An investigation of the needs of grandparents who are raising grandchildren

Evidence suggests that children in out‐of‐home care function better when placed in kinship compared with foster care. Less is known about the functioning of children in the unique form of kinship care where grandparents are caring full‐time for their grandchildren in informal care arrangements. As grandparent carers are increasingly taking on this role, it is timely to investigate the functioning of the children in this form of care and the characteristics of the grandparents themselves. We compared the functioning of children in the two types of care. We also investigated carer characteristics, including the relationship between child functioning, social support and daily hassles on carer stress. One hundred fourteen cares and 180 children were assessed on a range of demographic and clinical measures. Children in grandparent care were displaying better behavioural and adaptive functioning than children living with foster carers. Grandparent carers reported higher levels of distress in the carer role. Predictors of carer stress included severity of child behaviour problems and daily hassles. Both group of carers and the children in their care would benefit from increased support from treatment services.     

A small‐scale qualitative scoping study into the experiences of looked after children and care leavers who are parents in Wales

This paper presents the findings of a scoping study into looked after children and care leavers who are parents in Wales. Eight parents engaged in a qualitative interview. Thirty‐one pregnancies were discussed during the interviews: 16 live births, two ongoing pregnancies, one stillbirth, one termination and 11 miscarriages. At the point of interview, two parents continued to care for their children, but six had experienced the permanent removal of their child/ren as a result of social services intervention. Twelve of the 16 children discussed in the interviews were ‘looked after’ or adopted. Despite its small‐scale nature, the study highlights important considerations before, during and after participants became parents. Broadly categorized, these relate to the influence of parents' childhood experiences on their capacity to be parents, the availability and adequacy of support during parenting and the ensuing impact of parenting ‘success’ or ‘failure’. For parents who had experienced the loss of a child, some were resigned to having no further children, some continued to hope for a family in the future, while others had experienced cycles of repeated pregnancies and compulsory removals. The findings are considered in the context of related literature and suggest that increased attention is required in this under‐researched but highly emotive area.     

Exploring the care effects of multiple factors on the educational achievement of children looked after at home and away from home: an investigation of two Scottish local authorities

This paper reports the findings of a research project which explored the care factors that influence the educational achievement of looked‐after children. The project was innovative because it focused on children looked after at home and away from home. A mixed‐methods strategy was adopted to analyse data from two large Scottish local authorities. The project developed, what is to date, the largest dataset which includes variables for one‐fifth of children discharged from care in Scotland over a 5‐year period. The qualitative element of the project collected in‐depth data on the care and education experiences of looked‐after children and care leavers. The overall finding was that looked‐after children perform less well academically than their counterparts in the general school population. The empirical data indicated that factors such as placement type, reason for becoming looked after and age on becoming looked after were significant in determining educational achievement. Empirical results further indicated that looked‐after children suffered from discrimination and social exclusion in many areas of their lives, including school and where they lived.     

More than a piece of paper?: Personal education plans and ‘looked after’ children in England

This paper reports on research into personal education plans (PEPs) for ‘looked after’ children (children in care) in one large county local authority in England. PEPs were introduced by guidance from the Department for Education and Employment and Department of Health in 2000. The fieldwork for this research began two years after this guidance was published. The research findings show that although social services staff and teachers are critical of specific aspects of PEPs, they have helped to raise the profile of the educational needs of looked after children in the local authority studied. They have provided a forum for social work and education professionals to meet in the interests of particular children. Key problems relate to practical issues: ensuring social workers and teachers feel able to fulfil their expected roles in relation to the education of looked after children; making the system focus on meeting the needs of children as well as practitioners; difficulty in meeting specified timescales; more meaningful, constructive and sensitive involvement of children in the process of producing and reviewing PEPs. The broader issue, however, is about the ability to plan the education of looked after children. Additional barriers to planning were particularly apparent in residential care and specifically within secure accommodation.     

