Abstracts

Adoption & Fostering abstracts are selected by Miranda Davies. Although care is always taken to be as exact as possible, the editors cannot guarantee the accuracy of material received from outside sources.

Adoption and fostering

FROST Reihonna L and GOLDBERG Abbie E

Adopting again: a qualitative study of the second transition to parenthood in adoptive families

Adoption Quarterly. Published online, 20 June 2019, USA. doi.org/10.1080/10926755. 2019.1627450

The transition to second-time parenthood − i.e. becoming a parent to a second child − is a time of adjustment and change for the whole family. While research has demonstrated that family transitions can be uniquely challenging in the adoptive context, no known research has studied the transition to second parenthood in adoptive families. The current qualitative study explores this transition for heterosexual, lesbian, and gay adoptive parents. Participants comprised 60 individuals in 30 couples (9 heterosexual, 10 lesbian and 11 gay male) who had adopted their first child two to five years earlier and were in various stages of adopting a second. Findings centred on parents’ process of considering, preparing for, and then adopting a second child, with parents emphasising how the second adoption process differed from their previous experience. Specifically, parents described more restrictions on the characteristics of the child they would adopt, greater comfort with ‘holding out’ for a child who fit their family, and feeling less stressed by the adoption process. Parents also explained how the unpredictable nature of adoption presented challenges to introducing a second child to the family. Implications for adoptive families and adoption professionals are discussed.

NOVEMBER Lucy and SANDALL Jane

‘She was accused of colluding with the mother’: the training and support needs of parent‐and‐child foster carers: a qualitative study

Child & Family Social Work. Online first, 23 January 2020, UK. doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12735

Parent‐and‐child foster placements are used to accommodate parents with their children, either when the mother is a looked after child or as a setting for a parenting assessment. Despite this being a specialised role with significant potential for affecting outcomes for disadvantaged families, there is currently a lack of accessible learning opportunities for foster carers on the physical and mental well‐being of women with complex needs such as a history of domestic abuse, substance abuse, perinatal mental ill‐health, or having a learning disability. Parent‐and‐child carers experience some unique stresses and value the support of others with similar experiences; this kind of peer support is currently largely absent. This qualitative study has used ten focus groups with foster carers, eight interviews with mothers and nine interviews with supervising social workers, to inform the development of an online learning resource and a social media‐based peer support network for parent‐and‐child foster carers.

Adverse Child Experiences (ACEs)

LACEY Rebecca E and MINNIS Helen

Practitioner Review: Twenty years of research with adverse childhood experience scores – advantages, disadvantages and applications to practice

The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Online first, 14 October 2019, UK. doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13135

Adverse childhood experience (ACE) scores have become a common approach for considering childhood adversities and are highly influential in public policy and clinical practice. Their use is also controversial. Other ways of measuring adversity − examining single adversities, or using theoretically or empirically driven methods − might have advantages over ACE scores. This narrative review critiques the conceptualisation and measurement of ACEs in research, clinical practice, public health and public discourse. The ACE score approach has the advantages – and limitations – of simplicity: its simplicity facilitates wide‐ranging applications in public policy, public health and clinical settings but risks over‐simplistic communication of risk/causality, determinism and stigma. The other common approach – focusing on single adversities − is also limited because adversities tend to co‐occur. Researchers are using rapidly accruing datasets on ACEs to facilitate new theoretical and empirical approaches but this work is at an early stage, e.g. weighting ACEs and including severity, frequency, duration and timing. More research is needed to establish what should be included as an ACE, how individual ACEs should be weighted, how ACEs cluster and the implications of these findings for clinical work and policy. New ways of conceptualising and measuring ACEs that incorporate this new knowledge, while maintaining some of the simplicity of the current ACE questionnaire, could be helpful for clinicians, practitioners, patients and the public. Although the authors welcome the current focus on ACEs, a more critical view of their conceptualisation, measurement, and application to practice settings is urgently needed.

