Children’s Participation in Child Protection Practice in Ghana: Practitioners’ Recommendations for Practice

Abstract

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) includes provisions to ensure that children and young people participate in decisions affecting their lives. Ghana ratified the convention in 1990 making a commitment to review its child protection policies and legislation in compliance with provisions in the UNCRC. Yet, national policies and legislation do not include practical guidelines to promote children’s participation in the child protection process. Thus, this qualitative study presents findings from in-depth interviews with 15 child protection practitioners on their views about some practical guidelines to promote children’s participation in child protection. Data from the interviews were subjected to constructivist grounded theory analysis. The study findings revealed the age of the child, separate room for children, creating a friendly environment and education as some important factors for practitioners to consider in promoting participatory practices for children. Child protection policies and legislation in Ghana should include these suggestions to ensure that children’s views are heard in the child protection process. To realize the overarching goal of achieving active child participation in child protection, further research may focus on the views of parents and children on how to develop culturally relevant strategies to promote child participation.     

Repositioning prevention in child protection using performance indicators

ABSTRACT

Performance indicators have both technical and value dimensions, capable of providing data for monitoring and reporting in addition to framing policy problems and their solutions. This paper considers the performance indicators proposed in a recent child protection inquiry in Australia that recommended ‘decreasing the numbers of children in the child protection system’ as a primary policy objective. The paper examines the context in which the indicators were set, the values and theories they endorse, and how they position stakeholders. The analysis shows how the indicators communicate that child protection services should be only for the most serious cases of child maltreatment, and the reach of statutory services should be curtailed. Children who have been maltreated or who are at risk of harm from abuse or neglect should be diverted from the child protection system (positioned as bad) to the family support system (positioned as good), and at the same time from the state to the nongovernment sector. The shifting relations between government, service providers, and families signified by the indicators can be seen in a broader international context of tightening the boundaries around child protection and concurrently advancing concepts of compliance within family support.     

A Study of Social Workers' Job Satisfaction as Based on an Optimal Model of Care for the Terminally Ill

ABSTRACT

To address the need for empirical evidence on how culture is and should be addressed in child protection work in Australia to ensure equity in service delivery, this study reviewed 120 case files of children from ethnic-minority, Aboriginal, and Anglo backgrounds and conducted 46 qualitative interviews with ethnic-minority client families and the caseworkers who service them. Overall, the results indicated that the issue of culture for ethnic-minority families receives less consideration than it does for Aboriginal families and more than it does for Anglo families, indicating that cross-cultural parity is yet to be achieved. To ensure equity in service delivery, it is important that culture is neither overlooked nor used to essentialize the needs and experiences of ethnic-minority families; balancing the amount of attention that culture receives in child protection work may help “normalize the novel”—that is, reduce the use of cultural stereotypes without reducing the significance of cultural factors in child protection work with culturally nonmainstream families. Mandatory consultation with “multicultural” caseworkers may help get the balance right and warrants future research.     

A comparison of systems and outcomes for safeguarding children in Australia and Norway

Using aggregated national data, this paper compares outcomes of Australian ‘child protection’ (CP) and Norwegian ‘child welfare services’ (CWS). We highlight each nation's context and key elements of their CP/CWS organizations, with emphasis on policy and programme orientation. System outcomes are examined along with the implications of their different approaches. The main policy focus in Australia is protection and risk, while Norway's systemic approach stresses prevention, early intervention and support. These differences influence practitioner's intervention strategies and how the needs of children and parents are met. In Norway, approximately 80% of the children in the CWS receive some sort of supportive services. In contrast, Australian services for supporting families are narrowly targeted. Both countries share the ‘best interest of the child’ principle and an increased focus on children's rights, and have experienced increased service demands and rates of children in out‐of‐home care. The paper explores the relative merits of these systems.     

Child safety in policy: Who is being kept safe and from what?

