Why do they stay? A study of resilient child protection workers in three European countries

Whilst 50% of child protection workers across much of Europe and the affluent ‘West’ leave after two years, many stay and develop substantial professional careers. This paper discusses research in Italy, Sweden and England examining what factors explain ‘remaining’ for more than three years in this stressful job. Underpinned by a hermeneutic epistemology, qualitative interviews were undertaken and subject to an interpretative thematic analysis. The findings proved to be complex and multi-layered and this paper presents an overview of these. The theoretical framework for the project mainly drew on organisations and resilience, and the initial sections of the paper consider how formulations of resilience as contextual and relational can elucidate professional sustainability. Organisational issues are considered, including the impact of work management, of supervision and of allocation in different national contexts. The paper also focuses on the role of friendships and informal support at work. Threaded through these established themes are more, perhaps surprising, concepts: for example, creativity, power, reflexive spaces and interpersonal relations as explanatory of remaining in child protection work.     

Organizational Change in Intrusive and Non-intrusive Environments

This article discusses the importance of environments for managers’ successful introduction of a new management technique. Two empirical examples illustrate the interrelatedness of external and internal environments and its consequences for the propensity of organizations to accept and implement managerial propositions. It is suggested that an intrusive external environment, which clearly relates to generally accepted facts, facilitates managerial action and makes organizations change prone. Mangers, who seek to forestall future environmental problems, in contrast, seem likely to meet with a hostile and conservative internal environment. In both instances managers depend on the social construction of the external environment of their organizations.     

Positive class compromise in globalized production? The Freedom of Association Protocol in the Indonesian sportswear industry

This article investigates the role of voluntary initiatives (VIs) as nongovernmental systems of labour regulation in global value chains (GVCs). To identify the conditions conducive to a more active role for labour in VIs, the authors apply Wright's (2000) theory of the factors enabling positive class compromise to a VI implemented in the Indonesian sportswear industry and extend it to the more complex realities of GVCs. They conclude that if VIs are to create conditions under which decent work can be strengthened, the involvement of strong local labour organizations is required while producers' and/or buyers' dependence on workers' cooperation acts as a catalyst.     

Are nurses more altruistic than real estate brokers?

We report results from a dictator game experiment with nurse students and real estate broker students as dictators, and Amnesty International as the recipient. Although brokers contributed substantial amounts, nurses contributed significantly more, on average 76% of their endowment. In a second part, subjects chose between a certain repetition of the experiment and a 50-50 chance of costly exit. About one third of the brokers and half of the nurses chose the exit option. While generosity was indeed higher among nurses, even when taking exits into account, the difference cannot readily be attributed to different degrees of altruism.     

Victim of and witness to violence: an interactional perspective on mothers' perceptions of children exposed to intimate partner violence

This article reports a study of how mothers perceive the effects of intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy and children's exposure to IPV: (a) Do interactional aspects of IPV have a negative impact on the fetus during pregnancy or on the newborn baby? and (b) Is there a relationship between interactional aspects of IPV and (a) children's risk of being exposed to IPV and (b) the age of the child when at risk for exposure to IPV? A representative sample of 137 IPV help-seeking mothers in Norway was interviewed. Severity of physical IPV and injury from sexual IPV increased the risk of consequences to the fetus. Frequency of physical and psychological IPV increased the likelihood of children's exposure. Duration of the partnership increased the risk of children's exposure to physical and sexual IPV. Finally, there was a negative linear association between children's age when exposed for the first time and frequency of physical and psychological IPV.     

Involving Young People—Empowerment or Exploitation?

The principle that children should be heard as well as seen—that they have a right to be consulted over decisions affecting them and to have their views taken into account by the adults working with or for them—now has general currency. One consequence is that increasing numbers of children and young people are now appearing on conference platforms or are included on the executive councils of charities or participate in working parties. Such events are often effective, but sometimes they can be embarrassing or counter-productive to all concerned. Amanda Allard considers the lessons to be learnt from a successful initiative to involve young people in policy advocacy.     

