Abstracts

DAVIDSON-ARAD Bilha and NAVARO-BITTON Iris

Resilience among adolescents in foster care

Children and Youth Services Review 59, 2015, pp. 63–70, USA

The study compares the levels and predictors of resilience of maltreated adolescents in foster care with those of maltreated adolescents in residential and community care. Resilience was measured by the resilience subscale (RYDM) of the California Healthy Kids Survey, which defines the concept in terms of the existences of internal and external resources that enable healthy development. All three groups of youngsters reported relatively high resilience (2 on a scale ranging from 0 to 3), of all three types: internal, external and general. The predictors of resilience tested in the study were: type of placement, age, gender, acceptance and rejection by mother and father, and autonomy and control by mother and father. Only three variables contributed to the youngsters’ resilience, all of them positively: being a girl, being older and acceptance by the father. The study has two practical implications. One is that the adolescents’ sense of themselves as resilient and possessing resources can be used in interventions aimed at helping them to overcome difficulties stemming from their maltreatment. The other is that the key role of parental acceptance, especially paternal acceptance, in the youngsters’ resilience can be used in the work with both biological and foster parents.

GOMEZ Rebecca J

Perceptions of learned helplessness among emerging adults aging out of foster care

Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 32(6), 2015, pp. 507–516, USA

Emerging adults (18–25) ageing out of foster care are more likely than their peers who did not age out to experience poor outcomes. Using content analytic procedures, this study analysed semi-structured interviews (n = 134) and four focus groups with homeless emerging adults, including a subset leaving foster care. Findings indicate that participants who aged out reported a perception of learned helplessness. The study explores participants’ perceptions of possible contributors to learned helplessness including systemic causes. Participants discuss concerns that the child welfare system may inhibit youth in the development of self-efficacy, motivation and the belief that they can affect future events. Recommendations for practice and policy are discussed.

HEDIN Lena

Good relations between foster parents and birth parents: a Swedish study of practices promoting successful cooperation in everyday life

Child Care in Practice 21(2), 2015, pp.177–191, Sweden

The importance of good relations between foster parents and birth parents for foster children’s well-being is a common research topic. This article aims to contribute to an understanding of how co-parenting by foster parents and birth parents works in everyday life, from both parties’ perspectives, whether or not they knew each other previously. The 10 studied cases, comprising altogether 19 interviews, concern teenage placements and are almost equally divided between kinship, network and traditional foster families. This article claims that for co-parenting to be possible it is of vital importance to have a foster family that is open and welcoming toward the birth parents. Such openness includes the provision of regular information to the birth parents about the everyday life of their child, mutual planning regarding the child’s situation, and, most beneficially, invitations for face-to-face encounters between young people, foster parents and birth parents. Both parties’ mutual engagement with the foster youth serves as the foundation of the co-operation. The service and support that social workers can offer in this process is important. Due to similarities between the family cultures, co-operation is facilitated in kinship foster families.

KAPLAN Maureen A, FOELSCH Pamela, HELLER Nina R, NYE Catherine and AQUINO Gabriel

Boundary ambiguity and borderline personality traits: implications for treatment for adolescent girls in foster care

Journal of Family Social Work 18(5), 2015, pp. 366–381, USA

This article explores the relationship between boundary ambiguity and borderline personality traits in adolescent girls in foster care. Boundary ambiguity is a family systems concept: family members are uncertain about who is in or out of the family, in either psychological or physical presence or absence. In foster care, it can be assumed that an adolescent girl has experienced trauma significant enough to be removed from her family. The connection between early childhood trauma and attachment disruption, in addition to the connection between insecure/disorganised attachment and borderline personality disorder, leads to the conclusion that these same adolescents are at high risk for developing borderline personality traits. The sample consists of 40 caseworkers from New England’s child protection departments and therapists from residential programmes working with adolescent girls. They completed the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure for Adolescents to determine the presence of personality disruption as well as a variation of Pauline Boss’s Boundary Ambiguity Scale #1, and demographic questionnaires. The results find a significant correlation between boundary ambiguity and borderline personality traits. These findings provide directions for future research in clinical treatment and child welfare policy-making.

KIRALY Meredith and HUMPHREYS Cathy

A tangled web: parental contact with children in kinship care

Child & Family Social Work 20(1), 2015, pp. 106–115, Australia

Contact between parents and children in care is a contested area. Parental contact is recognised to be important, yet may present protective issues; in the kinship care environment, it brings the particular challenges of complex family relationships. Seeking the parents’ perspective in a child protection context is difficult and therefore under-researched. This article describes a nested study within an Australian research project on family contact in kinship care in which the perspectives of 18 mothers and two fathers were sought via in-depth interviews. Mothers and fathers described strong feelings of disempowerment in the context both of their family and the child protection system. The relationship between parent and caregiver emerged as a significant issue. All of the parents wished to remain in contact with their children in a meaningful way, whether or not they were likely to resume their care; however, contact arrangements presented many difficulties for them. Mothers articulated the need for services that are more empowering and respectful, rather than oriented towards them as failed parents. In order to build appropriate models of support and intervention, the authors argue for a more inclusive conceptual frame for family life that gives greater recognition to the role of non-custodial parents in the lives of their children.