Keeping children safe from harm is a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive inquiries and reviews have highlighted institutions' persistent failures to respond ethically and appropriately to child abuse and its life-long impacts on survivors. Policy efforts now reflect considerable emphasis on safeguarding children, including through the development of ‘child safe’ organisations. The realisation of these policy aspirations requires close attention to how ‘child safe’ is conceptualised and operationalised in different organisational contexts. Drawing on an analysis of policy in Australia and other international jurisdictions, namely New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Ireland, this article engages critically with the notion of ‘child safe’ in policy, to explore who is to be safe, from what and how, in organisational settings. The findings suggest emergent discourses of ‘child safe’ are bound up with particular constructions of both children and safety, reflect current social and political understandings and agendas, and have implications for organisations' approaches to safety. Ensuring the safety of children in Australia and other jurisdictions requires continuing scrutiny of policy implementation to make sure current policy efforts are not reduced to compliance-based imperatives that protect organisations, but fail to create the cultural conditions that enhance children's wellbeing and safety.     

Missing Elements in the Protection of Children: Three Cases from China

ABSTRACT.

The article analyzes 3 severe cases of child abuse that were widely discussed in the mass media in China in 2007 based on a framework used by the International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect in its official publication World Perspectives on Child Abuse. The framework sets out the basic elements that must be included in systems of child protection: a) a responsible government or government-authorized organization; b) a set of institutional arrangements for reporting cases of child abuse, investigation, and intervening when necessary; and c) state guardianship or mechanisms to remove children from their parents’ care when necessary. By applying the framework to the 3 cases under analysis, the authors found that these basic elements are missing from the Chinese child protection system, and therefore, they recommend that a reform of the system to address these elements should be a priority for Chinese social policy. The article makes a number of recommendations for reform.     

Building assets from birth: Singapore’s policies

ABSTRACT

Singapore has created innovative, inclusive and comprehensive asset-building policies designed to promote social stability and development. Asset building from early childhood is an important part of this overall strategy. In 1993, Singapore’s government initiated a universal child asset-building policy, Edusave, which provides resources for improving educational outcomes. Since then, three additional asset-building policies for children have been implemented: the Baby Bonus and Child Development Accounts (CDAs), Post-Secondary Education Accounts (PSEAs) and Medisave, a health savings account. We discuss each of these asset-building accounts for children in Singapore. We point out distinctive features and assess key elements in overall policy design.     

Protecting the Right to Life of Children with Disabilities in China

ABSTRACT

Chinese social policy to support parents in caring for their children is vital to address the urgent social problem of abandoning the life of children with disabilities by not seeking medical treatment. The child rights approach was used to analyze the effectiveness of Chinese social policy to protect the right to life of these children. Primary and secondary empirical data from 3 case studies where parents decided whether to abandon their child were analyzed. Did the child protection mechanisms protect the right to life of these children, and when did parents decide to abandon their children? The findings were: a) When the children were born, their right to life was not unconditional; b) the decision was made privately by parents—no formal decision procedure was available, the role of professionals was minimal, and the state did not intervene; and c) parents considered the disadvantages to their children if they lived. The implication is that China has not yet established a system to support parents and protect the lives of young children with disabilities. Future research to inform child protection reform and disability support to children and families to prevent children becoming abandoned is urgently needed.     

Research Review: Parents' service experience – a missing element in research on foster care case outcomes

A large body of child protection literature focuses on termination of parental rights, family reunification, and children's re‐entry into care as outcomes for children in foster care. Studies have investigated child, placement, family, and parent variables as predictors of case outcome. However, one important group of variables remains largely unstudied: factors related to parents’ service experience. Parents’ service experience includes parents’ perceptions of and involvement in the various services in which they must participate in order to recover their children from foster care (e.g. mandated treatment programmes such as substance abuse rehabilitation, parenting skills classes, etc.). The parental perspective on the foster care process is a critical element in the life of a child protection case, and its influence on case outcome must be explored. A brief review of the current literature on case outcome predictors is provided and parents’ service experience is highlighted as an area in need of investigation. Suggestions for the measurement of parents’ service experience are also offered.     

Responding to child maltreatment: Comparison between the USA and China

A recent study estimated that over one‐fourth of Chinese children have suffered maltreatment (Fang et al., 2015 ). However, the current child welfare policy in China is limited to orphans, abandoned children, and children with disabilities. Also, there is very little comparative research in China on Chinese and other countries’ child welfare systems. The purpose of this study was to analyze applicable US and Chinese child welfare policies, identify gaps in Chinese policy regarding child maltreatment, and make recommendations for a policy agenda for improving child welfare in China based on cultural values and existing policy structures. Results show that China has considerable capacity to make improvements in child protective services, foster care, and adoption policies. Based on the results of this study, several implications are provided to develop China's child maltreatment policy to increase children's outcomes of well‐being, safety, and permanency. Key Practitioner Message: ? To understand the background and system of current Chinese child maltreatment policy; ? To review US child maltreatment policy and its implementation to identify gaps in the Chinese child maltreatment system; ? To provide policy suggestions to develop Chinese child maltreatment policy and provide recommendations for social work education and practice in China.     

