Listening to Children--Who Cares?

Summary The intent of this article is to reinforce the idea of listeningto children in care. It is the author's belief that when giventhe opportunity to be heard, children can provide observationsthat are both relevant and important. To illustrate this beliefthe article provides verbatim comments of children obtainedas part of a larger research endeavour. It concludes with observationsextracted from children's evaluations of a Canadian ‘WhoCares?’ conference held in 1979, the Year of the Child.     

Temporary Foster Care

Summary In order to improve outcomes in temporary foster care the authorbelieves there is a need to develop alternative models for practicethat would (a) define the social work task (b) specify in operational terms how that task would be accomplishedand thus would be amenable to empirical testing. (Temporaryfoster care is defined as the provision of substitute familylife for a child received into care, where there is a clearintention to re-unite the natural family at a future date). This article deals with the essential preliminaries to the developmentof a practice model. The first part surveys the relevant literature;part two develops a theoretical framework for practice aroundthree themes which are considered central to a considerationof foster care. These are the separation experience, the placeof the natural family, and role clarification. Other crucialvariables such as the age of the child, the nature of the problem,or the parents' potentiality for change are not dealt with withinthese papers, but are nevertheless seen as important issuesto be considered at the stage of designing a model for practice.