Itinerant Children in the Schools: A Neglected Social Issue

A hitherto neglected area of social and educational research has been the problems faced by itinerant children in their social development, personal adjustment and educational progress. These problems are likely to grow with the increasing mobility of the Australian population. This article briefly explores the issue and reviews research undertaken with geographically mobile families and children of defence force personnel. It recommends further research to delineate the extent of the problems, identify cause-effect relationships and help children and their families to cope with the effects of mobility.     

Choosing intercountry adoption: an Australian study of the motivations and attitudes of intending and recent adoptive parents

Humanitarian reasons are often reported as the main motivating force for undertaking intercountry adoption. This article reports on a qualitative interview‐based Australian study in which 32 adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents talk frankly about their desire to use intercountry adoption as a pathway to parenthood, rather than as an altruistic method of providing a child with a family. The study aimed to investigate motivations of intending and recent adoptive parents for deciding to form a family through intercountry adoption and to contribute to understanding about why intercountry adoption is the preferred option over available alternatives for family formation. The findings from this study raise interesting questions regarding recruitment efforts for children needing families; not only in relation to intercountry adoption, but also in developing recruitment strategies for foster carers for local children needing care.     

Adoptive Parents’ Attitudes toward Adoption and Domestic Adoption Development in Korea: Adoptees’ Specific Needs for Origin

This study aimed to find out how Korean adoptive parents were carrying out their adoptions in Korea and to see if adoptive families truly understood the meaning of adoption and their adopted child's specific needs to know about his genetic roots. This understanding on the adoptive parents’ part is needed to help the child to form a self‐identity for his well‐being. The study sample of 352 adoptive parents may be the largest study ever done involving families currently raising their adopted children in Korea. Results showed that families did not seem to understand adoption with its characteristics well. Though families’ satisfaction with the adoption was very high, it appeared that their satisfaction was limited to when their adoptees were young, not being extended to when children became old enough to know of their adoption. For adoption development in Korea, however, it was encouraging that parents’ participation in local (regional) meetings with other fellow adopters from self‐support groups appeared to be the most significant consistent factor in contributing to the families’ understanding of adoption and their positive attitudes for the adoptees’ well‐being and to their satisfaction with the adoption.     

Aboriginal Children Belong in the Aboriginal Community: Changing Practices in Adoption

The placement of aboriginal children has been the responsibility of white social workers attached to state welfare agencies. Many of these children have been fostered or adopted by white families and have had little or no contact with the aboriginal community. Aboriginal people are now voicing opposition to such practices and are calling for an end to inter-racial adoption. They want the placement of all aboriginal children to be in the hands of the aboriginal community and are seeking to establish aboriginal placement agencies. These, and other demands, were voiced by an aboriginal task group at the recent First Australian Conference on Adoption.     

The paradox of inter-country adoption: analysing Romania's experience as a sending country

This article explores the effects of inter-country adoption on the development of in-country services to protect children and support families in Romania. The country's child care legislation gives formal priority to domestic alternatives to institutional care – preventive services, family reunification, foster care and in-country adoption. Despite this, inter-country adoption continues to play a central role in Romania's child welfare system. The article analyses the multiple and complex factors at policy and practice levels that lie behind this situation. It is concluded that whilst inter-country adoption may be used to secure some resources for the development of in-country services, it paradoxically undermines the effectiveness of those services for the children who are left behind.     

Integrated services in Australian early childhood education and care: what can we learn from our past?

Recent Australian interest in the integration of early childhood services is largely informed by international research and policy developments, particularly from the United Kingdom. Service integration is widely recognised as an effective means of holistically meeting the needs of children and families and ameliorating disadvantage. What is less well known is that Australia has a history of integrated early childhood services. This paper focuses on three points in 20th century Australia when advocacy for integrated early childhood service provision was evident: post‐World War I when the first Mother and Baby Welfare Clinic was established; during the late 1930s to mid 1940s with the advent of the Lady Gowrie Centres; and in the 1970s when several reports recommended the integration and co‐ordination of early years services. Attending to this history acknowledges this innovative Australian work, and provides potentially valuable, and somewhat cautionary, lessons for contemporary advocacy for integrated early childhood services.     

Adopted Children Admitted to Residential Psychiatric Care

In an investigation of adopted children admitted to residential, psychiatric care over a five year period it was found that the percentage of adoptees far outnumbered their proportion in the general population. Clinical variables related to adoption were analyzed and early deprivation in the child and family pathology were found to be major factors in many cases. It was suggested that these findings should not discredit adoption as such, but rather that they pointed out areas to which attention could be directed, namely, more careful selection of adoptive parents together with post adoptive counselling and follow-up for the adoptive families.     

