Families,Work, and an Aging Population

Abstract

This article examines the intersection of family caregiving, work, and long-term care. Supporting families who provide care in order to minimize negative work effects while enhancing the acceptability of care options is of common concern to employers, state and federal policymakers, and the homecare professionals in the community-based care system. The contribution of families to the long-term care system, how employer policies have developed, how the public policy agenda has addressed family caregiving, and the importance of a more effective partnership on the state level are discussed.     

Patterning in Citations: An Analysis of References to George Herbert Mead

Abstract

Family work in dual-earner families has been studied extensively, but the focus has been primarily on household tasks and child care, neglecting the component of health care behavior. In this paper, I introduce scales to study the performance of family health care behaviors in dual-earner families. The items assess topics such as who arranged and accompanied family members to health care appointments, who left work early or took time off from work for health care, and who handled the paperwork of medical expenses. The sample consisted of 174 married women employed in health care and education. The study results indicate that the health care scales are reliable. They are also not highly correlated with demographic variables that might affect the utility of the scales to examine how health care behaviors are linked to other family work.     

Wraparound Services: An Effective Intervention for Families Impacted by Severe Mental Illness

ABSTRACT

Children and families impacted by severe mental illness (SMI) have multiple strains that effect family functioning, child safety, and parental rights. Traditional services for children and families struggling with severe mental illness have not achieved success in improving family functioning and keeping families intact. Wraparound is a philosophy and a system of care with a promising evidence base that could enhance collaboration of child welfare, mental health, and community services to work more effectively with families impacted by SMI.     

“A Family for Every Child”: Discursive Constructions of “Ideal” Adoptive Families in Online Foster Adoption Photolistings That Promote Adoption of Children From Foster Care

ABSTRACT

Despite documented cultural and institutional preferences for biological family ties, approximately 100,000 children await adoption in the U.S. foster care system. Child welfare professionals have the important task of finding these children permanent families, yet little is known about this process or how “ideal” adoptive families are constructed. Thus, this study critically examines photolistings (N = 104) from www.afamilyforeverychild.org. Findings indicate that discursive constructions of “forever family,” based on chosen family structure and familial performance, counter biology-based understandings of family. Practical applications that might open untapped opportunities to connect children with permanent families are discussed.     

Kinship Care: A Cultural Resource of African American and Latino Families Coping with Parental Substance Abuse

SUMMARY

This paper examines kinship care as a cultural resource used by African American and Latino families coping with substance abuse by a family member. Although there is a growing body of literature on kinship care, there are no conceptual or empirical studies that have drawn or built on cultural similarities between these two groups of ethnic minority families. A framework that prioritizes cultural assessment and relevance in using familial and cultural resources is proposed to assist practitioners confronted with the demographic realities of working with social, clinical and ethnocultural complexities when serving ethnic minority families. The framework is based on practice implications raised by recent studies on kinship care and from the perspective of pertinent cross-cultural and anthropological literature.     

Exploring the needs of parents for achieving reunification: The views of foster children,birth family and social workers in Spain

BackgroundFamily reunification refers to the process through which children and adolescents under a measure of temporary separation (foster care or residential) return to live with their biological families. The research has begun to reflect a paradigm change in intervention and support for these families that affects the consolidation of reunification and the prevention of new processes of separation and reentry into the protection system.ObjectivesThis article examines the needs of parents who are susceptible to an educational intervention from a positive focus that contributes to the consolidation of family reunification.MethodEighteen semi-structured interviews were conducted and 22 discussion groups were convened with 135 participants (63 protection-system professionals, 42 parents and 30 children and adolescents). The data were analyzed through content analysis and were subject to peer revision.ResultsA series of parents' specific educational needs when their children return home was recognized. These needs can be the objects of family intervention based on a positive focus directed toward highlighting parents' strengths and are related to awareness of family progress, emotional management, giving and receiving help from other families and social support. The participants' comments show that feelings of self-sufficiency and positive reinforcement are fundamental for consolidation of the process.ConclusionsSocial support through formal and informal networks may be a path to explore for providing more and better support after returning home. Empowering families so that they can be agents of support for other families can be a way to consolidate reunification, allowing families to be active agents in the reunification process. In addition, listening to children's voices can be a good strategy for family consolidation.     

Examining risk,strengths, and functioning of foster families: Implications for strengths-based practice

ABSTRACT

Foster families provide safe and stable homes for children and youth who are removed from their homes due to maltreatment. Despite the stressors associated with bringing children in and out of a family’s home, many maintain healthy family functioning and continue fostering for many years serving an essential function in the child welfare system. This study sought to understand the factors that explained higher levels of family functioning within foster families. Collaborating with one statewide public child welfare agency, 681 licensed foster parents participated in an online survey that examined the association between family functioning with family strengths and risk factors. Findings from this study can inform strengths-based practice including training, assessment, and interventions for new and existing foster families to strengthen families and improve the well-being of children and youth in their care.     