The impact of organizational culture on men's use of parental leave in Sweden

This article examines the impact of organizational culture on men's usage of parental leave in Sweden, a society that promotes men's sharing of childcare. Results from a mail survey of 317 fathers in six companies suggest that men's use of parental leave is significantly affected by organizational culture, including the company's commitment to caring values, the company's level of 'father friendliness', the company's support for women's equal employment opportunity, fathers' perceptions of support from top managers, and fathers' perceptions of work group norms that reward task performance vs. long hours at work. These effects were independent of the influence of individual- and family-level attributes previously acknowledged to affect men's participation in early childcare. While findings support the social constructionist perspective on gender arrangements, men's advocacy of shared parenting and perception of partners' advocacy of shared leave remained strong independent correlates of leavetaking. Fathers can become agents of change within organizations, as they become more supportive of equal parenthood and as they gain rights to longer periods of parental leave that do not need to be negotiated with mothers. Éste articulo evalúa el impacto de la cultura de organizaciones sobre el uso de la baja por paternidad en Suecia, una sociedad que promueve la involucracion de los hombres en el cuidado de niños. Los resultados de una encuesta por correo de 317 padres de familia en seis empresas sugieren que el uso de la baja por paternidad está afectado por la cultura de la organización, incluido la obligación de la empresa en cuanto a valores humanitarios, el nivel de apoyo a los padres (father friendliness), el apoyo por la igualdad de oportunidades por el empleo de mujeres, las percepciones por parte de los padres del nivel de apoyo desde la gerencia alta, y las percepciones por padres de normas de labores de equipo que recompensan el rendimiento de tareas vs. horas largas de trabajo. Estos efectos eran independientes de la influencia de atributos de individuos y familias que anteriormente han sido reconocido por influir la participación de los hombres en el cuidado de niños pequeños. Mientras los resultados apoyan la perspectiva del construccionismo social, el apoyo de los hombres a la participación conjunta en el cuidado de los niños, y sus percepciones de la medida del apoyo por parte de sus parejas acerca del compartir la baja por paternidad/maternidad quedaron en correlación fuerte con la medida de la baja por paternidad. Los padres pueden hacerse agentes de cambio dentro de las organizaciones, mientras apoyan cada vez más la paternidad/maternidad igual y mientras ganan derechos de periodos de permiso mas largos que no tienen que negociarse con las madres.     

Infant Emotionality: Observational Methods and the Validity of Maternal Reports

This study was designed to improve the observational measurement of emotionality, and to test factors that influence the validity of maternal reports. More than 150 infants were visited at home with their mothers, two thirds of whom were depressed. These visits yielded 4 different observational measures of positive and negative emotionality at both 6 and 9 months. These were standard assessments (based on LabTab), naturalistic interactions, atypical reactions to the standard assessments, and the still‐face procedure. Atypical reactions were consistently related to traditional measures of emotionality. Responses to the still‐face procedure also generally cohered with the other measures. Aggregation improved agreement between mothers and observers. Depressed mothers' reports of negative emotionality were less accurate at 6 months than those of nondepressed mothers. Parenting experience appeared to be associated with greater maternal accuracy. Taken together the findings provide some support for both sides of the controversy surrounding the validity of maternal reports.     

Children's Influence on Internet Access at Home: Adoption and use in the family context

In this study, an integrated quantitative and qualitative research design was employed. From over 900 telephone interviews a typology of family types based on possession of media appliances was constructed, then divided into 'traditional' (low media density), 'intermediate' (average media density) and 'multimedia' (high media density) families. This typology was then used as a basis for selecting thirty-eight families for in-depth interviews. Of these, thirty-one contained children and it is these that form the basis for this article. The results of the family interviews indicate that children are a very important factor in the acquisition and use of the Internet. It was apparent from our interviews that Internet access and use become major issues in family discussions and conflicts - both between parents and children and between siblings.