Everything for the Children: Orphans Growing Up in Informal Adoptive Families in China

Most orphaned children in China are cared for by their extended families or become state wards under the guardianship of child welfare institutions. Some exceptions are children who are found and cared for by families in the community, without a formalized adoption or foster relationship. In some locations, institutions now accept guardianship for these children and support the informal adoptive family to continue to care for them. This article examines the outcomes for these children as they became young adults by comparing these 12 children raised within the system as they approach or have approached young adulthood (now aged 16–40 years-old). Some of the participants were either informally adopted or lived in institutional care. The results of this study found that the family environment was more conducive to the young people’s wellbeing as they approached or entered adulthood. The participants raised in informal care appeared to be treated similar to the biological children in these families. When the institution formalized the state guardianship responsibility, it also meant the families had state resources for support to protect the children’s rights to economic security, education, health care, and social participation. This practice by the institution supported the addition of informal adoption, as one step closer to permanency than foster care. Future implications include considering this option to help promote the family system assisting these children, families, and the state.     

International adoption and the formation of new family attachments

Clinical studies of children in international adoption reveal unique patterns of psychological adjustment to permanent family care. Pre‐adoption history often includes early object loss, medical and nutritional deprivation, multiple care‐giving disruptions, and the lack of primary care‐giving relationships. These factors and the age at the time of adoption are risks to positive emotional and cognitive development. Adoptive parents may be unprepared for the resulting developmental problems. Most significantly, parents and children are often at different points in readiness to establish an attachment relationship. The parents are eager to claim their child, but the child is unready to respond because of emotional fragility and lack of previous attachment experiences. Two clinical vignettes illustrate the importance of a developmental and medical framework in assessing the unique needs of these survivor children, as well as the necessity of an empathic therapeutic holding environment that can sustain the emerging family attachments under stress. The psychological impact of cross‐cultural adoption and traumatic early beginnings reverberates across time but with empathic parental care and treatment recovery can be significant.     

The treatment of families in the Australian welfare state, 1984 to 2010

This paper uses Australian Bureau of Statistics' fiscal incidence figures to track trends in the treatment of families with children in the Australian welfare state across the period 1984 to 2010. Our four main findings are that: sole parent families gained while couple families made no net gain; there was no growth in ‘middle class welfare‘; couple families are slightly better off than elderly households in terms of their final incomes, but considerably less well off in terms of their net worth; and stated differences in policy intentions by the major political parties have had little influence on trends in actual government redistribution.     

How parents' income,time and job quality affect children's health and development

The advent of the Global Financial Crisis reminds us that modern epidemiological research has consistently demonstrated links between the socio‐economic circumstances of families and children's health and development. Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, this article firstly examines the evidence for intergenerational transmission of socio‐economic disadvantage from parents to young children. It then examines parents' jobs as another source of social inequality. Results confirm that children's healthy development is affected by family income, by parents' hours of work and by the quality of parents' jobs. Job combinations that include long work hours of mothers and fathers and poorer quality jobs are associated with elevated rates of parental mental health problems, less time spent in developmentally important activities with children, and socio‐emotional developmental difficulties for children. The evidence suggests that these effects are greater within low income families. These findings highlight the need for social and economic policies to move beyond simplistic notions of promoting parental workforce participation as a way of reducing the adverse effects of social disadvantage. A more nuanced approach is required that considers the additional impacts of the quality and characteristics of jobs, especially for the parents of young children.     

Adoption breakdown and adolescence

Adoption breakdown has attracted an increasing amount of attention over recent years, and studies coincide in stating that the mean age at which this phenomenon occurs is early adolescence. Nevertheless, the specific factors which influence adoption breakdown, have never been empirically explored. The aim of this article is therefore to analyse these factors by comparing cases of adoption breakdown which occurred prior to the onset of adolescence with those occurring after the beginning of this developmental stage. The study explores 69 cases of adoption breakdown occurring over the course of a decade in one Spanish region, taking into consideration variables related to the adopted children, the adoptive parents, the parent–child relationship, and the professional support services provided to these families. The results reveal a clear difference in the profile of breakdowns occurring before and after the onset of adolescence and identify a series of factors which seem to have a stronger influence in each group, such as violence, timing of problems, and unrealistic expectations regarding the child. These findings have important implications for professional adoption services, such us the importance of early identification of difficulties and the provision of support during adolescence.     

