Abstracts

Adoption & Fostering abstracts are selected by Miranda Davies in collaboration with the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), London. Although care is always taken to be as exact as possible, the editors cannot guarantee the accuracy of material received from outside sources.

Adoption

HEGAR Rebecca L and SCANNAPIECO Maria

Foster care to kinship adoption: the road less travelled

Adoption Quarterly 20(1), 2017, pp. 83–97, USA

Although extensive literature concerning informal kinship care and kinship foster care has emerged over the past 30 years, much less is known about the children and families involved in kinship adoption. This review pays particular attention to recent research investigating placement decisions and outcomes for former foster children adopted by relatives. It suggests conclusions similar to broader reviews, in that kinship placement tends to show some consistently favourable outcomes across a range of study populations and methods. Financial need may be the greatest concern for relatives who adopt. The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 expands adoption subsidies and provides states with the option of providing ongoing subsidies to certain relatives who take guardianship of family members from the foster care system. However, relative caregivers often are not well informed about financial supports afforded them by federal and state policies. Specialised programmes for kinship adoptive families are still limited. Much of the growth of kinship placement has been due to the absence of other placement options for many children and value-based decision-making that places a premium on kinship, rather than on evidence of the advantages of kinship adoption.

Fostering

CHATEAUNEUF D, TURCOTTE D and DRAPEAU S

The relationship between foster care families and birth families in a child welfare context: the determining factors

Child & Family Social Work 23(1), 2018, pp. 71–79, Canada

Children placed in foster care families usually continue to see their birth parents in supervised and home visits. These children deal with the fact that they belonged to two families in a context where the relationship between the two families is sometimes complex and tense. Based on 45 semi-structured interviews conducted with foster care families and kinship foster care families, the present study examines the relationship between foster care parents and birth parents in a placement context, and focuses on the factors affecting the nature and quality of this relationship. The results showed that the quality of the relationship dynamics varies according to the following: how well and how often the parent–child visits took place, the birth parents' characteristics and the foster carers' attitudes. The results also showed that placements in kinship foster care families were more likely to result in conflict and tension between the two parties than placements in regular foster care families.

D’ANDRADE Amy C

Does fathers’ involvement in services affect mothers’ likelihood of reunification with children placed in foster care?

Children and Youth Services Review 81, 2017, pp. 5–9, USA

Social science literature shows associations between fathers’ involvement with their children and beneficial developmental outcomes of those children. A related but smaller body of research in the child welfare services arena has found measures of father involvement to be positively associated with beneficial child welfare outcomes, including child’s reunification with parent after placement in foster care. However, the pathway by which father involvement affects reunification likelihood has not been determined. This study builds on the existing body of literature by testing a theoretical basis for the relationship between father involvement (measured as service use) and mothers' reunification in a model controlling for family structure. It finds that fathers' involvement in services improves mothers' likelihood of reunification, independently of family structure. Results suggest that agency efforts to involve fathers in services make sense both when the aim is to prepare the father for possible custody and when the aim is to reunify the mother.

ROCHE Stephen and NOBLE-CARR Debbie

Agency and its constraints among biological children of foster carers

Australian Social Work 70(1), 2017, pp. 66–77, Australia

There is currently limited understanding of the biological children of foster carers and their experiences of foster care placements. This article presents findings from focus groups with biological children that shed light on their perspectives and experiences. Findings indicate biological children are competent social actors who contribute to, and seek to influence, the care environment in their homes. However, due to a lack of recognition, information and support, their agency is constrained and their challenges exacerbated. This article argues for increased recognition, information and support for biological children, advocating for a ‘whole-of-family’ approach to foster care practice and policy.

WILLIAMS Dave

Grief, loss, and separation: experiences of birth children of foster carers

Child & Family Social Work 22(4), 2017, pp. 1448–1455, Ireland

Previous research identifies the increased exposure of birth children of foster carers to experiences of separation, grief, and loss due to the transient nature of foster care, but little is known about how birth children manage this loss. This article reports findings from a qualitative study that examined the retrospective experiences of 15 adult birth children of foster carers (aged between 18 and 28 years) in Ireland. Findings suggest that birth children experience grief and loss when foster children leave their families. They report experiencing a range of emotional responses such as guilt, blame, and sadness. A reluctance to discuss their emotional responses with either their parents or foster care professionals was also reported. Instead, birth children developed strategies to manage the loss, such as distancing themselves from the foster care process. The study highlights the importance of social workers and foster carers explaining to birth children why foster children are leaving and, where possible, maintaining contact between birth children and foster children. Additionally, findings indicate the need for birth children to have safe nonjudgmental spaces to discuss their emotional reactions to loss.

Other

BRUMARIU Laura E, GIUSEPPONE Kathryn R, KERNS Kathryn A, et al.