SPRATT Trevor, DEVANEY John and FREDERICK John

Adverse childhood experiences: beyond signs of safety; reimagining the organisation and practice of social work with children and families

The British Journal of Social Work 49(8), December 2019, pp. 2042–2058, UK. doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcz023

While an adverse childhood experience (ACE)-informed approach to child protection and welfare has become influential in the USA, it has had markedly less influence in the UK. This is despite growth in adoption of ACE research as a basis for understanding population needs and aligning service delivery among policymakers and other professional groups. The authors of this article note the development of ACE research and draw out implications for social work with children and families. They argue that current organisational and practice preoccupations, drawing on the example of the Signs of Safety programme, together with antipathy to ACEs in some quarters of the social work academy, have the effect of reifying a short-term and occluded view of the developing child’s needs so as to obstruct the systemic analysis and changes necessary to ensure that the child welfare system is redesigned to meet such needs. This suggests that post-Kempe era child welfare services are no longer conceptually or systemically adequate to protect children beyond immediate safety outcomes and consequently we need to reimagine their future.

Other

BAGINSKY Mary, IXER Graham and MANTHORPE Jill

Practice frameworks in children’s services in England: an attempt to steer social work back on course?

Practice: Social Work in Action. Online first, 13 January 2020, UK. doi.org/10.1080/09503153.2019.1709634

This article examines the concept and adoption of practice frameworks and how these are becoming a key feature of many English local authorities in social work practice with children and families. A practice framework or model either drives practice or groups together various approaches. The article draws on data from an evaluation of Signs of Safety, supplemented by a later survey, and a roundtable discussion with practitioners, researchers and social work educationalists held in 2018 on the nature and function of practice frameworks. It brings together data from these sources to provide an overview of what is in place in local authorities, as well as what is being defined as a practice framework. These are discussed in relation to implementation and consistency.

BERNARD Claudia and GREENWOOD Tom

‘We’re giving you the sack’: social workers’ perspectives of intervening in affluent families when there are concerns about child neglect

The British Journal of Social Work 49(8) December 2019, pp. 2266–2282, UK.

Few studies have examined social workers’ perspectives of child protection interventions in cases of child neglect in affluent families in the UK. Using the findings from a qualitative study, this article explores social workers’ experiences of intervening in such families when there are child protection concerns. Focus groups and in-depth interviews were used to gather data from 30 child protection professionals from 12 local authorities across England. Findings from the study are used to explore the complex relational dynamics and power relationships that practitioners have to traverse when intervening with affluent parents who have the material resources to resist social work intervention. The authors conclude with a discussion of the skills and knowledge that are necessary for authoritative practice.

BROADHURST Karen and MASON Claire

Child removal as the gateway to further adversity

Qualitative Social Work 19(1), January 2020, pp. 15−37. doi.org/10.1177/14733250 19893412

This article is focused on the immediate and enduring consequences of child removal, from the perspective of birth mothers. The article builds on the authors’ previous theoretical work on the collateral consequences of child removal and women’s vulnerability to repeat family court appearances. Data drawn from in-depth qualitative interviews with 72 birth mothers conducted in seven local authority areas are revisited to enable a focused analysis of the immediate and longer-term effects of child removal. Analysis was informed by phenomenology’s interest in collective accounts of experience and the pursuit of moderate generalisations. All the women participating in the study had experienced the repeat removal of their children through the family courts, or were involved in child protection proceedings concerning an unborn child, having previously lost a child from their care. Birth mothers recounted an immediate psychosocial crisis following child removal, but also the cumulative and enduring nature of problems. From women’s accounts, we have been able to deepen our understanding of the enormity of the recovery challenge for women with long-standing histories of disadvantage who hold fragile and restricted social statuses. Role loss and further exclusionary consequences of child removal were particularly pronounced, given women’s limited access to protective resources. A clear set of recommendations for services are set out in a final discussion. The scale of the difficulties women face needs to be recognised in services that aim to promote recovery, if women are to be helped to avoid recurrent family court proceedings.

