Assessing outcomes in an English authority (The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)

The local authority has used the Looking After Children materials to develop needs-led and outcome-oriented services at both individual and strategic planning levels. A specific study used data from the Assessment and Action Records to identify priority needs and desired outcomes for young people leaving care.     

Adoption and Antisocial Personality: Genetic and Environmental Factors Associated with Antisocial Outcomes

The present review critically evaluates evidence from adoption studies on the heritability of antisocial personality, interactions between genetic predispositions and the characteristics of adoptive mothers and fathers, and both the methodological and diagnostic shortcomings of existing studies. The article concludes with directions and suggestions for future research and practice.     

The Changing Institution of Marriage: Adolescents’ Expectations to Cohabit and to Marry

Cohabitation has become part of the pathway toward marriage. Prior work focuses on expectations to marry and has ignored cohabitation. Although most young adults are not replacing marriage with cohabitation, but instead cohabit and then marry, it is important to study adolescents’ joint expectations to cohabit as well as marry. Our analyses draw on recently collected data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (N = 1,293). We find that adolescents are less certain about their cohabitation than marriage expectations. Dating and sexual experience, traditional values, prosocial activities, and parents influence adolescents’ union formation expectations. The findings from this work suggest that adolescents are including cohabitation as part of their future life trajectories but rarely envision cohabitation as substituting for marriage.     

Social Work Field Educators' Views on Student Specific Learning Needs

Each year a significant proportion of students withdraw from placement in time to avoid penalty, while others fail. This article reports on a small field education research project that identified common learning issues for first placement students. Eighteen experienced supervising field educators (FEs), participated in semi structured focus groups, and identified repeat areas of difficulty in student learning that they had managed as supervisors. They also identified strategies that had been efficacious in supporting student learning. The research undertaken in 2010–2011 identified three specific themes relating to difficulties in student learning: specific student characteristics that required additional support; the university/FE partnership; student proficiency in using supervision. The findings suggest that a students' right to privacy must be considered in the provision of educational support, and that support is most effective when there is a strong partnership between the FE and university. In addition, further development of field education pedagogy may be needed to embed theory and skills related to the use of supervision and reflective learning.     

Community Reactions to Young People Who Have Sexually Abused and Their Families: A Shotgun Blast,Not a Rifle Shot

Data on 117 young sexual abusers were examined to investigate the nature of community responses to young people's abusive behaviour. A wide range of community responses were found, with stigmatisation, social isolation and collateral damage being common. A contagion effect was noted, with community responses extending over time and across contexts. Some young offenders and their families were attacked and forced out of their homes. In some cases, community responses heightened risk factors. The policy and practice implications of the findings are discussed, including the need for caution about the inclusion of children in policies on community notification of sex offenders.     

Practising family history: ‘identity’ as a category of social practice

Research on family history argues it performs the task of anchoring a sense of ‘self’ through tracing ancestral connection and cultural belonging, seeing it as a form of storied ‘identity‐work’. This paper draws on a small‐scale qualitative study to think further on the identity‐work of family history. Using practice theory, and a disaggregated notion of ‘identity’, it explores how the storying of family histories relates to genealogy as a leisure hobby, a form of historical research, and an information‐processing activity; and examines the social organization of that narrativity, where various practical engagements render certain kinds of genealogical information more, or less, ‘storyable’. Key features of ‘identity‐work’ in family history, such as the construction of genealogy as a personal journey of discovery and identification with particular ancestors, emerge as a consequence of the procedures of family history, organized as a set of practical tasks. The paper explores ‘identity‐work’ as a consequence of people's engagement in specific social practices which provide an internal logic to their actions, with various components of ‘identity’ emerging as categories of practice shaped within, and for, use. Focusing on ‘identity’ as something produced when we are engaged in doing other things, the paper examines how the practical organization of ‘doing other things’ helps produce ‘identity’ in particular ways.     