Middle childhood attachment strategies: validation of an observational measure

Attachment & Human Development 20(1), 2018, pp. 1–23, USA

The purpose of this study was to assess behavioural manifestations of attachment in middle childhood and to evaluate their relations with key theoretical correlates. The sample consisted of 87 children (aged 10–12 years) and their mothers. Dyads participated in an eight-minute videotaped discussion of a conflict in their relationships, later scored with the Middle Childhood Attachment Strategies Coding System (MCAS) for key features of all child attachment patterns described in previous literature (secure, ambivalent, avoidant, disorganised-disoriented, caregiving/role-confused, hostile/punitive). To assess validity, relations among MCAS dimensions and other measures of attachment, parenting and psychological adjustment were evaluated. Results provide preliminary evidence for the psychometric properties of the MCAS in that its behaviourally assessed patterns were associated with theoretically relevant constructs, including maternal warmth/acceptance and psychological control and children’s social competence, depression and behavioural problems. The MCAS opens new grounds for expanding our understanding of attachment and its outcomes in middle childhood.

BYWATERS Paul, BRADY Geraldine, BUNTING Lisa, et al.

Inequalities in English child protection practice under austerity: A universal challenge?

Child & Family Social Work 23(1), 2018, pp. 53–61, England

The role that area deprivation, family poverty, and austerity policies play in the demand for and supply of children's services has been a contested issue in England in recent years. These relationships have begun to be explored through the concept of inequalities in child welfare, in parallel to the established fields of inequalities in education and health. This article focuses on the relationship between economic inequality and out-of-home care and child protection interventions. The work scales up a pilot study in the West Midlands to an all-England sample, representative of English regions and different levels of deprivation at a local authority (LA) level. The analysis evidences a strong relationship between deprivation and intervention rates and large inequalities between ethnic categories. There is further evidence of the inverse intervention law; for any given level of neighbourhood deprivation, higher rates of child welfare interventions are found in LAs that are less deprived overall. These patterns are taking place in the context of cuts in spending on English children's services between 2010–2011 and 2014–2015 that have been greatest in more deprived LAs. Implications for policy and practice to reduce such inequalities are suggested.

MACDONALD Geraldine, KELLY Grace P, HIGGINS Kathryn M and ROBINSON Clive

Mobile phones and contact arrangements for children living in care

The British Journal of Social Work 47(3), 2017, 828–845, UK

This article reports the findings from the first UK study to examine the use of mobile phones by looked after children. Contact with family and friends is important, but it has sometimes to be carefully managed to avoid unintended consequences such as placement instability. The study examined the ways in which mobile phone technology impacts on contact, drawing on the experiences of children and young people in foster care and residential care, and of policy-makers, social workers, foster parents and residential care staff. No guidance was available that addressed the issue of mobile phone contact arrangements for looked after children and young people. Three years on from the start of the study, this remains the case in the area where the study was conducted, resulting in variation in the way mobile phone use for contact is managed; the issue appears only to be specifically addressed when identified as a problem. The position of mobile phone facilitated contact as a recognised form of contact requires review. The evidence suggests it should routinely form part of children’s care plans, and that residential staff and foster parents need to be adequately prepared and supported for the dynamics of mobile phone facilitated contact.

PARTON Nigel and WILLIAMS Sasha

The contemporary refocusing of children’s services in England

Journal of Children’s Services 12(2–3), 2017, pp. 85–96, England

The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of the changes in child protection policy and practice in England over the last 30 years, in particular to critically analyse the nature and impact of the ‘refocusing’ initiative of the mid-1990s. While the period from the mid-1990s until 2008 can be seen to show how policy and practice attempted to build on a number of the central principles of the ‘refocusing’ initiative, the period since 2008 has been very different. Following the huge social reaction to the death of Peter Connelly, policy and practice moved in directions quite contra to the ‘refocusing’ initiative’s aims and aspirations such that we can identify a refocusing of ‘refocusing’. Such developments were given a major impetus with the election of the Coalition government in 2010 and have been reinforced further following the election of the Conservative government in May 2015. The article places the changes in child protection policy and practice in England in their political and economic contexts and makes explicit how the changes impact on the role and responsibilities of professionals, particularly social workers.

SIVENES Mark and THOBURN June

Citizens' views in four jurisdictions on placement policies for maltreated children

Child & Family Social Work 22(4), 2017, pp. 1472–1479

Citizens' opinions on child protection public policy are a key dimension of the legitimacy of a political order. We have conducted a survey vignette on a representative sample of citizens (N = 4003) in England, Finland, Norway and California, USA. The findings show that citizens' opinions are clearly in favour of adoption (75%) rather than long-term foster care (25%). Context may partly explain the findings, as the responses of the majority of Anglo-American respondents are in line with practice in their countries but for the Nordic respondents, there is a substantial discrepancy between citizens’ opinions and ongoing child protection practices.

WHITE Susan J and WASTELL David G

Epigenetics prematurely born(e): social work and the malleable gene

The British Journal of Social Work 47(8), 2017, pp. 2256–2272

Biological sciences are currently in the cultural ascent, promising to provide a theory of everything in the natural and social worlds. Beginning with the decade of the brain in the USA in the 1990s, neuroscience was first onto the stage, but developments in genetics, known as epigenetics, have profound implications for society and culture, and the responses of the state to intimate family life and personal choices. Epigenetics provides an explanation of the mechanisms underpinning the interaction of the environment and the DNA blueprint, and thus invites an interest in the impact of adverse conditions, such as deprivation or normatively deficient parenting. The implications of this biology of social disadvantage for social work are far reaching. Epigenetics is part of an increasingly political biology with the potential to affect the moral direction of social work. This article reviews the state of the field and its immediate implications for the profession.