The school experience of children in residential care: A multiple case study

Children in residential care are the out‐of‐home population group with the lowest rate of access to postsecondary education. Research aimed at understanding their situation within the school context suggests that besides learning progress and outcomes, subjective experiences should be taken into account. Qualitative research based on a multiple‐case study was designed and carried out in Spain with the aim of deepening the understanding of the individual school experiences of three children in residential care. Each case was analysed from the perspective of the child, the educators and the teachers. Semistructured, one‐to‐one interviews were carried out, and children's files were consulted. The results pointed to emotional distress and accumulated educational delay as common traits of the three children in the study. In shaping each particular school experience, the key themes identified included (1) individual characteristics, (2) the children's academic aspirations and strategies, (3) relationships with peers and teachers, (4) response experienced in school, (5) the complex structure of the residential centre, (6) the sense of belonging to the residential centre, (7) team work and (8) political action and investment in inclusive education.     

Promoting stability and continuity of care for looked after children: a survey and critical review

This paper reports on a two‐pronged research study: a critical review of reported research concerning continuity and stability for children looked after away from home, and a telephone survey of UK managers responsible for looked after children. The review found limited research in this specific field that met the criteria of the critical review, but reports some evidence in favour of sibling co‐placement, kinship care, parental participation, professional foster care and individualized, multidimensional support. The survey revealed a culture of innovation in this field in the UK voluntary and statutory sectors, but with little evaluation of the independent effects of new interventions. The paper places the research in the context of current policy initiatives in the UK and discusses the implications of the findings for research and practice.     

Linking children's social care data to information about their care proceedings to understand the use of care proceedings and their effects on parents,children and local authorities.

Care proceedings are the most powerful child protection intervention; local authorities make applications for over 20,000 children each year in England and Wales. The Department for Education holds two administrative databases of children who receive services, for children looked after and children in need. These databases do not record the use of care proceedings. Data linkage is a powerful tool for revealing patterns not visible from a single data set; the Outcomes for children before and after care proceedings reform study linked these administrative records with a research database of care proceedings to examine children's care and service journeys associated with care proceedings. The researchers also devised a simplified method for use by local authorities with their own records and tested this with North Yorkshire County Council. Analysis of the linked data reveals how care proceedings are used and the impact of care proceedings on care demand. It provides the basis for analysis of cohorts of children subject to proceedings and feedback to social workers, children's guardians, and the judges and lawyers on their decisions and children's outcomes.     

Social Work Practices: silences and elisions in the plan to 'transform' the lives of children 'looked after' in England

This paper critically examines the government's proposals for the reform of services for children in public care, or 'looked after', in England and, more specifically, the proposal to set up Social Work Practices (SWPs, see Note 1 ). These are envisaged as groups of social workers, commissioned by but independent of local authorities. The changes have been mapped out by a Green Paper Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care published in October 2006, a subsequent working group report, and Care Matters: Time for Change , a White Paper published in June 2007. This was followed, in November, by the publication of the Children and Young Persons' Bill. It is argued that there are, at least, two issues which could be focused on by those seeking to counter moves to introduce SWPs. First, the enhanced role being given to private sector providers because, it is maintained, public services provided by local authorities are unambiguously 'failing' children. Second, the fact that the views of parents and 'looked after' children are mostly excluded from the dominant and 'official' discourse on SWPs.     

‘It's so much better than contact’: A qualitative study exploring children and young people's experiences of a sibling camp in the United Kingdom

This article explores children and young people's experiences of a sibling camp based in the United Kingdom. Sibling camps are an intervention based on children's activity holidays that aim to promote meaningful contact for siblings separated in public care. This study adopted a qualitative approach using semi‐structured interviews with 11 children and young people; this included one sibling group of three and four sibling groups of two. The children's ages ranged from 8 to 17 years old, and they had all attended at least one camp with their sibling. Findings highlighted how the children valued the extended time they could spend with their siblings at camp, and how they felt this enabled them to better understand their siblings and improve their relationships. Findings also showed how the children developed close supportive relationships with the staff at the camps, who ensured they were cared for, and they also supported them with managing their relationships, which some participants acknowledged at times could be challenging. The participants also valued spending time with other sibling groups who also experienced separation. The study found camps provided a space for these children to maintain links with their siblings and to strengthen their sibling bonds.     