A qualitative study on participants’ perceptions of child development accounts in Korea

ABSTRACT

In 2007, Korea implemented Child Development Accounts (CDAs) for institutionalised children in child welfare systems. Since then, the target group and a matching cap of CDAs in Korea have evolved. The target group expanded to include poor children receiving welfare, whereas the matching cap increased from KRW 30,000 (US$26.53) to KRW 40,000 (US$35.38), which is matched at a 1:1 rate. Despite the expansion, there is little empirical evidence examining the extent to which CDAs have influenced the life of participants. Using a content analysis method with a sample (N = 22), this study examines how CDAs have changed children’s mindsets, saving habits, education, future planning and sponsorship. The findings suggest that CDAs have multiple positive influences on children. This study concludes with policy implications for the inclusive and progressive development of CDAs in Korea.     

The implementation and development of child welfare and protection works in China

The Chinese government adheres to the principle of ‘children first’ and actively protects their rights of survival, development, protection and participation through methods such as laws and regulations, policy system, public services and pilot works. The Chinese government aimed to narrow the gap between children's development in rural and urban areas and to continuously improve the level of child welfare. The government complies fully with its responsibilities in raising the overall quality of life for children and improving their health and overall development.

China has 280 million children, and is the country with the most children in the world. China is a signatory of and a country that loyally implements the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since the economic reform, China's economy has developed rapidly, politics has been harmonized and stabilized, and the degree of social civilization has risen continuously. At the same time, work on children has also achieved remarkable accomplishments in China.     

Response to: 'New Directions in child protection and family support in Western Australia: a policy initiative to re-focus child welfare practice'

This paper is a response to ‘New Directions in child protection and family support in Western Australia: a policy initiative to re‐focus child welfare practice’, written by Nigel Parton and Richard Mathews and published in Volume 6(2) of Child and Family Social Work. Parton and Mathews’ paper describes the policy and provides an analysis of its impact on child protection practice. They find the policy to have been successful on a number of different dimensions. This paper subjects their findings to a broader lens of analysis and arrives at conclusions somewhat different to those of the authors.     

Single Mothers,Nonresident Fathers,and Preschoolers’ Socioemotional Development: Social Support,Psychological Well-Being,and Parenting Quality

ABSTRACT

Using data from two waves of a short-term longitudinal study, the influences of mothers’ social support with respect to parenting from nonresident fathers and significant others on behavioral outcomes among poor and near-poor preschool-aged Black children were examined. The sample consisted of 99 single Black mothers—each with a preschool-aged child (ages 3 and 5 years old, respectively, at Time 1 and Time 2)—who were current and former welfare recipients. Results revealed protective effects of nonresident fathers’ presence in the context of mothers’ parenting stress and depressive symptoms at Time 1 that appeared to operate through decreases in the negative influences of these variables on the children's development of behavior problems 1.5 to 2 years later. Greater availability of instrumental support from significant others, including nonresident fathers, was associated with more adequate parenting at Time 1, and through the latter, with fewer child behavior problems at Time 2. Implications of these findings for program and policy interventions are discussed. Nonresident fathers are described in the Appendix.     

The Saving for Every Child Program in Israel: an overview of a universal asset-building policy

ABSTRACT

In 2017, the Israeli government implemented a universal child development account programme – the Saving for Every Child Program (SECP) – which establishes a personal savings account for every Israeli child and provides monthly deposits until the child turns 18. The SECP has the potential to provide substantial assets when children reach adulthood, but the benefits depend on parents’ investment choices. The unique programme’s nature presents opportunities to learn from its implementation. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the SECP, its legislative history, early findings from its implementation, and recommendations that may improve programme participation and outcomes across population groups.     

The Common Assessment Framework: does the reality match the rhetoric?

