'I made some mistakes . . . but I love them dearly' the views of parents of children in informal kinship care

In-depth semi-structured interviews with 30 parents of children living with relatives in informal kinship care arrangements revealed the parents' views of the reasons for the informal kinship care arrangements, quality of their relationships with the children and their caregivers, their current and future roles in their children's lives, feelings experienced when with and away from the children, positive and negative aspects of kinship care, future goals and dreams for their children, and their assessments of their own strengths and challenges. Results of these interviews suggest several implications for social work practice and research.     

Origins and rationale of centres for parents and young children together

The range of centres where parents and children come together has mushroomed in different parts of the world, as new social work practices address the emerging non‐material needs of parents in changing demographic contexts. In this paper, we explore the origins and modi operandi of these centres in Belgium, France, Italy and Japan. Analysis of previous studies and policy documents reveal diverse political rationales, including addressing declining birth rates, preventing psychosocial problems and social isolation of mothers and promoting social cohesion and equality of educational opportunities. Remarkably, despite the diverse cultural and socio‐political contexts and rationales, these centres also share very similar ways of functioning and provide an informal type of social support to parents with young children. As these recently emerged centres are seldom studied, further research is welcomed to explore parents' and professionals' perspectives.     

Creative connections: parenting capacity, reading with children and practitioner assessment and intervention

This paper presents some findings from a study of the views of 33 parents from a diversity of backgrounds with children between 0 and 12. Twenty‐two parents were using family support services. They were asked about their views on ‘parenting capacity’ based on the dimensions of The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and Their Families (Department of Health et al.) which are now incorporated into the Common Assessment Framework used in Every Child Matters (Department for Education and Skills). They were also asked about reading with their children and how this enhanced their parenting capacities. Their responses were analysed using the parenting capacity dimensions of The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and Their Families. It became apparent that this common activity (parent/child reading) contributed much to children's development and to the quality of the child/parent relationship. It also enhanced parenting capacity as described in the parenting capacity dimensions. This paper presents that part of the findings which illustrates the creative connections that exist between the activity of parents and children reading together and the parenting capacity dimensions social workers use in assessment and intervention. These findings are relevant to practitioners working within current policy and practice agendas in children's services, which promote multidisciplinary working and non‐stigmatizing assessments and interventions.     

Defending parenthood: A look at parents' legal argumentation in Norwegian care order appeal proceedings

This paper examines parents' legal argumentation in 15 appealed care order (child removal) cases in one Norwegian district court, asking on what grounds parents appeal their case. I investigate the pragmatic, ethical, and moral bases in arguments by applying a discourse ethics framework, viewing argumentation as either justifications or excuses of the parenting in question. The analysis reveals complex reasons for appealing, displaying parents both justifying and excusing both specific situations and the totality of their parenthood. Parents primarily apply pragmatic and ethical adversarialism, followed by pragmatic blaming and claims of change, moral justifications about due process, and ethical excuses about age and own life histories. Interestingly, normalization emerges as a third strategy, where parents explicitly aim to widen the scope of parental normality and adequacy, challenging the common defense dichotomy. The study provides new insight into an important and sensitive field, and indicates that parents engage in similar concrete strategies when, most often unsuccessfully, defending their parenthood.     

Transforming family positions: a conversational analysis of a family social work case

In a discourse and conversational analysis of a Dutch family supervision order, the transformations in family positions are examined. The parents in this case consider their son's drug addiction to be an individual problem. The family guardian succeeds in convincing them that it is a problem which concerns all the family rather than merely a personal issue for their son. By combining a positive and supportive attitude towards the parents with an unrelenting emphasis on the familial character of Marco's problems, the family guardian succeeds in getting the parents to reflect on their own position in relation to their son and their share in the problems in his life.     

Downgrading as a counterstrategy: a case study in child welfare

Child welfare conversations in cases of suspected sexual child abuse are often slow and complex processes in which professionals and clients proceed cautiously. These conversations may best be considered as negotiations between professionals aiming at classifying clients in or out of problem categories, and clients distancing themselves from these categories or downgrading them. In a case study of a conversation between a child welfare worker and a 15‐year‐old boy who is the likely victim of sexual abuse by his stepfather, this process is demonstrated by an interactional analysis. It is shown that the client is not co‐operating in a co‐operative way.     