FORRESTER Donald, WESTLAKE David, KILLIAN Mike, et al.

What is the relationship between worker skills and outcomes for families in child and family social work?

The British Journal of Social Work 49(8), December 2019, pp. 2148–2167, UK. doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcy126

Communication skills are fundamental to social work, yet few studies have directly evaluated their impact. In this study, we explore the relationship between skills and outcomes in 127 families. An observation of practice was undertaken on the second or third meeting with a family. Practice quality was evaluated in relation to seven skills, which were grouped into three dimensions: relationship building, good authority and evocation of intrinsic motivation. Outcomes at approximately six months were parent-reported engagement (Working Alliance Inventory), Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS), an eleven-point family life satisfaction rating, the Family Environment Scale and General Health Questionnaire, and service outcomes from agency records, including children entering care. Relationship-building skills predicted parent-reported engagement, although good authority and evocation had stronger relationships with outcome measures. Where workers visited families more often, relationships between skills and outcomes were stronger, in part because workers had more involvement and in part because these families were more likely to have significant problems. The relationship between skills and outcomes was complicated, although the findings provide encouraging evidence that key social work skills have an influence on outcomes for families.

SINCLAIR Ian, LUKE Nikki, Fletcher John, et al.

The education of children in care and children in need: Who falls behind and when?

Child & Family Social Work. Online first, 24 January 2020, UK. doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12719

The authors seek to explain the development of the educational gap between children in ‘out‐of‐home care’ (CLA), children deemed in social need (CIN), and other pupils. A cohort of 642,805 pupils aged 16 in 2013 was used to chart the educational progress of the full cohort, the CLA (n = 6,236), the CIN in 2012 or 2013 but not CLA (n = 20,384), and a sample individually matched with the CLA (n = 11,084). At age seven, attainment of the CLA and CIN was approximately one standard deviation lower than the cohort average and predicted attainment at 16. At this point, the persistent CIN (those with earlier and persistent needs) had the lowest attainment relative to others, and this declined further during secondary school. Those entering care before or during primary school had very low attainment at age seven, but their relative attainment did not decline. Attainment of CLA and CIN at age 16 likely reflects early environment, special educational needs and poor relationships with secondary school. Policy, research, and intervention should focus on CIN as well as CLA, do so before entry to care and take account of the onset of, and probable reasons for, educational difficulties.

WITTE Annemieke M, BAKERMANS-KRANENBERG Marian J, VAN IJZENDOORN Marinus H, et al.

Predicting infant–father attachment: the role of pre- and postnatal triadic family alliance and paternal testosterone levels

Attachment & Human Development. Online first, 24 October 2019, USA. doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2019.1680713

This longitudinal study examined whether prenatal family alliance and prenatal paternal testosterone levels predicted infant–mother and infant–father attachment security and whether this association was mediated by postnatal family alliance and postnatal paternal testosterone levels. In 105 couples expecting their first child, family alliance was assessed in the third trimester of pregnancy with the prenatal version of the Lausanne Trilogue Play (LTP). Family alliance was measured again six months postnatally, using the LTP. Fathers provided testosterone samples prenatally and at six months postnatally. Infant–parent attachment was assessed with the Attachment Q-Sort (AQS) at 24 months. Results indicated an increase in paternal testosterone levels from the pre- to the postnatal period. A more positive prenatal family alliance predicted higher infant–father attachment security at 24 months, but not infant–mother attachment security. The association between prenatal family alliance and attachment security was not mediated by postnatal family alliance or postnatal paternal testosterone levels. This study highlights the significance of prenatal family relations, and the need to consider in research and practice the divergent effects of prenatal family alliance patterns on the emerging infant–mother and infant–father attachment relationships. The underlying hormonal mechanisms during the transition to fatherhood are important targets for future research.