher likelihood of being socially connected and lower likelihood of being socially excluded at age 19. Being an adjudicated delinquent and receiving special education and career services were related to a lower likelihood of being socially connected. This suggests that ILS are well-suited for youth already doing well, but may not do enough for those who struggle the most during this period.     

Dealing with the past in the transition from care. A post-structural analysis of young people's accounts

Young people experiencing the transition from care often are weighed down by their past, both through their early experiences, but also by the way their past is made relevant in encounters with others. The aim of this article is two-fold. Firstly, to present a critical discursive analysis of young people's accounts of themselves in the transition from care. Secondly, to shed light on three different ways of making the transition from care; transition through a break with the past after moving out, transition through continuing change and transition as a way of dealing with the risk of further problems in their lives. The study is qualitative and includes 27 young women and men recruited from three child welfare institutions in the Oslo region of Norway. A multi-method approach including interviews, observations and documents has been used. The analytical framework is inspired by poststructuralist theory.¹     

The effects of adapting their home on the meaning of home for families with a disabled child

This article describes part of a mixed-method study investigating family and professional perspectives on home adaptations for disabled children. The methods were an online survey of staff involved in adaptations processes (n =39), semi-structured interviews with families with disabled children (n = 48) and an online survey for families (n = 16). One of the wider study’s recommendations was that families need to be enabled to engage with processes proactively. This article focuses on families’ experiences of the meaning attributed to adapting the home and highlights that, although satisfied with the completed adaptation, families were dissatisfied with the process they had been through. Thus, despite the need for the meaning of home being central to the adaptation process, families felt excluded from the process as it progressed. This had a negative impact on the continuing use of the adaptation and affected the meaning of home for families with a disabled child.