Traditional kinship foster care in northern Ghana: the experiences and views of children, carers and adults in Tamale

Surveys were employed to explore the experiences of children in care and their carers about traditional fostering. They also examined the perspectives of randomly selected adults in the community about the practice of traditional foster care in the Tamale area of northern Ghana. The 74 participants responded to closed- and open-ended interview questions about traditional foster care. Frequencies and thematic grouping of qualitative responses showed that the need to keep family ties alive was the key reason for placement of children with family and kin. Majority of the children expressed satisfaction with living in foster care, even though they had experienced physical and emotional abuse and intimidation. Although most carers were not formally employed and had little personal income, they were positive about having the care role, but faced challenges in providing for many children in a difficult economic situation. The report highlights the role of reciprocity, altruistic and socio-cultural factors in quality of care, and the potential for the traditional kinship foster care to provide suitable avenues of placement for children as recommended by the Ghana child rights law. It also identifies the need for education for carers around children's needs and Ghana's child rights law.     

Recurrent grief in mothering a child with an intellectual disability to adulthood: grieving is the healing

Much of the literature on mothering a child with a disability focuses on grief in the context of diagnosis, with a paucity of longitudinal studies focusing on ongoing grief as the child moves through the life stages. This qualitative study explores the existence of recurrent grief within the lived experience of six women, in mothering their children with intellectual disability through to young adulthood. Informed by the differing theories of grief and disability, the study considers mothers' perception of the experience of recurrent grief as influenced by personal and societal factors, with a focus on its triggers, its manifestation and its amelioration. The findings have relevance to social work practice, policy and research in revealing the necessity for ongoing support and advocacy for mothers of children and young adults with intellectual disabilities.     

The relationship between foster care families and birth families in a child welfare context: The determining factors

Children placed in foster care families usually continue to see their birth parents in supervised and home visits. These children deal with the fact that they belonged to two families in a context where the relationship between the two families is sometimes complex and tense. Based on 45 semi‐structured interviews conducted with foster care families and kinship foster care families, the present study examines the relationship between foster care parents and birth parents in a placement context, and focuses on the factors affecting the nature and quality of this relationship. The results showed that the quality of the relationship dynamics varies according to the following: how well and how often the parent–child visits took place, the birth parents' characteristics, and the foster carers' attitudes. The results also showed that placements in kinship foster care families were more likely to result in conflict and tension between the two parties than placements in regular foster care families.     

Social workers' attitudes towards female victims of domestic violence: A study in one English local authority

This paper aims to explore childcare social workers' attitudes towards female victims of domestic violence in England. The study discusses the concept of “mothering” and the processes through which mothers are potentially denigrated rather than empowered. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with social workers in a single child protection agency to investigate their perceptions of domestic violence, its gendered nature, and the implications for their practice. Participants' responses were coded using thematic analysis. The results demonstrated social workers' cognisance of the challenges domestic violence poses for abused mothers in terms of the ability to safely parent their children. Although the study is not without its limitations, it nevertheless indicates the need for a more holistic approach to safeguarding children within domestic violence settings. Moreover, it underscores the necessity for improving awareness about the prevalence and importance of domestic violence as a child safeguarding concern within social work training. Indeed, improved training would help to develop social workers' knowledge and understanding of service provisions and partner agencies, thus potentially improving practice in this critically important area.     

Parenting stress among US Army spouses during combat‐related deployments: the role of sense of coherence

The present study seeks to model the effects of parenting stress on contentment experienced by spouses of soldiers deployed to Iraq for long periods of time (n= 200). Using the ABC‐X model from family stress and resiliency theory, a path analysis determined that, in addition to parenting stress, the length of deployment and the ethnic background of the Army spouse also acted as contributing stress factors influencing not only contentment, but perception of family coping and the sense of coherence experienced by the spouse during long‐term deployments (mean = 4.6 months). The mean age of children in the home was found to have significant effect on sense of coherence in this particular sample of women. The influence of the stressors in the statistical model on life contentment was mostly ameliorated by sense of coherence (i.e. perception of comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness in daily life). In other words, spouses with higher sense of coherence experienced better contentment with their lives during deployments. The study also captures qualitative responses and provides several themes associated with daily experiences of Army spouses. Implications for both military and civilian social workers are discussed.     