Family preservation and child protection: The reality of Children's Court decision-making

Abstract

Ainsworth and Maluccio (Australian Social Work, December 1998) drew attention to the increased use of kinship care for children who need care away from their parents. This paper discusses the aim of family preservation, on which kinship care is predicated, and the challenges for legal decision-makers to meet this aim when children are before the courts in need of care and protection. It draws from findings of a study of magistrates' decision-making in child protection cases (Sheehan 1999). The paper provides examples of family situations that typically confront the Children's Court in Victoria and the court's response to them as it attempts to balance the importance of family ties and the reality of risk for a child; a reality that challenges valued beliefs about families and their ability to always care for their children.     

Family members’ experiences and management of resident-to-resident abuse in long-term residential care

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Resident-to-resident (RRA) abuse is increasingly recognized as a significant problem in long-term residential care.Families have a constant presence in this setting, yet their inclusion in research about RRA is minimal. The purpose of this study was to examine family members’ experiences and management of RRA. Methods: The methodology was critical ethnography.Twelve family members participated in in-depth interviews and 56 hours of participant observation were conducted. Data were analyzed thematically. Results: The main themes illuminate families’ experiences of RRA in a context that largely normalizes it.In the absence of formal supports, families developed a range of management strategies, ranging from passive to active intervention.Organizational factors, such as staffing levels and mix, and the physical environment also contributed to RRA. Discussion: Families are actively managing RRA in long-term residential care. Policies and programs, including educational supports, should be developed to validate and support families.     

Social Work Practice with Older Soviet Immigrants

ABSTRACT

With the recent sociopolitical changes in the Former Soviet Union, significant numbers of older Soviets have arrived in the U.S. with their families. Soviet immigrants who enter the U.S. are no longer automatically considered political refugees, which has limited their entitlement to services. Recent changes in public welfare and immigration policy place the responsibility for care of elderly members solely on the family. While caring for older adults is stressful for any family, new immigrants may be especially burdened since they have limited knowledge of services, few coping resources to provide adequate care, and little experience resolving cultural conflicts with their older parent. By using a practice model designed to evaluate late-life caregiving situations, two case scenarios are presented to examine practice and service delivery issues of older Soviet immigrants and their families.     

Families' Values and Attitudes Regarding Responsibility for the Frail Elderly

Abstract

This study examines the norms and values associated with care to disabled and frail aging parents, in particular those with regard to the sharing of responsibilities for care between families and formal services, and this within three age cohorts in Quebec, Canada. It is based on a telephone interview of 1,315 people. Factor analysis yielded four factors: (1) family responsibility; (2) uncompromising family obligations; (3) acceptance of services; (4) distrust of services. Analyses of the data indicate that all three age cohorts consider that families have responsibilities for their aging family members, at the same time that they score very high on the acceptance of service scale. This article discusses these seemingly paradoxical results and their implications for aging policy.     

Families and the Moral Economy of Incarceration

SUMMARY

The experiences of families of prisoners barely register in contemporary debates over criminal sanctions. But the accounts of families of prisoners demonstrate that mass incarceration does far more than punish and deter. By pitting the moral and economic interests of families against one another, it erodes the fundamental norms of social life itself. As family members are pressed hard to withdraw their care and concern from one another, the effect is more than the impoverishment of individuals: As over-incarceration increases the costs of caring relationships, the loss becomes a moral one and, in time, we impoverish our culture as well.     

Families and Mental Illness: Contested Perspectives and Implications for Practice and Policy

Abstract

Mental health research, policy, and service provision over the last 50 years have constructed families and their connections with mental illness in various and contradictory ways. Three distinct but intersecting perspectives derive from the clinical mental illness literature, the family advocacy movement, and mental health policy. Within the clinical literature, the perspective of families is largely one of blame and pathology. By contrast, the family advocacy movement has generated the perspective of the burdened family, whereas mental health policy has created the perspective of the obligated caregiver. The result is an ambiguous understanding of the role of the family in both contributing and responding to mental illness. Implications for policy and practice include the need for a commitment to the principles of partnership with families, a recognition of diversity within families, recognising the difference between carer and family positions, and a need for policy to reflect the position of family as both intimately concerned, but not necessarily responsible, for patient care.     

Experiences of vulnerability due to loss of support by aged parents of emigrated children: a hermeneutic literature review

ABSTRACT

In disrupted families due to migration individual members support each other through transnational care. The care is often reciprocal as the members who are left behind support the members who emigrated and in return receive care from the emigrated family members. Aged parents who get left behind, however, often become vulnerable. The hermeneutic literature review shows that social, psychological or emotional and economic vulnerability are experienced. They have to deal with cultural challenges as their children form part of a new culture in their receiving country. Strong feelings of loss, helplessness and loneliness are experienced. The emigration of their children may also contribute to the financial vulnerability of the elderly.     