The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is an important part of the procedures envisaged in the government's Every Child Matters: Change for Children (ECM: CFC) programme. Implementation of CAF, in particular, raises many important questions, not least those arising from the inconsistencies apparent between government rhetoric around the development of multi‐agency services provided to all children with ‘additional’ needs and the actual experiences of children, young people, parents/carers and practitioners in ‘real world’ situations. This paper explores the extent to which the actions of practitioners and the experiences of service users with regard to CAF mirror or differ from those which would be expected in view of the content of government guidance and policy documents. The data used is taken from an evaluation of CAF processes in two locations in northern England over a period of 6 months. It concludes that very small numbers of children and young people actually received the service; that, despite genuine enthusiasm from practitioners for them to be so, the processes observed could not yet be described as fully ‘child centred’; that fathers were insufficiently involved; and that CAF was, in reality, another service ‘rationed’ according to resources available and according to agencies' priorities.     

Well‐being of migrant and left‐behind children in China: Education,health, parenting,and personal values

Over the last several decades of urbanization and industrialization, China has encountered mass labor force migration from rural to urban areas. As a result, two‐child populations have dramatically increased in number: so‐called left‐behind children and migrant children. Using data from the 2006 and 2009 China Nutrition and Health Surveys, this study examined the effects of parental migration and residency status on the education, health, parenting, and personal values of children, with particular focus on left‐behind and migrant children. The findings suggest that parental migration and residency status play important roles in the educational and health outcomes, parental supervision, and personal values of children. Through analyzing the differences and possible reasons for disparate outcomes among child populations, this study aimed to improve public understanding of migrant and left‐behind children's well‐being in China, and explore implications for future studies and welfare policy making. Key Practitioner Message: ● Help to identify the impact of migration on individual, family, and the society domestically and internationally; ● Provide implications for welfare policy making, program design, and service delivery for migrant populations; ● Explore the approaches to addressing migration‐related issues in different countries with internal and transnational migrant populations.     

‘Like walking on eggshells’: service user views and expectations of the child protection system

This paper reports on a study of service users' views on Irish child protection services. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 67 service users, including young people between 13 and 23. The findings showed that despite refocusing and public service management reforms, service users still experience involvement with the services as intimidating and stressful and while they acknowledged opportunities to participate in the child protection process, they found the experience to be very difficult. Their definition of ‘needs’ was somewhat at odds with that suggested in official documentation, and they viewed the execution of a child protection plan more as a coercive requirement to comply with ‘tasks’ set by workers than a conjoint effort to enhance their children's welfare. As in previous studies, the data showed how the development of good relationships between workers and service users could compensate for the harsher aspects of involvement with child protection. In addition, this study demonstrated a high level of discernment on the part of service users, highlighting their expectation of quality standards in respect of courtesy, respect, accountability, transparency and practitioner expertise.     

Challenges of operationalizing trauma‐informed practice in child protection services in New Zealand

New Zealand is undergoing major change in service delivery to children and families. A new Ministry for Children Oranga Tamariki has been established to oversee 5 work streams, one of which provides intensive intervention with families requiring a statutory response to child protection concerns. The government minister responsible promised that the service would be child‐centred and trauma‐informed. To date, these terms remain undefined, and there is no shared understanding of their meaning. Practice frameworks to support the work of the new ministry are still being developed, creating something of a vacuum in the meantime. The focus of this paper is the challenge of implementing trauma‐informed practice in the child protection service provided by the Intensive Intervention work stream. Limited research or commentary on trauma‐informed practice in this context currently exists. Drawing on the relevant available literature, the concept and its application in child protection social work is explored. An ecological framework is used to discuss the changes needed to achieve this. Particular attention is paid to the impact of historical trauma for indigenous people due to New Zealand's colonial history and their over‐representation in care and protection services.     

Building state capacity for welfare governance: The pathway and development of child welfare system and social work in China

ABSTRACT

China’s dramatic socioeconomic transformation after the reform and opening up, coincided with changes in state-family relationship, has resulted in a large number of children at risk of care. In the past three decades, child welfare has been highly concerned by the government and society, and the child welfare system has substantially developed in the direction of establishing a moderately universal system. In this process, the development of child welfare and social work has shown a mutually reinforcing trend. This includes the professionalisation of child welfare services, the professional training of child welfare workers and the advancement of child welfare policies. The governance of child welfare is an essential component of national social governance. Its future development should be oriented towards a developmental and holistic approach of governance, and social work as an important institutional actor plays a critical role in promoting good governance of child welfare and beyond.