Fathers' experiences with child welfare services

The lack of engagement of fathers by child welfare services is well‐documented in the literature as a serious problem. Towards addressing this problem, this paper reports the findings of interviews with 18 fathers about their involvement with child welfare services in Ontario, Canada. Qualitative analysis of the interviews yielded themes about what men saw as the positive and negative aspects of their involvement with child welfare. Positive aspects of service involvement for fathers included understanding and supportive workers, useful assistance from workers, being connected to useful resources and being given a ‘wake‐up call’. Negative aspects of service involvement included uncaring, unhelpful and unprofessional workers; prejudice against fathers; and experiencing the child welfare system as unresponsive, uncaring and rigid. Implications for practice are discussed with a view to improving the engagement of men in, and their experiences with, child welfare services.     

Social workers' perspectives on parental engagement when children are at risk in Romanian society

This paper presents the findings of a study that looked at social workers' perspectives on parental engagement in making the difficult choice of either taking the child into care or keeping the family together. The paper first explores the specific context of children at risk in Romanian society and explains that in this middle‐income nation there is an absence of evidence‐based risk assessment tools, which prompts social workers to use their own ‘common sense’ risk assessment indicators. The findings of this small‐scale, non‐representative study on several public non‐voluntary child protection services in Romania suggest that social workers' perceptions of specific dimensions of parental engagement in non‐voluntary child protection may influence service delivery decisions and outcomes.     

Efficacy and agency among poor families with and without children

Families with children and living in poverty are vulnerable to decreased control over their lives and the ability to act in self‐interest. While having children may reduce efficacy among these families, their presence may also, in turn, increase their resilience. Using cross‐sectional data from n= 194 poor families in Southeastern USA, this study compares the constructs of self‐efficacy and agency between families with and without children. Results showed that among families with children, lack of agency was negatively correlated with self‐efficacy Δχ² (1, n= 194) = 12.65, P < 0.001, r=?0.37. Implications are directed towards practice and policy that may increase the efficacy and agency of poor families with children.     

Alike but not alike: Welfare state and unemployment policies in Southern Europe. Italy and Portugal compared

Although Italy and Portugal are considered to be part of the same welfare state family – the Southern European one – analysis of a key component of the welfare state, namely, unemployment policies and regulations, reveals a different evaluation. A comparative analysis of a series of specific indicators of Italian and Portuguese unemployment regimes shows that they represent two different models. Portugal appears to be a more inclusive system, closer to continental or Northern European countries than it is to Italy, or at least representing a hybrid system that combines characteristics of continental European welfare states with characteristics that are more typical of Southern European welfare states. Italy, on the contrary, is much more clearly a Southern European welfare state.     

Activation and ‘coercion’ among Swedish social assistance claimants with different work barriers and socio‐demographic characteristics: What is the logic?

Nybom J. Activation and ‘coercion’ among Swedish social assistance claimants with different work barriers and socio‐demographic characteristics: What is the logic? The study analysed how the work barriers and socio‐demographic characteristics of both activated and non‐activated social assistance claimants influence their participation in activation and exposure to coercion, measured as two opposite indicators – sanctions and exemptions. The study covered 372 social assistance claimants in four municipalities during a period of 1 year. The results suggest that resource activation, which entails education and/or work practice in regular workplaces, often targets claimants who lack work motivation, whereas job activation, which aims at quick entry into the labour market, targets young claimants and claimants who lack formal skills (education and/or work experience). Swedish men older than 25 years appear to run the highest risk of facing sanctions irrespective of participation in activation. Exemptions vary more than sanctions between activated and non‐activated claimants. The results are discussed in terms of five logics operating in social work.     