Driving outcomes: learning to drive,resilience and young people living in residential care

There are continuing concerns about the experiences offered to older adolescents being looked after (‘in care’) in the UK and, especially, to care leavers. Questions are asked about the limitations of State care compared with normal family life. This paper reports on an initiative to provide driving lessons to a group of six young men living in residential homes in one city. It links with resilience theory – how individuals can have relatively good outcomes despite early adversity. A qualitative study was undertaken to explore the effects of the initiative, including individual interviews with young men, heads of homes in which they lived and children's services managers. The overall results indicated that the initiative was very worthwhile. The lessons were a significant part of young people's lives. Possible effects on young people were divided into personal, instrumental and social. Benefits were reported from all parties concerning young people's self‐esteem and self‐confidence, as well as in forging close relationships with supportive adults. Driving would not be seen as a panacea for complex personal histories and structural problems, yet this small experiment suggests that driving lessons could be of disproportionate benefit and there is a moral obligation to provide them in any case.     

A tangled web: parental contact with children in kinship care

Contact between parents and children in care is a contested area. Parental contact is recognized to be important, yet may present protective issues; in the kinship care environment, it brings the particular challenges of complex family relationships. Seeking the parents' perspective in a child protection context is difficult and therefore under‐researched. This paper describes a nested study within an Australian research project on family contact in kinship care in which the perspectives of 18 mothers and 2 fathers were sought via in‐depth interviews. Mothers and fathers described strong feelings of disempowerment in the context both of their family and the child protection system. The relationship between parent and caregiver emerged as a significant issue. All of the parents wished to remain in contact with their children in a meaningful way, whether or not they were likely to resume their children's care; however, contact arrangements presented many difficulties for them. Mothers articulated the need for services that are more empowering and respectful, rather than oriented towards them as failed parents. In order to build appropriate models of support and intervention, we argue for a more inclusive conceptual frame for family life that gives greater recognition to the role of non‐custodial parents in the lives of their children.     

‘It's about the whole family’: family contact for children in kinship care

Contact with family for children in care is identified as a right under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, such contact often presents challenges because of the protective concerns that have led to care arrangements being made. The Family Links: Kinship Care and Family Contact research study explored the nature and extent of family contact in kinship care, with a particular focus on the circumstances that create positive contact and foster family relationships. Findings included evidence of a large proportion of parental contact that was negatively affecting children's well‐being, and was sometimes unsafe. By contrast, the frequent contact that children were enjoying with their siblings and wider family was reported to be mostly positive and supportive. Kinship carers described a range of services needed to facilitate more positive parental contact and to enable children to keep contact with significant family members.     

Numbers of children looked after in England: a historical analysis

This paper is an analysis of the relationship between policy, practice and the rates of children looked after by local authorities in England. It examines the trends in the numbers of children looked after by local authorities in England over a period of approximately 40 years. The increase in children looked after in the decade after 1994 is shown to be the result of fewer children entering care, but those that do tend to stay longer. This two-part dynamic appears to have been the underlying determinant of the care population over a long period of time. The fact that time spent in care is such a key factor suggests that planning for children who are already looked after is a crucial determinant of the numbers in care. However, it is argued that poorly developed family support services limit current options for reducing the size of the care population. A range of effective family support services could potentially have an impact on the number of children in care in three ways: by helping to maintain more children within their families; by identifying those children who need care earlier; and by improving the chances of some children being successfully returned home.     

Young children returning home from care: the birth parents' perspective

While a wide range of literature exists on the experiences of children in foster care or adoption, much less is known about children who return home from care to their birth parents. This paper focuses on the perspectives of a small sample of birth parents of young children who returned home from care. It draws on findings from the Northern Ireland Care Pathways and Outcomes Study that has been following a population ( n  = 374) of children who were under 5 years and in care in Northern Ireland on the 31st of March 2000. As part of this study, interviews were conducted with the foster parents of 55 children, the adoptive parents of 51 children and the birth parents of nine children who had returned home from care. The paper explores the birth parents' views on how they coped while their child was in care, how they were coping after the child had returned home and how their child was faring at home. Results revealed that these parents, and their children, were experiencing multiple difficulties and struggled to cope after the children had returned home.     