Professionalism and the Adoption of Black Children

Correspondence to Paul Stubbs, Visiting Research Fellow, University of Lancaster, Department of Social Administration, Fylde College, Lancaster LA1 4YF. Summary This article poses certain issues about the effects of professionalismin policy and practice in the adoption of black children. Bylocating the practice in its historical context, recent debatesabout ‘bans’ on the adoption of black children bywhite families can be discussed more clearly. This is followed by case studies based on original researchin two London boroughs, examining professionalism in child careand adoption practice, before certain conclusions and alternativesare addressed.     

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.     

CREATING ‘CHILD‐FRIENDLY’ COMMUNITIES: A STRATEGY TO RECLAIM CHILDREN FROM RISK

A review of the scope and characteristics of the problems facing Australian children and adolescents. Such issues as poor mental health, substance use and abuse, delinquency, violence, school drop‐out rates, youth unemployment and suicide are explained in terms of shortfalls in community endeavour to protect families from risk factors associated with structural and social change. A strategy to reduce vulnerability is proposed, which would involve mobilising government, independent and informal local community sectors to support parents and encourage healthy, pro‐social development. Sustaining the quality of social environments close to children and families requires a process of community capacity‐building, including a renewed emphasis on participation and democracy and better coordination between local service agencies.     

Paved with Good Intentions: The Pathway to Adoption and the Costs of Delay

The thrust of UK adoption policy is to promote adoption as thebest route to a stable family life for children in the caresystem unable to return to their birth families. However, whatwe know about outcomes for adopted children comes mainly fromstudies that report on children already in placement. This articlereports on the findings of a study that examined the outcomesof a complete sample of 130 older looked after children whohad all been the subject of an adoption best interest decision.Many were successfully placed but, of those who were not, thestudy was able to identify factors that influenced placementoutcome. The negative impact on placement outcomes and the increasedfinancial costs of poor assessment and delays in planning andaction are highlighted in this paper. The reasons why delaysoccurred, the costs of those delays and the impact on childoutcomes lend support to recent government attempts to reducedelay by the introduction of timescales into the adoption process.     

Adoptions in West Germany: Attitudes of Social Workers

Correspondence to Dr Martin R. Textor, Hessstrasse, D-8000 München 40, Germany. Summary After a short overview of adoption services in Germany, thelegal situation, and the number of adoptions the results ofinterviews with 117 social workers arc presented. All of themwere responsible for adoptions and worked at agencies of localauthorities or welfare organizations in Bavaria. Their attitudestowards adoption as an alternative to abortion, towards birthmothers, adoptive families, searching adoptees, internationaladoptions, open adoptions, and the placement of children arcexplored. It was found that the attitudes were very heterogeneousand that they had changed during the last 20 years: The respondentsespoused a more positive view of birth mothers and searchingadoptees, considered uncommon groups of applicants (e.g. singles,remarried couples) and children (e.g. handicapped or older ones)for adoption, and took a more positive stance towards half openand open forms of adoption. They did not see adoption as analternative to abortion, were against private adoptions, andstrove for more open forms of adoption.     

Inter-country Adoption: Australia's Position

Although each Australian state and territory has its own adoption legislation and its own social welfare department, they have combined to send inter-country adoption delegations to Asian countries to negotiate working arrangements on a uniform basis. When a child is adopted by people in another country, care needs to be taken in both countries by authorities, professional workers and parents to ensure that the best interests of the child are paramount. Over 1,000 children from Asian countries have been adopted by Australians. There is a dearth of published research material, but there are indications that most of these adoptions are proving very satisfactory for the children. To protect the child's status in terms of name, nationality and guardianship, it is important that policies and procedures in relation to adoption practice, immigration, and statutory recognition of overseas adoptions adequately complement each other.     

POLICY CHALLENGES OF THE CONTEMPORARY SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS OF INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN FAMILIES

The paper presents an analysis of the economic status of indigenous families relative to other Australian families. An innovative combination of economic analysis of current census data and ethnographic research is used in the paper, and reveals that indigenous families are experiencing substantial and multiple forms of economic burden in comparison to other Australian families, and display significantly different characteristics. They are more likely to be sole parent families and have on average, a larger number of children and larger households. The adults are younger, have lower levels of education and are less likely to be in employment than other Australians. The poor economic position of indigenous sole parents is highlighted, and the economic role of the aged, matrifocal families, young adults and children are consisdered. The paper concludes by examining the important policy and program implications raised by the research, and argues the need for an increased focus on the particular socio-economic and locational circumstances of indigenous families.