What social workers do in performing child protection work: evidence from research into face‐to‐face practice

Little research has been done into what social workers do in everyday child protection practice. This paper outlines the broad findings from an ethnographic study of face‐to‐face encounters between social workers, children and families, especially on home visits. The social work practice was found to be deeply investigative. Children's bedrooms were routinely inspected and were the most common place where they were seen alone. A high proportion of children were not seen on their own because they were too young and the majority of the time was spent working with parents and children together. Small amounts of time were spent with children on their own and some first encounters were so rushed that social workers did not even introduce themselves to the child. This arose from two key factors: firstly, organisational pressures from high workloads and the short timescales that social workers were expected to adhere to by managers and Government; secondly, practitioners had varying levels of communication skills, playfulness and comfort with getting close to children and skills at family work. Where these skills and relational capacities were present, social workers were found to have developed deep and meaningful relationships with some children and families, for whom it was apparent that therapeutic change had occurred.     

Making meaningful connections: using insights from social pedagogy in statutory child and family social work practice

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently concern about the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. Drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK‐wide research project exploring social workers' communicative practices with children, this paper explores how approaches informed by social pedagogy can assist social workers in connecting and communicating with with children. The qualitative research included data generated from 82 observations of social workers' everyday encounters with children. Social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for facilitating the intimacies of inter‐personal connections and enhancing social workers' capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and relationships with children in the face of austere social, political and organisational contexts.     

Effective casework practice with adolescents: perspectives of statutory child protection practitioners

Many child protection practitioners struggle with the complexity of problems and the limited casework time for adolescent cases. However, there is little research on child protection practice or case management that can guide a practitioner working with adolescents in the child protection system. The aim of this study was to explore and describe the nature of effective child protection practice with adolescents from the perspective of statutory child protection practitioners in one state in Australia. Data were collected through focus group discussions and interviews with child protection practitioners and managers currently working with adolescents (n= 44). A grounded theory approach was used to identify the dominant themes or categories and form linkages and relationships through constant comparison techniques. Seven key categories emerged from this analysis: characteristics of the young person and their family; ‘walking it together’– the centrality of relationships; ‘looking back/looking forward’– practice strategies; practitioner attributes and skills; ‘walking a fine line’– working with the families of adolescents; ‘walking with services’– effective inter‐agency work; and organizational context in effective child protection practice with adolescents. Key implications for practice and areas for further research were discussed.     

The (ab)sense of a concept of social support in parenting research: a social work perspective

Social support, as a complex, dynamic and multidimensional concept, has been studied extensively. However, a review of research publications on social support and parenting reveals that social work perspectives on social support are underdeveloped in the Social Sciences Citation Index. Social support is predominantly studied in relation to parental health, considering social support as a buffer against potential negative outcomes for children. This, in turn, legitimates extensive research on parents ‘at risk’. Specific target groups have been questioned abundantly using social support measures, mainly consisting of self‐reports. We conclude that social support is studied as a predefined concept, lacking conceptualizations that encompass the actual enacted support in relation to the perspectives of both givers and receivers of support. Moreover, the focus on targeted groups ignores the experience of social support in more diverse populations in general services and in everyday life. Issues of reciprocity, diversity and multivocality are central to our appeal for social work perspectives truly encompassing the relational aspect of social support. The question whether, and to what extent, social workers (including practitioners, policy‐makers and researchers) should give attention to this relational aspect is discussed.     