Investing in the relationship: practitioners’ relationships with looked‐after children and care leavers in Social Work Practices

Providing more consistent and continuous relationships for looked‐after children and care leavers is a current preoccupation in social work in light of many criticisms of the quality of such relationships. Recommendations for more direct work have spurred new models of service delivery in children's services aimed at improving individual outcomes. Independent Social Work Practices (SWPs), a new organizational model piloted in some areas of England between 2009 and 2012, were established to enable social workers and other practitioners to spend more time in direct work and thus to improve the practitioner/child/young person relationship. This paper uses findings from interviews with 169 children and young people across 11 local authorities and 5 SWPs, undertaken as part of a 3‐year national matched control evaluation of pilot SWPs, to identify key elements of good quality practitioner relationships with children or young people. Focusing on children's and young people's perspectives and experiences, the study demonstrates that more direct work and consistent relationships are valued. The paper deploys Recognition Theory to further understanding of effective practice as defined by children and young people.     

Who Takes Care of Education 18 months on? A follow‐up study of looked after children's perceptions of support for educational progress

This paper represents a follow‐up publication to the findings of a previous paper by documenting the views of a follow‐up sample of 56 young people, aged 12–19 years, looked after in three English local authorities. Young people were interviewed on two separate occasions, 18 months apart, to assess their perceptions of educational progress and identify factors that might support or hinder their education. The interviews took place as part of an ongoing evaluation of the Taking Care of Education project, a development programme designed to facilitate improvements in the education of looked after children. Most young people were aware of individual project‐related activities and a number of these were seen to contribute towards educational progress. Perceptions of educational progress were significantly higher at follow‐up interview and an increased proportion of young people reported that being looked after had had a positive impact upon their education. Carers and teachers continued to be the most frequently mentioned providers of educational support, but the proportion of comments relating to educational support from social workers increased at follow‐up. The most consistent explanation given for improved educational progress was the availability of support and encouragement for educational progress and acknowledgement of young people's achievements.     

Matching children and substitute homes: some theoretical and empirical notions

Matching describes the process of selecting the substitute home for a child who needs to be placed away from the care of his/her birth parents. However, very little theorizing is done about matching and there is also a lack of systematic investigation into models of practice currently in use. Most importantly, very little is known about front‐line matching practices in different socio‐historical child welfare contexts. This paper aims to explore the concept of matching by addressing it theoretically and empirically as a decision‐making practice in social work. Based on the analysis of phone interviews (49) and focus group interviews (five groups with 18 child welfare practitioners) in Finland, we claim that matching includes a high degree of navigation: decision‐making balances between professional discretion, legal norms and principles, subjective views of the children and their parents as well as the economic and bureaucratic conditions of the service provision administration in the municipality. Navigation is shadowed by uncertainty and compromises. The analysis suggests that the notion of matching needs further analysis as it plays an important role in child welfare decision‐making. The interplay between front‐line practice and the socio‐historical context needs to be further addressed.     

Who Takes Care of Education? Looked after children's perceptions of support for educational progress

This paper documents the views of a sample of 80 children and young people, aged 10–18 years, living in foster and residential care placements in England, regarding their educational experience whilst being looked after. The children were interviewed as part of an ongoing evaluation of the Taking Care of Education project, a development programme designed to facilitate improvements in the education of looked after children, co‐ordinated by the National Children's Bureau and funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. Interviews with the sample asked children to assess their current educational progress and identify individuals who supported or hindered their education, as well as the availability of educational support in care placements. Teaching staff were frequently mentioned as providers of support, whilst social workers were often associated with hindering educational progress. Children and young people had access to a range of educational supports in care placements, and these were more widely available in residential settings than in foster care. Children offered a range of pertinent suggestions as to how the educational experience of those in the public care system might be improved.     

High‐frequency family contact: a road to nowhere for infants

Understanding the practices which support the best interests of infants when placed in out‐of‐home care in the first year of life is a significant challenge. A study based in Victoria, Australia, explored the practice by the Children's Court of ordering high‐frequency contact (4–7 days a week) with the infant's mother and father when they are placed in care in the first year of life. A literature review revealed little attention to the issue of frequency of family contact for infants. An audit of case files of all infants in care in mid‐2007 showed that at 1 year follow‐up, there was no difference in the reunification rate for children with a period of high‐frequency contact and those with less contact with their mothers and fathers. Focus groups revealed deep divisions of opinion about high‐frequency family contact which are played out in the adversarial Children's Court system in Victoria. The study highlights the complexity of understanding and supporting the attachment relationships at this critical period in the infant's life.