“This will help your children”: Service providers’ experiences with military families during cycles of deployment

ABSTRACT

Military families face not only the same challenges as other families, but also unique issues due to their military involvement. Parenting programs for civilian families can be helpful, but they do not generally cover the specific issues faced by military families. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gather information from a focus group of eight service providers about the types of issues that affect military families, such that content and delivery of workshops at a social service agency could be formed to specifically cater to military families. This study utilized a phenomenological approach, and analyses revealed areas for social service involvement around the cycle of deployment. Specifically, social services could be helpful by using psychoeducational and normalization techniques around the five major themes that resulted from this study: (1) the issues of servicemembers psychologically withdrawing before deployment, (2) family cohesion and connectedness during and after deployment, (3) family stability during reintegration of the service member, (4) military families experience many of the same challenges that nonmilitary families do (such as domestic violence and financial issues), and (5) utilizing a military culture framework for all military family programs.     

On shifting ground: First-time parents’ ideal world of paid work and family time

We examined first-time fathers’ and mothers’ perspectives about their ideal world of support in the context of dominant social ideology, ethno-cultural ideals, and the pragmatics of their everyday family, workplace, and socioeconomic circumstances during their first 18 months as parents. Twelve Canadian-born and six Chinese immigrant couples participated in individual in-depth interviews. We conducted a three-part analysis: fathers’ perspectives, mothers’ perspectives, and couples’ perspectives. Fathers focused on fulfilling dual fathering ideals of ‘time with family’ and ‘providing for family’; mothers emphasized fulfilling a mothering ideal of ‘caring for children'. Examining couples’ perspectives revealed a more nuanced understanding of their shared focus on ‘caring for family'. Parents in this study found the current social ideal of the ‘new’ father, who is both financial provider and nurturing co-parent, appealing, yet difficult to achieve. Couples wanted informal (i.e. family and social network) support, along with formal (i.e. workplace and childcare) support to enable them to provide family care and financial stability for their family. Findings contribute to understanding family and paid work experiences and decision-making among couples as new parents. We offer insights into the complexity of intersections among social ideals, personal expectations, family care, and paid work for fathers and mothers.     

Fathers' Investments of Money and Time Across Residential Contexts

Fathers' roles in family life have changed dramatically over the past 50 years. In addition to ongoing breadwinning responsibilities, many fathers are now involved in direct caregiving and engagement with children. Yet there is considerable variation in what fathers do, especially depending on whether they live with or away from their child. In this article, the authors use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,869) to describe how fathers' economic capacities (money) and direct involvement with children (time) are associated over child ages 1 to 9 for resident versus nonresident fathers, net of confounding factors. They found suggestive evidence that money and time investments operate differently across residential contexts: Resident fathers experience a trade‐off between market work and time involved with children. In contrast, nonresident fathers' higher economic capacities are associated with more time involvement, underscoring the greater challenge for such fathers to remain actively involved.     

Descriptive Analysis of Foster Care Adoptions in New South Wales,Australia

This paper describes the population of children in care in New South Wales, Australia, who were adopted by their foster families (N?=?372) from 2003 to 2014. Data pertaining to 370 of these adoptees were available and obtained from administrative records accompanying adoption applications. Most of these children had been placed with their subsequent adoptive family during infancy. However, adoption orders occurred much later in their lives. According to the available information at the time of adoption, these children did not suffer the high levels of mental health problems typically identified in populations of children in foster care. Though the data do not include follow-up to determine if the contact agreed upon at the time of adoption orders translated into practice, the most frequently postadoption arrangement recorded was face-to-face contact, four times a year with mother and siblings. The high levels of openness and face-to-face contact in Australian adoptions from care are a significant point of difference with other adoption models, and presents a need for research in the area.

IMPLICATIONS

• Following the change of legislation in New South Wales, Australia, that prioritises open adoption over foster care, social workers in the field of child protection are well placed to assist in this process.

• Social workers can assess children entering care to identify those who will benefit from adoption in a timely manner; undertake casework and administrative aspects of the adoption process; work closely with the child, and birth and adoptive families by delivering pre- and post-adoption supports; and conduct longitudinal research on the outcomes for children adopted from care.

