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CHATUKUTA Alice and MAFA Itai
Perceptions on the significance of the clinical social workers’ dress in the helping process in Zimbabwe
Practice: Social Work in Action. Published online, 8 Feb 2022. doi.org/10.1080/09503153.2022.2035706
When dealing with vulnerable populations, the first impression can have far-reaching implications due to socio-cultural dynamics. This has proved true in clinical social work practice where a fiduciary relationship is critical for the restoration of social functioning. The study discovered that service users in Zimbabwe generally have differing opinions regarding how clinical social workers should dress. This was attributed to age, personal preferences and socio-cultural orientations. Furthermore, service users suggested the prevalence of a perceived connection between dress and the competence of the practitioner. The possibility of service user resistance and inability to build a good rapport if the practitioner’s dress is unacceptable to the service user was also noted. The study thus advocates for the need to have social work organisational training on the issue of dress to orient social workers on the sensitivity of dress in practice. By so doing, a social worker will be intentional in their choice of dress, being cognisant of the fact that their dress is a language that has the potential to either catalyse or hinder the effectiveness of the helping process.
CONRAD Jordan B and MAGSAMEN-Conrad Kate
Understanding the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on families involved in the child welfare system: Technological capital and pandemic practice
Child & Family Social Work 27(1): 11–21. First published, 13 January 2022. Free access. doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12876
Child welfare practices transformed drastically in 2020 after governments instituted quarantining and social-distancing measures. Child visitation, mental health evaluations and treatment, and court hearings either ceased or were only accessible via information communication technologies (ICTs). Peer-reviewed published scholarship about technology use in child welfare is limited to voluntary, supplemental contexts and insufficient to understand the nuanced effects of this transition on vulnerable populations. The authors used a critical case study ethnography to name this phenomenon ‘pandemic practice’ and describe how case-management challenges were compounded and/or masked by this. Mandatory ICT use in case management contributed to injustices for some families in the child welfare system, including children spending extended time in foster care, families receiving superficial treatment services and irreparable harm to timely case progression. The authors used technology adoption theory and technological capital framework to identify and understand the complexities of pandemic practice beyond a simple digital divide perspective. They present a hierarchy of technological capital necessary to participate in pandemic practice, suggestions to create sufficient capital and implications for policy and practice.
EIBERG Misja and FUGLSANG OLSEN Rikke
Too high or too low? The role of educational expectations for children in out-of-home care
Children and Youth Services Review 135. Published online, April 2022. doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2022.106376
Low educational expectations for children placed in out-of-home care (OHC) are often proposed as a contributing factor to poor educational outcomes in this population. However, very little empirical evidence exists on the association between educational expectations and educational outcomes of children in OHC, and the theoretical underpinnings of what drives a potential association are limited in the OHC literature. The purpose of this study is to contribute with theoretical and empirical knowledge about the relationship between educational expectations, individual characteristics and educational performance of children in OHC. The authors propose a theoretical model of the relationship between expectations and achievement and empirically test fundamental parts of the model using path analysis on survey, academic and psychometric data on 132–139 Danish children in foster care. Their findings show that educational expectations of teachers and foster mothers do matter for the children’s academic performance in maths, while only the foster mothers’ educational expectations matter for reading performance. Educational expectations affect educational performance both directly and indirectly through the mediation of child characteristics. Importantly, findings also show that the formation of the expectations of teachers and foster mothers draw on child age and observations of the children’s abilities and functioning, including their level of IQ and psychosocial adjustment. Hence, it is argued that raising educational expectations alone is an insufficient measure to increase the educational performance of children in OHC. Instead, we must work to find suitable interventions to overcome the excessive prevalence of developmental and learning difficulties among children in OHC.
GARCIA-Turgas Lourdes and GRAU-REBOLLO Jorge
The hidden side of adoption in Catalonia: When adoption breaks down
Adoption Quarterly. Published online, 21 September 2021. doi: 10.1080/10926755.2021.1976339
Rates of adoption breakdown have often been underestimated in international adoption. While several relevant studies have been published in Spain, there is no research addressing this issue in the autonomous community of Catalonia, which has been one of the main centres of international adoption in Spain since the 1990s. The authors’ research provides specific data on this phenomenon and identifies the significant and critical variables contributing to adoption breakdown by analysing all the case files on failed adoption between 1998 and 2014: 1883 documents, corresponding to a total of 74 children and 62 families.