Gender and Casual Sexual Activity From Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood: Social and Life Course Correlates

The prevalence of casual sexual activity among teens and emerging adults has led to much public attention. Yet limited research has investigated whether the number of casual sexual partners per year changes as heterosexual men and women transition from adolescence into emerging adulthood. We considered the influence of social context and life course factors on the number of casual sex partners. We examined four waves of interviews from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) and used negative binomial growth curve models to investigate patterns of change in the number of casual sex partners (N = 1,196) ages 15 to 22. Men and women both reported increases in the number of casual sex partners over time and did not differ from each other in the rate of change over time. In all, 40% of respondents reported a recent casual sex partner at age 22. Number of prior dating relationships, education status, substance use, and perceptions of peer sexual behavior significantly influenced the number of casual sex partners. Emerging adults who did not complete high school, compared to those enrolled in four-year degree programs, reported significantly more partners. The findings contribute to research on intimate relationships and provide insights for programs targeting emerging adults.     

Inside stories: Maternal representations of first time mothers from pre-pregnancy to early pregnancy

BackgroundAccording to the psychoanalytical literature, it is during pregnancy that maternal representations of the mother–infant relationship become activated. Midwives who are engaged with the mother and the baby have not drawn upon this concept in their practice. In order for this to happen, it is important to understand better the nature of maternal representations and when they are activated from empirical studies.QuestionThe research question is: what are the maternal representations of a group of first time mothers from pre-pregnancy, early pregnancy and to the first ultrasound.MethodA narrative approach was used to gain insight into the maternal representations of first time pregnant womens’ account of their representations. The analysis method was based on thematic approach.ParticipantsFifteen women aged between 23 and 38 years.SettingA midwives clinic attached to a tertiary hospital in Melbourne, Australia.FindingsFirst-time pregnant women's maternal representations were activated when a woman begins to plan her pregnancy (‘the time is right’), again at the onset of physical changes to her body as a result of conception (‘my body is changing’), and at the first early ultrasound at around twelve weeks (‘it’ is a real baby).ConclusionMaternal representations are important for the midwife and pregnant women because this concept provides another understanding in relation to the psychological dimension of pregnancy.     

Childbearing Postponement and Child Well-being: A Complex and Varied Relationship?

Over the past several decades, U.S. fertility has followed a trend toward the postponement of motherhood. The socioeconomic causes and consequences of this trend have been the focus of attention in the demographic literature. Given the socioeconomic advantages of those who postpone having children, some authors have argued that the disadvantage experienced by certain groups would be reduced if they postponed their births. The weathering hypothesis literature, by integrating a biosocial perspective, complicates this argument and posits that the costs and benefits of postponement may vary systematically across population subgroups. In particular, the literature on the weathering hypothesis argues that, as a consequence of their unique experiences of racism and disadvantage, African American women may experience a more rapid deterioration of their health which could offset or eventually reverse any socioeconomic benefit of postponement. But because very few African American women postpone motherhood, efforts to find compelling evidence to support the arguments of this perspective rely on a strategy of comparison that is problematic because a potentially selected group of older black mothers are used to represent the costs of postponement. This might explain why the weathering hypothesis has played a rather limited role in the way demographers conceptualize postponement and its consequences for well-being. In order to explore the potential utility of this perspective, we turn our attention to the UK context. Because first-birth fertility schedules are similar for black and white women, we can observe (rather than assume) whether the meaning and consequences of postponement vary across these population subgroups. The results, obtained using linked UK census and birth record data, reveal evidence consistent with the weathering hypothesis in the United Kingdom and lend support to the arguments that the demographic literature would benefit from integrating insights from this biosocial perspective.     

Temporal Discrimination and Parents with Learning Difficulties in the Child Protection System

This article shows how time works against parents with learningdifficulties in the child protection system and Children Actproceedings. The prevailing wisdom, embedded in policy and theliterature, is that delay in care cases is bad for the childand may jeopardize his or her future. This paper shows how thepressure to avoid delay might itself be harming some families,especially parents with learning difficulties. Drawing on interviewswith social work practitioners undertaken as part of a largerstudy, the authors describe the various forms of temporal discriminationthat impact on this group of disabled parents. They concludethat procedural time limits make it harder for parents withlearning difficulties to meet the standards and expectationsenforced by Children’s Services and the courts.