“It's better than it used to be”: Perspectives of adolescent siblings of children with an autism spectrum condition

This article reports on the lived experiences of 11 adolescents who have a brother or a sister with a diagnosis of autism spectrum condition. Through semistructured, in‐depth, in‐person interviews, these adolescents shared their experiences and perceptions. These exploratory findings can be used to inform the practice of social workers and other health professionals, and future research. Implications for practice focus on the importance of exploring experiences and perceptions of siblings of children diagnosed with autism spectrum condition to enhance support services for these siblings.     

Integrating the teaching,learning and assessment of communication with children within the qualifying social work curriculum

Qualifying social work education must provide students with a variety of experiential, personalized, participatory, didactic and critically reflective learning opportunities across both the taught curriculum and in practice placements if deep learning of the capabilities needed for effective communication with children and young people is to be ensured. At present, programmes in England are not consistent in the curriculum structures, content and pedagogical approaches they are employing to teach and assess this topic. This paper discusses first how current proposals for the reform of qualifying education in England do not address the ambiguities and discretion in regulatory guidance, which have meant that the place and relevance of this topic within the curriculum remain uncertain and contested. It then draws on a model of the sequencing of students' learning and development in qualifying training, developed through the author's recent empirical research, to present an integrated and coherent approach to the teaching, learning and assessment of this topic. It is proposed that this strategy will enable students to develop the generic, ‘child‐focused’ and ‘applied child‐specialist’ capabilities they need for the ‘knowing’, ‘being’ and ‘doing’ of effective communication with children.     

Congruence and incongruence in the perception of ‘family’ among foster parents,birth parents and their adolescent (foster) children

Over recent decades, listening to children's voices and viewing children as competent actors has gathered momentum in research as well as in practice. Acknowledging children's perspectives requires sensitive listeners who are willing, deliberately and as realistically as possible, to reconstruct children's ways of seeing. In our study, based in Norway, we investigated the views of 22 adolescents in long‐term foster care and 15 of their birth parents and 21 of their foster parents. Using Q methodology, we explored congruence and incongruence in the perception of ‘family’ among foster parents, birth parents and their adolescent (foster) children. We found three family perspectives among the adolescents. Within two of these perspectives, there seem to be more congruent understandings of the children's perspectives among the parent groups. We discuss some main implications in light of these findings. In Norway, as in many other countries, the policy of child welfare is that children first and foremost should grow up with their birth family. When out‐of‐home placements are necessary, a basic principle is that children should remain in contact with their birth family.     

Caregivers' perspectives on the SafeCare® programme: Implementing an evidence‐based intervention for child neglect

This qualitative study examined caregivers' experiences with SafeCare®, an evidence‐based programme that focuses on child neglect through modules on health, safety, and parenting. Shortly after completing SafeCare, 30 caregivers participated in a semi‐structured interview about their experiences with the programme. Overall, caregivers indicated that the programme helped with improvements in their parenting skills. Among the factors that contributed to a positive experience were the simplicity of language, the skills‐based approach, and the quality of the relationship with the SafeCare provider. Caregivers also noted several factors that made it difficult to fully benefit from the programme, including financial constraints, removal of their child from the home, and general distrust towards the child welfare system. Findings provide relevant information for SafeCare providers in terms of identifying areas that work well for caregivers completing the programme, as well as areas that might serve as impediments. Implications for contemporary child welfare practice are also considered.     

Religion and parenting: ignored relationship?

Even though the social work profession has been increasingly sensitized to the spiritual needs of those that they are working with, recent history has demonstrated that professionals lack the knowledge and skills needed for understanding those who are subscribing to strong religious beliefs. The research reported in this paper draws on a qualitative study that examined the perceived caregiving practice of parents from the Seventh‐day Adventist faith community associated with the conservative Protestant sub‐culture. Twenty‐five participants aged 20–50 were invited to recall their experiences of being reared by practicing Adventist parents in the UK. An integrative phenomenological analysis yielded a number of themes that shed light on the relationship between religion and parenting. This paper will focus on the three key ideas that emerged: parenting was influenced by beliefs that parents held; a combination of warm and strict parenting was found with some evidence of stricter upbringing amongst black respondents; responses to parenting reported varied between acceptance and discomfort. The study gave valuable insight into individuals' experiences of a religious upbringing received within a secular environment.