Access and Child Contact Centres in England and Wales: An Ethnographic Perspective

SUMMARY. Access centres are a recent development in service provision for families facing difficulties over child contact following divorce or separation. The author has worked for over two years as a volunteer at an access centre and provides a personal view of key issues in the organisation and operation of access centres. Discussion of detailed case material throws light on the paradoxes which arise when a pro-access ideology is exercised in an informal setting.     

An adjusted likelihood ratio test for separability in unbalanced multivariate repeated measures data

We propose an adjusted likelihood ratio test of two-factor separability (Kronecker product structure) for unbalanced multivariate repeated measures data. Here we address the particular case where the within subject correlation is believed to decrease exponentially in both dimensions (e.g., temporal and spatial dimensions). However, the test can be easily generalized to factor specific matrices of any structure. A simulation study is conducted to assess the inference accuracy of the proposed test. Longitudinal medical imaging data concerning schizophrenia and caudate morphology illustrate the methodology.     

Kevin and Peter: responses to two ‘preventable deaths’

European welfare states have substantial provision to ensure that children are brought up in conditions that meet the articles of the United Nations’ Convention of the Rights of the Child. In our analysis of two preventable deaths in Germany and England, we focus primarily on Article 18, which directs states to ensure that there is adequate provision to support parents in their responsibilities, and Article 19, which ensures children’s safety and protection. We outline the legal framework, which existed at the time of two child deaths: Kevin from Bremen and Peter in London, both young children who were subject to formal state supervision and oversight. The events – including the press response, their aftermath and the subsequent changes to social work practice through legislation and guidance will be examined. Our subsequent analysis will evaluate the extent to which events altered the balance between Articles 18 and 19 in the two countries, and the extent to which a Children’s Rights approach in this area offers new insights. The analysis will suggest that a rights-based approach offers some benefits for a comparative framework and understanding child and family social work, but also that it is not without some difficulties.     

The challenges of a hidden disability: Social work practice in the field of traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has become an important area for social work practice. Children and adults sustaining TBI often undergo hospitalisation, rehabilitation and face the prospect of lifelong cognitive and psychosocial impairments. Families are profoundly affected by the consequences of the injury. TBI is a ‘hidden disability’ because there are typically no physical markers indicating a person has brain damage. This paper aims to provide some guidelines for social work practice in the area, in particular, outlining options for social work interventions at individual, family, community, service system and policy levels. Social workers need to acquire specialised knowledge about brain injury, reformulate traditional models of grief counselling to address the adjustment challenges and utilise community education and service innovation to address the social stigma and reduced level of community participation associated with brain damage. Finally, social workers aim to nurture a sense of hope in the face of the tragedy.     

Cognitive function in toddlers with congenital heart disease: The impact of a stimulating home environment

Infants born with congenital heart disease (CHD) are at increased risk of neurodevelopmental difficulties in childhood. The extent to which perioperative factors, cardiac physiology, brain injury severity, socioeconomic status, and home environment influence early neurodevelopment is not clear. Sixty-nine newborns with CHD were recruited from St Thomas’ Hospital. Infants underwent presurgical magnetic resonance imaging on a 3-Tesla scanner situated on the neonatal unit. At 22 months, children completed the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-3rd edition and parents completed the cognitively stimulating parenting scale to assess cognitive stimulation at home. Level of maternal education and total annual household income were also collected. Hospital records were reviewed to calculate days on the intensive care unit post-surgery, time on bypass during surgery, and days to corrective or definitive palliative surgical intervention. In the final analysis of 56 infants, higher scores on the cognitively stimulating parenting scale were associated with higher cognitive scores at age 22 months, correcting for gestational age at birth, sex, and maternal education. There were no relationships between outcome scores and clinical factors; socioeconomic status; or brain injury severity. Supporting parents to provide a stimulating home environment for children may promote cognitive development in this high-risk population.     

Acting ethically,responding culturally: framing the new reproductive and genetic technologies in Sri Lanka

The spread of new reproductive and genetic technologies to the developing world stimulates reflection on the ethical issues they generate. The ‘built-in-ness’ of assumptions about personhood and relationality within these technologies means that local professionals must, perforce, engage with attempts to make sense of new technology with reference to local meanings and traditions or take positions which reject them. This paper explores such attempts to indigenise bioethics in contemporary Sri Lanka with reference to ethical/ cultural conflicts surrounding two practices: donor insemination and consanguinity counselling. The former is discussed in relation to the now defunct practice of polyandry and the latter in relation to matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. The final discussion takes up the consequences of this detailed parsing of local relationality for the larger project of rendering bioethics in some sense comparative.