‘More like a daughter than an employee’: the kinning process between migrant care workers,elderly care receivers and their extended families

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the intersections of formal and informal care in the relationships that develop between elderly care receivers and their families and migrant domestic care workers and their families. The domestic migrant care literature has tended to focus on two main ‘hidden costs’ of this ‘care-chain’: the ‘care exploitation’ of paid carers by their employers and the ‘care drain’ impact on the family members left behind by the migrant. In this paper, we employ a care circulation framework to examine the process of becoming kin-like – or ‘kinning’, which remains relatively under-explored and warrants further research. An analysis of this process of kinning helps to highlight how the domestic space of care receiver homes are transformed – through the negotiation of relationships with migrant care workers – into transnational social fields that bring the diaspora worlds of the migrants into the everyday worlds of the locals.     

Expanding “Irish Family” Repertoires: Exploring Gay Men's Experiences as Parents in the Republic of Ireland

ABSTRACT

This article explores gay men's parenting experiences and practices in order to seek insight into how gay men accept or challenge heterosexual family norms and how “family” is understood in the Irish context. It is based on small-scale qualitative research (interviews) with seven gay fathers. Despite the limited routes to parenthood for gay men in Ireland, the research findings indicate that the participants enjoy parenting and that they are motivated in their parenting practices. The gay fathers in this study are participative parents who have made significant decisions in their lives in order to prioritize their children's welfare. The diversity of family constellations and care arrangements that surround gay fathering in Ireland can expand family and care repertoires beyond the traditional biparent heterosexual norm. Gay fathers in Ireland appear to enjoy some security at the private familial level and in the responses from their families and communities, but they are keenly aware that nontraditional families are given less status in Irish society. Unlike other jurisdictions, gay parenting is not articulated by the gay fathers in this research as a rights-based argument. Instead, these Irish gay fathers are de facto activists who seek to “humanize” gay parenting.     

Interdisciplinary Collaboration for LGBTQ Students in Foster Care: Strategies for School Counselors

abstract

Unsafe and ill-prepared school environments exist for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students in foster care. School counselors are uniquely positioned to develop safe and inclusive schools for this vulnerable student population; however, strategies for interdisciplinary collaboration and advocacy with schools, families, and systems incorporated with LGBTQ youth in foster care are limited. This article explores how school counselors can advocate across disciplines for LGBTQ youth in foster care, including K-12 education systems, family/caregivers, and social service organizations providers.     

Family Experiences of Caring for Relatives Who Have Received Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

The research literature on family members’ experiences of the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is limited. This article explores the perspectives of family members whose relatives had received ECT. Drawing on a social constructionist perspective, this qualitative study collected data using in-depth interviews with nine families in South Australia, to examine how family members constructed the supports and challenges they experienced. The research found that families experienced a range of social and service system barriers, including social stigma and isolation, and limited support from health professionals. They had to negotiate caring expectations within a social context that stigmatised both mental illness and ECT. A need for ECT-specific mental health support groups was identified.

IMPLICATIONS

• Social workers’ roles in Australian hospitals could be further expanded to accommodate supporting families whose relatives have received ECT, referring families to community support, and advocating for specialist support post-ECT treatment.

• Social workers can further articulate their unique contribution to community care post-ECT treatment and advocate for supporting families.

• Increased focus on ongoing and preventative care for supporting families is a potential growth area for social workers in mental health.

     

Teaching About International Families Across the United States

Abstract

Due to increasing globalization, teaching students about international families is important in preparing them to become competent multicultural educators. This study assessed the current existence of family studies courses across the United States which focus on international families. More than 110 undergraduate and 76 graduate family science/studies programs were reviewed. However, only 20 undergraduate and 10 graduate courses on international families or cross-cultural perspectives on families were identified. Recommendations are provided for including this type of course in family studies curricula, and several textbooks on international families are suggested.     

BPD and the Need for Community

SUMMARY

This chapter emphasizes the importance of a community/systems approach in managing the treatment of individuals with borderline personality disorder. The natural systems existing around patient, clinician and family are recognized, and we examine how working teams are built from these systems. The Borderline Center at McLean Hospital is used as an illustration of an organizational model that utilizes the concept of the “holding environment” (Winnicott, 1965) to provide comprehensive services to borderline patients and their families. As patients move through various levels of care and exhibit typical borderline symptomatology, the importance of communication and coordination on the part of the treatment team is highlighted. This chapter also will illustrate the essential ways in which patients, clinicians and families are able to join together in the treatment of this disorder, with special emphasis on the necessity of family involvement. We also will examine how the treatment teams provide the foundation for larger communities, which are critical to sustaining the ongoing work of its members.