Abstracts

NEIL Elsbeth, MORCIANO Marcello, YOUNG Julie and HARTLEY Louise

Exploring links between early adversities and later outcomes for children adopted from care: implications for planning post-adoption support

Developmental Child Welfare 2(1): 52–71, 2020, UK

This study explored how child maltreatment, alongside a range of other variables, predicted adverse outcomes for children adopted from the foster care system in England. The participants were 319 adoptive parents who completed an in-depth online survey about their most recently adopted child. The mean age of children at placement for adoption was 28 months (range 0–11 years) and their ages at the time of the survey ranged from 0 years to 17 years (mean = 7 years). Detailed information was collected about children’s backgrounds, including their experiences in the birth family and the care system before adoption. Adoptive parents also reported on how well children were getting on in a range of areas of functioning and how well they felt the adoption was going overall. Child maltreatment and child adverse outcomes were modelled as two factors in a latent factor structural equation model. The relationship between these two factors was explored alongside a range of covariates. Associated with worse outcomes for children were potentially heritable factors (parental learning disability), the pre-birth environment (exposure to drugs or alcohol in utero) and the period between birth and moving to the adoptive family (higher levels of maltreatment, spending more than a year in care, having two or more foster placements). The child’s distress on moving from the foster home to the adoptive family was also highly significant in linking to poorer outcomes, suggesting the detrimental effect of poorly managed transitions. Implications for child welfare practices before and after adoption are discussed.

O’BRIEN Connor, RAPP John T and KIERCE Erica D

Do prescribers deprescribe psychotropic medication for children in foster care?

Developmental Child Welfare 2(1): 3–20, 2020, USA

Approximately one-third of children in foster care in the US receive psychotropic medication; however, few studies have evaluated the extent to which either the number or dosage of drugs changes across time. The authors conducted a retrospective descriptive study of Medicaid files for 30 individuals placed in a foster care system that included an analysis of 10 consecutive visits with a prescribing practitioner spanning 8–14 months. Specifically, they evaluated the data for evidence of deprescribing. Results indicate that practitioners changed psychotropic medication during 70% of visits and most changes involved removing and adding psychotropic medication within the same class. Results also show 60% of visits across participants involved prescriptions for four or more psychotropic medications, whereas only 0.33% of trials involved no psychotropic medication. Furthermore, the mean number of psychotropic medications per foster child at the end of the study (M = 3.97) did not decrease in comparison to the start of the study (M = 3.53). Taken together, these results indicate that prescribers do not regularly engage in a clear deprescribing process for psychotropic medication when serving foster youth. Limitations to the current study and directions for future research on prescribing patterns with foster children are also discussed.

STAPLETON Danita Henry and CHEN Roy K

Better outcomes for children in treatment foster care through improved stakeholder training

and increased parent–school collaboration

Children and Youth Services Review. Epub ahead of print, July 2020, USA. doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105010

The parent–school partnership serves as the foundation for attaining educational success for foster children with therapeutic needs. The authors adopt Christenson and Sheridan’s four As contextual process to present the conditions and actions required to launch effective partnerships. The school environment can be a haven for treatment foster children to build social connections, develop academic skills, and experience measures of achievement that promote confidence and efficacy. In order to attain better student outcomes, foster parents and school agents must value their respective roles and intentionally collaborate within the guidelines of federal policy.

BRADY Eavan and GILLIGAN Robbie

The role of agency in shaping the educational journeys of care-experienced adults: insights from a life course study of education and care

Children & Society 34(2): 121–135, March 2020, Republic of Ireland

Research examining the low educational attainment of children in care and care leavers tends to underuse social theory (Berridge, 2007). To contribute to addressing this gap, the authors use life course theory to explore the role of agency in shaping the educational pathways of 18 Irish adults (aged 24–36 years) with care experience. Findings suggest that agency is a valuable conceptual tool for examining the nuance and complexity of how individual actions shape the education of care‐experienced adults throughout the life course and interact with contextual and structural factors over time.

DIAZ Clive, PERT Hayley, AYLWARD Tricia, et al.

Barriers children face complaining about social work practice: a study in one English local authority

Child & Family Social Work 25(2): 460–468, May 2020, England

Despite the introduction of guidelines and procedures aimed at encouraging and supporting children and young people to complain about the services they receive, children in care still face barriers to doing so in practice. This article explores what happens when children in care are dissatisfied with the services they receive. Specifically, it examines the complaints procedure for such children. The findings are based on semi-structured interviews with children in care, social workers, senior managers and independent reviewing officers from one English local authority. Thematic analysis of these data identified five emergent themes: (1) complaints by children in care are managed at the lowest possible level; (2) senior managers have an overly optimistic view about children in care being informed of complaint procedures and being encouraged to do so; (3) the children are worried about complaining, which is recognised by professionals; (4) children’s voices are often not heard; and (5) when issues are clearly defined, independent reviewing officers have some degree of success in resolving complaints from children in care.

HANRAHAN Fidel, BODDY Janet and OWEN Charlie

‘Actually there is a brain in there’: uncovering complexity through pathways in education for young adults who have been in care

Children & Society 34(1): 46–61, January 2020, England

Internationally, research has highlighted disruption to the educational trajectories of young people in care, documenting concern about upheaval and poor educational outcomes. This article presents findings from English data arising from qualitative longitudinal research with care experienced people (16–32 years) who were also in education, employment or training. The analysis extends understanding of the experiences of those who achieve educational ‘success’, including those who followed non‐linear trajectories. The need for a flexible education system, and leaving care entitlements, which take into account the disruption experienced by young people in care and the consequent possibility of delayed educational pathways, is discussed.