KELLY Berni, WALSH Colm, PINKERTON John and TOAL Alice
‘I got into a very dark place’: addressing the needs of young people leaving care during the Covid-19 pandemic
Journal of Children’s Services 16(4): 332–345. First published, 24 August 2021. doi.org/10.1108/JCS-05-2021-0022
This article reports on the findings of a qualitative study that explored the views and experiences of young people leaving care during the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic in Northern Ireland. A qualitative approach was adopted involving semi-structured interviews with 24 care leavers aged 18–25 years from across the region. Interviews were conducted remotely online or by telephone, and explored young people’s lived experiences during the pandemic, including their views on formal support services and how best to provide ongoing support for care leavers during this challenging time. Study findings highlight how known adversities for care leavers are exacerbated during the pandemic, having a detrimental impact, particularly on their emotional well-being. The response of the state as a corporate parent in mitigating the impact of the pandemic was found to be inadequate, with a need for much clearer communication, transparent and prompt decision-making and targeted specialist mental health services. The account given by the young people also highlights the importance of participation and relationship-based practice to build on the young people’s resilience in the context of high levels of social isolation and limited access to informal support systems.
KIRALY Meredith and KERTESZ Margaret
‘It’s good because my sister is young, and she knows what's going on’: Children’s views about their young kinship carers
Child & Family Social Work. First published, 30 March 2021. doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12841
Much literature about kinship care has focused on the issues facing grandparent carers. An Australian research project explored the experience and support needs of young kinship carers and children in their care through analysis of census data and in-depth interviews with young kinship carers and children/young people. This article describes the views of 16 young people. These young people expressed satisfaction with their home life and spoke of improvement over time in their well-being, mental health, and schooling. While they appreciated their carers’ attunement to the world of young people, they articulated many challenges for themselves and their carers, including the burden on their carers, the challenge of adjusting to their carers’ parental role and financial pressures. They wanted greater access to counselling and casework services in order to deal with the impacts of family trauma.
SCHOUT Gert
Into the swampy lowlands: Evaluating Family Group Conferences
European Journal of Social Work. First published online, 20 May 2020. doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2020.1760796
A recent debate in the UK on the merits of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in evaluating Family Group Conferencing is a reason to bring this debate to a wider audience than the UK. Other countries are also struggling with accountability and the desire to know what works in the light of reduced public spending. This article explores, debunks and rethinks ways of evaluating FGCs and how they are connected to our desire to predict and control future circumstances. Insights from the Dutch philosopher Kunneman are used to understand what is going on. It is argued that the rise of personalised medicine holds practical reasons to rethink the value of population-based RCTs in social work in general. Where the field of medicine is moving from ‘one cure for all’ and population-based RCTs to individually tailored therapy and N-of-1 studies in order to meet the complexity of particular cases, some fields in the social sciences seem to have trouble moving from reductionism towards a more integrated view of life.
SONUGA-BARKE Edmund, FEARON Pasco and SCOTT Stephen
Editorial: ‘The giant’s shoulders’: Understanding Michael Rutter’s impact on science and society.
The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 63(1): 1–3. First published, 27 December 2021. Free access. doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13558
The recent death of Professor Sir Michael Rutter has quite rightly been greeted by an outpouring of gratitude and respect from distinguished commentators across the globe working in diverse fields of the basic, social and clinical sciences as well as from clinicians and policy makers. These have without exception highlighted his seminal role as a pioneer, perhaps The Pioneer, of the application of the scientific method to the study of child and adolescent mental health and disorder – the father of evidence-based Child Psychiatry and the most influential voice in the new field of Developmental Psychopathology (Stevenson, 2022). In this editorial, three of Rutter’s friends and colleagues attempt to build on these commentaries. They parse his scientific contributions to their field in order to identify the personal characteristics and intellectual modus operandi that made him such a uniquely important figure, whose influence will resonate through the many fields he influenced for decades to come. They also attempt something of a reframing of that contribution, their thesis being that, although he never agitated for it politically or even stated it as a goal explicitly, Rutter’s work was motivated by a desire for social reform and created the scientific catalyst for such reform to occur.
THOMPSON Ross A, SIMPSON Jeffry A and BERLIN Lisa J
Taking perspective on attachment theory and research: Nine fundamental questions
Attachment & Human Development. Published online, 24 January 2022. doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2022.2030132
Since its inception more than 50 years ago, attachment theory has become one of the most influential viewpoints in the behavioural sciences. What have we learned during this period about its fundamental questions? This article summarises the conclusions of an inquiry into this question involving more than 75 researchers. Each responded to one of nine ‘fundamental questions’ in attachment theory. The questions concerned what constitutes an attachment relationship, how to measure the security of attachment, the nature and functioning of internal working models, stability and change in attachment security, the legacy of early attachment relationships, attachment and culture, responses to separation and loss, how attachment-based interventions work, and how attachment theory informs systems and services for children and families. Their responses revealed important areas of theoretical consensus but also surprising diversity on key questions, and significant areas of remaining inquiry. The authors discuss some central challenges for the future.