     

Socialization Processes and Clergy Offenders

This article uses feminist theory to investigate how the socialization processes used to maintain the clergy community in the Roman Catholic Church contributes to a vulnerability in some clergy for sexually abusing children. This vulnerability is identified first in an examination of the literature on the impact of socialization processes on clergy offenders between the 1960s and 1980s. A comparison is then made with the implications of the apostolic exhortation, Pastores Dabo Vobis, which provides a theological basis to clergy formation. The article argues that the document works to ensure a continuity of socialization processes that not only have been shown to create a vulnerability for committing child sexual abuse but compound existing vulnerabilities. The article concludes that constraints produced by the preservation of a hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy retain a threat of violence against children and require recommended reforms.     

Readiness for college engagement among students who have aged out of foster care

This study compares self-reported readiness to engage in college between a sample of 81 college freshmen who aged out of foster care prior to or while attending a large four-year public university and the national freshman population. Results indicate that students from foster care are significantly different from their non-foster-care peers in their readiness to engage in college. The results also show that foster youth are less well prepared academically upon entering college and this performance gap persists through the first semester of college. These findings are examined in the context of the current literature on foster youth. Limitations of the study and implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

第一代农村独生子女父母养老意愿实证分析——兼论农村养老保险的效用

通过对江苏和四川两省810户农村居民入户问卷调查数据分析,重点考察第一代农村独生子女父母与同时代非独生子女父母在养老意愿上的差异。是否参加农村养老保险是影响农村独生子女父母养老意愿的一个重要因素。所有参加养老保险的两类父母,在养老意愿三个维度上不存在显著性差异。而对于未参加养老保险的群体而言,两类父母在养老经济打算、养老担心度上均表现出显著性差异。从农村社会养老保险政策和养老观念转变两个方面,进一步探讨第一代农村独生子女父母如何应对养老。     

Better practices in parent engagement: lessons from the USA and England

This paper undertakes an international comparison of parent engagement in the USA and England. Research from both countries is reviewed to establish the extent to which parent engagement is achieving the benefit of an improved fit between need and services and what, if any, differences exist between the experiences of parents in the USA and England. Despite some unique differences, research from both countries identifies similar experiences among parents. Those studies indicate that parent engagement is not yet contributing to the provision of services that are more timely, appropriate, or adequate in meeting parent need. The barriers to achieving a better fit between needs and services are explored and system-wide issues that limit the effectiveness of engagement with parents are discussed. The paper presents the Munro Review of Child Protection in England as a catalyst for change in improving the child welfare system's approach to parent engagement and establishing a better fit between needs and services. Consideration of the applicability of the Munro Review findings to the USA child welfare system or replication of such a review is proposed.     

‘Recuperando la dignidad humana [Recovering human dignity]’: Shuar mothers speak out on intercultural bilingual education

This paper presents findings from interviews conducted in December 2011, with seven Shuar mothers of children in an intercultural bilingual school in the southern Amazon region of Ecuador. This study had two objectives: (1) to foreground the perspectives of Shuar parents towards intercultural bilingual education (IBE) as implemented in the Shuar pedagogical institute, and (2) to collaborate as an intercultural research team (North American-Shuar) to ensure linguistic and cultural authenticity of data collection, and analysis. As a Shuar mother herself, the co-author shares the same language and culture as the participants, which led to a deeper level of trust and openness in the interviews. Current studies claim that IBE is losing ground, partly because parents want their children schooled in Spanish – the language of power – and see the IBE system as inferior. However, these Shuar mothers expressed a different concern: IBE has been too intertwined with Salesian missions and must become decolonized in order to reflect authentic Shuar cultural values and educational practices.     

幼儿家长教养观念及方式的现状调查——基于祖、父辈教养的比较

家庭系统的重要他人的教养观念、教养方式对幼儿的发展有着潜移默化的影响。文章采用问卷调查的方式,考察幼儿家长的教养观念及方式,探究祖辈、父辈两代人在幼儿教养上的共性与差异性。结果发现：多数家庭的祖、父辈共同参与幼儿的教养,父辈多为主要教养者;祖、父辈获取及解决教养难题的途径、教养观念及教养方式既存在共性又存在不同程度的差异性。正视两代人教养的共性和差异性,发挥其中有利之处,规避存在的不足,对幼儿及其家庭大有裨益。