HOYLE Victoria, SHEPHERD Elizabeth, FLINN Andrew and LOMAS Elizabeth

Child social care recording and the information rights of care experienced people: a record keeping perspective

The British Journal of Social Work 49(7): 9 1856–1874, 2019, England

Recent reports by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) emphasised the critical importance of records throughout the lives of care-experienced people. Records not only contain information about what happened to a person in their past, but also have long-term effects on memory and identity. Research emerging in the context of analogous national inquiries into the systemic abuse and neglect of children in care – particularly the Royal Commission in Australia and the Shaw Report in Scotland – have highlighted the significance of records to campaigns for reparative justice. This article introduces MIRRA: Memory—Identity—Rights in Records—Access, which is a participatory action research project co-produced with care leavers and researchers based at University College London (UCL). This ongoing study seeks to deepen our understanding of the creation, use and management of care records and protocols to access them. The authors consider the practice of social work recording with children and families in England since the 1970s from a ‘record-keeping perspective’, importing theory from the information studies field to provide a new perspective on the information rights of care leavers.

JEYASINGHAM Dharman

Entanglements with offices, information systems, laptops and phones: how agile working is influencing social workers’ interactions with each other and with families

Qualitative Social Work 19(3): 321–336, May 2020, England

Agile working (flexibility about where and when practitioners do their work) is increasingly common across public sector social work, but there has been little research about how practitioners engage with it or its impacts on communication between social workers, their colleagues and the families with whom they work. This article presents findings from an ethnographic study of a children’s safeguarding social work team in an English local authority who were engaged in agile working. It draws on data from observations, local authority documents, semi-structured interviews, participant research diaries, participants’ photographs and the researcher’s photographs taken during fieldwork. An analytical frame drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s concept of spatial dialectics and Wanda Orlikowski’s concept of sociomateriality is used to identify how agile working involves entanglements of practitioners and families with restructured office spaces, digital information systems and mobile devices such as convertible laptop–tablet computers and mobile phones. Innovations such as these are commonly understood as promoting more effective and transparent social work practice, but the study’s data show that entanglements between workspaces, digital devices and people in practice are having multiple effects, producing new hierarchies of belonging in space, shaping what can be communicated, and the ways it can be presented and received. The article argues for critical attention to the role of material space in digital and place-based innovations in social work practice.

PRATIWI Ayu, LINNOSSUO Outi and MARJANEN Heli

Comparative social work practices with young refugees and asylum seekers: European experiences

European Journal of Social Work. Epub ahead of print, March 2020, Europe. doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2020.1719475

Despite increased interest in improving the well-being of young refugees and asylum-seekers, studies examining the links between social work practices in the recipient countries, the migration context and the diverse needs of young refugees, are limited. This article builds a comparative perspective of youth social work policy, practices and engagement related to young refugees in Finland, the UK, Malta, Italy and Serbia. The authors solicited 48 good practices in youth social work, identified the central themes of social work practices, and linked them to each country’s migration context and social work policy. They found that the majority of youth programmes were carried out by NGOs at national level, except in Finland, where support from public institutions was significant. Social work practices in the arrival and first transit-point countries such as Malta, Italy, and Serbia, emphasise support on socio-economic empowerment. In the main destination countries like Finland and the UK, the artistic and social initiatives as well as person-centred support services were more dominant. A common theme found was that many of the programmes aimed to create a safe space for the refugees and sense of belongingness by including participation within their communities.

SHOWALTER Kathryn, YOON Susan, MAGUIRE-JACK Katryn, et al.

Are dual and single exposures differently associated with clinical levels of trauma symptoms? Examining physical abuse and witnessing intimate partner violence among young children

Child & Family Social Work 25(2): 439–447, May 2020, USA

A significant portion of children living in the United States have experienced trauma. Informed by the developmental traumatology model, the authors explore the effects of physical abuse and witnessing intimate partner violence (IPV) on childhood trauma symptoms. Their study used a convenience sample of 580 high‐risk children between three and 12 years who received services from one child advocacy centre during a 12‐month period. Researchers performed a series of binary logistic regression analyses to examine if physical abuse, exposure to IPV, and dual exposure (i.e. both physical abuse and IPV) are distinctly associated with six trauma symptoms, including anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress (PTS), dissociation, anger and sexual concerns. The results indicated that dual exposure was predictive of all trauma symptoms, except for dissociation. Additionally, physical abuse was associated with PTS, anger and sexual concerns, whereas exposure to IPV was associated with depression, PTS and sexual concerns. Research and implications for practitioners working with young children are discussed.

ZAJAC Lindsay, Raby K Lee and DOZIER Mary

Sustained effects on attachment security in middle childhood: results from a randomized clinical trial of the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) intervention

The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 61(4): 417–424, April 2020, USA

Interventions have been developed to promote the development of secure and organised attachments during early childhood among children who have experienced early adversity, yet little is known about whether the effects of these early interventions are sustained beyond 12 months post intervention. The current study examined whether receiving the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch‐up (ABC) intervention during infancy led to improvements in perceived attachment security in middle childhood among 100 Child Protective Services (CPS)‐referred children. Children and parents were randomised to receive ABC or a control intervention during infancy. Children completed the Kerns Security Scale at age nine (M_age = 9.46, SD = 0.36). Those whose parents received ABC reported higher levels of attachment security on the Kerns Security Scale at age nine than children whose parents had received the control intervention, t(98) = 2.31, p = .023, d = 0.49. Findings underscore the long‐term benefits of intervening early to promote caregiving quality among at‐risk families and demonstrate the efficacy of a brief 10‐session intervention in promoting attachment security over the span of eight years in a sample of CPS‐referred children.