Evaluating social assistance reforms under programme heterogeneity and alternative measures of success

This article presents an assessment of welfare reforms under a framework of programme heterogeneity and alternative measures of success. The study focused on a specific programme – Madrid's Ingreso Madrileño de Integración (Madrid Regional Government's Welfare Programme) – which comprises heterogeneous sub‐programmes. We tested whether work‐related sub‐programmes performed better than general activities aimed at improving life skills by analysing the effects on different types of outcomes. We also tried to identify which work‐related sub‐programme worked best. Our results show that intensive employment activities yield remarkably better results than general work‐related schemes or life‐skills activities. However, increasing work participation does not automatically lift participants out of material hardship. Key Practitioner Message: ● Strategies to reduce the dependence of low‐income households on government support by improving employment opportunities; ● Evaluation of alternative work‐related sub‐programmes in welfare policies; ● New evidence on approaches that consider heterogeneous sub‐programmes and different types of outcomes might inform and partially shape the future public policy agenda in the welfare reform debate.     

East Asian welfare model refocus? A case study on economic support for the elderly living alone in Taiwan

This article argues that the concept of the East Asian welfare regime can be further developed by examining the changing role of the family in welfare provision. Beginning with a brief literature review of the East Asian welfare model, the family has been regarded as the main welfare provider among East Asian societies. Nevertheless, from a policy‐centred perspective, the oversimplified picture of the East Asian welfare model does not reveal how families actually perform in welfare provision or how the dynamic change in the welfare mix for vulnerable groups under the welfare regime has been accommodated. This article presents a case study and shows that while most elderly people in Taiwan still live with their children, who are also their main means of support, a significant number of them are living alone and that much of the economic support they used to receive from nongovernmental organisation now comes from the state.     

The rights of the child and ethnic minority families in Sweden

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was launched in 1989 and is ratified in most countries. The UNCRC is considered by child welfare authorities worldwide to be an essential document that aims to improve the rights of children. However, contemporary research indicates that the UNCRC is an obstacle to social work because it emphasizes the legal equality between children and adults. This finding prompts the question of how Western child protection agencies conduct child protection encounters with families with a non-Western ethnic background. The present article aims to examine if specific articles in the UNCRC can serve as a medium for improving social work with ethnic minority families within the child protection sector in Sweden. This article is based on a research project concerning youths with an ethnic minority background in out-of-home care. Relevant articles in the UNCRC are revealed to be potentially helpful to child protection programmes involving ethnic minority families because these articles emphasize considering the perspective of the child and strengthening parenting skills. However, child protection agencies must consider how the UNCRC can be used to teach parents or guardians to understand and acknowledge the perspective of the child without violating the values of the family.     

Characteristics of China's residual welfare system for elderly people

By focusing on China's residual features of a welfare system for elderly people, this paper examines three major issues: (i) The residual welfare provision in China presents informal, incremental, hysteretic and multitrack characteristics; (ii) This residual welfare is the result of the interaction of multiple factors, including modernization, social interests, state function, political structure and cultural values; (iii) From a welfare state perspective, the ‘universal’ policy and programmes currently advocated in China are largely a modified residual model. Although certain improvements have been incorporated into the theoretical discussion of social policy, in practice, effective solutions to the existing problems of China's welfare system require a further elevation of theoretical concepts and a reformation in governance structures.     

Seeking Help From Health and Welfare Services Among Elderly Single Women

The current research is a pilot study that included 87 single women who responded to an announcement placed in one of the national newspapers and then filled out interview questionnaires. The study hypothesized three groups of variables for predicting elderly single women's appeals for help from health and welfare services: (a) demographic variables, (b) intrapersonal variables, and (c) interpersonal variables. The research tools were (a) a demographics questionnaire constructed specifically for this study; (b) a personal assessment of single life: chosen or unchosen, including a question regarding what single people think about bachelorhood/spinsterhood; (c) an approach to the institution of bachelorhood/spinsterhood; (d) self-evaluation questionnaire; (e) a sense of mastery over life questionnaire; (f) informal support networks questionnaire; and (g) an assessment of the appeal to health and welfare services for help. A special questionnaire was constructed, which included a list of health and welfare services. The research findings indicate connections among all the research variables. All the research hypotheses were confirmed. Special attention should be given to this one tenth and more of the elder population. It might improve the lives of those women and save Western governments a lot of money.