KIMBERLY Claire and MOORE Alexa

Attitudes to practice: national survey of adoption obstacles faced by gay and lesbian prospective parents

Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services 27(4), 2015, pp. 436–456, USA

Gays and lesbians (LGs) wishing to adopt are challenged with managing policies and practices about their right to adopt while also trying to identify adoption professionals that do not stigmatise against them. In an attempt to understand how attitudes toward same-sex couples potentially influence adoption professionals and surrounding policies/practices, 187 surveys were sent to adoption agencies throughout the United States. Questions posed focused on the directors’ (a) knowledge of state and federal policies surrounding LGs adopting, (b) attitudes towards equal rights for same-sex couples, and (c) opinions of LGs as parents. These variables accounted for 42% of variance regarding whether or not these agencies would accept applications from LGs.

DICKENS Jonathan

Children’s guardians and independent reviewing officers: representing children's interests in care proceedings and beyond

Seen and Heard 25(2), 2015, pp. 43–52, UK

This article draws on research into care planning and the role of independent reviewing officers (IRO) for looked after children and the working relationship between IROs and children’s guardians. The research was a mixed-methods study, involving a file study of 122 cases of looked after children in four local authorities; in-depth interviews with 54 IROs and 54 social workers; and interviews with 15 parents and 15 young people. Nationally distributed questionnaires for IROs, team managers and children’s guardians were also distributed. The findings highlight the similarities and differences between the two professions and suggest ways to improve communication between them.

HARTINGER-SAUNDERS Robin M, TROUTEAUD Alex and JOHNSON Jodien Matos

The effects of postadoption service need and use on child and adoptive parent outcomes

Journal of Social Service Research 41(1), 2015, pp. 75–92, USA

This study looks at parents who have adopted children from the US foster care system and identifies relationships between post-adoptive services and outcomes for both parents and children alike. Data for the study came from the 2012 US National Adoptive Families Study, an online survey of adoptive parents (n = 437) who have adopted at least one child from the US foster care system. The study focused on child outcomes such as social integration and the child's overall improvement, and adoptive parent outcomes such as emotional states, changes in close relationships and satisfaction with the adoption. It also assessed whether or not these outcomes are associated with adoption dissolution. Results show that parents’ need for and access to post-adoption services are associated with many types of parent and child outcomes, but not always in the direction that practitioners might assume. Furthermore, these parent and child outcomes are statistically related to adoption dissolution. Future research will delve into whether or not these associations between postadoptive services and outcomes differ among adoptive families based on family structure and social support networks.

HIGGINS Martyn, GOODYER Annabel and WHITTAKER Andrew

Can a Munro-inspired approach transform the lives of looked after children in England?

Social Work Education 34(3), 2015, pp. 328–340, UK

This discussion paper examines the lessons from the Munro Review relevant for looked after children. Although the Review focuses on child protection, the authors argue that some of its key principles have relevance for understanding looked after childhoods. The Munro Review provides an analysis of the current state of the child protection system, challenging bureaucratised practice and arguing for a reclaiming of professional social work identity, knowledge and understanding. There are three key principles of the Review that this paper focuses upon: the first two are the recognition that risk cannot be eradicated and the bureaucratisation of practice is an inadequate response to the demand for public accountability; the third principle is that ethical integrity lies at the heart of services for children in public care. The key message of this paper is that a Munro approach can transform looked after childhoods. However, the current ‘child protection’ model of social work in England may prevent this shift in social work practice.

LARKINS Cath, RIDLEY Julie, FARRELLY Nicola, AUSTERBERRY Helen, BILSON Andy, et al.

Children’s, young people’s and parents’ perspectives on contact: findings from the evaluation of social work practices

British Journal of Social Work 45(1), 2015, pp. 296–312, UK

This article reports children’s, young people’s and parents’ perspectives on birth family contact from interviews conducted across 11 local authorities in England between 2009 and 2012 as part of the national evaluation of Social Work Practice (SWP) pilots: independent organisations providing social work support for looked after children and care leavers. The matched control evaluation, reported fully elsewhere

(Stanley et al., 2013), showed that most children and young people interviewed in both SWP and comparison sites felt they had the ‘right’ amount of contact with the ‘right’ members of their birth families. Factors found to be key to child and parental satisfaction with contact include: involvement in decision-making; speed of social work response; resolution of practical problems; provision of information and emotional support; and investment in building relationships. Evaluation of the SWPs demonstrated progress over time in increasing satisfaction with contact for some young people and some parents also reported improvements, but progress was not uniform and good practice was also evident in comparison sites. Regardless of the organisational model adopted, social work that increases children’s, young people’s and families’ satisfaction with contact arrangements requires an ethic of care, a rights-based approach and access to resources, such as worker time and transport.