Child & Family Social Work最新文献

We use administrative register data from the Norwegian child welfare service (CWS) to analyse the outcomes of 252 144 CWS referrals received between 2014 and 2020. Using a Bayesian hierarchical model, we document extensive and systematic variation across time, across referral sources and across referral concerns. Defining high severity cases as cases in which the CWS seeks mandatory interventions, mandated and nonmandated reporters have similar substantiation rates, but this shared probability declines by half across our data period. The differences in substantiation rates across reporting sources persist when comparing referrals with identical referral concerns. Drawing on the extant literature, we suggest that occupational groups may have evolved diverging reporting practices as a consequence of vague official guidelines combined with a lack of systematic training in identifying relevant cues of maltreatment. We also highlight a possible tension in the Norwegian system: while the family-oriented Norwegian CWS largely opens cases based on referrals, its aim is to work preventively and voluntarily with families before issues reach the severity covered by existing reporting mandates.

Family is important to all, but is a complex issue for young people who are transitioning from out-of-home care. This scoping review explores the meaning and experience of family for care-experienced youth and identifies implications for research and practice to support their social wellbeing. It reports on findings from a review of 31 journal articles that address the concept of family for youth leaving care. The paper explores the range and nature of family relations studied and key themes emerging including how family is conceptualized and experienced by youth leaving care. There is duality in how family is constructed through family practices with chosen individuals but also defined primarily by biological connection. Young people are active in sustaining and managing complex family relations that require a broader, more diverse understanding of family that can support their family-forming efforts with a wider range of individuals before, during and after their transition from out-of-home care.

There is an extensive literature base about the knowledge and skills required by social workers to work effectively with children and their families. However, making sense of how best to translate this into direct practice can be challenging, particularly when newly qualified. The paper is based on a wider rapid evidence assessment (REA) of the post-qualifying knowledge and skills required by early career social workers (ECSWs) to practice effectively with children and their families. The REA involved searching for relevant English language literature (2012–2023) in ASSIA, Social Care Online, SocINDEX and PsycInfo and specialist journals. However, it was soon apparent that the literature was not segmented by career stage and wider searches relating to knowledge and skills needed to be undertaken. In total, 51 papers were included for review. Studies identified were largely qualitative, exploring the knowledge and skills required through observations of direct practice and self-report studies from the perspectives of social workers and children and families themselves. Where knowledge and skills were identified, relationship building and good authority skills were associated with some improved outcomes for family members. The review presents findings through practice-near descriptions of what works to build early career expertise with children and their families.

In this paper, we engage with rescue and saviour narratives surrounding transracial–transnational adoption (also known as intercountry adoption) as a provocation and as manufactured myths. These myths have erased the nuances and complexities of transracial–transnational adoption by commodifying adoptees as pitiful orphans in need of rescue, first families as incapable or unworthy, and adoptive parents, countries and organizations as benevolent saviours, with adoption as a purely humanitarian act. The arguments presented here are both personal and political and are attempted through a decolonial reflexive lens. The paper deploys an autoethnographic approach examining aspects of white hegemony in adoption, unpacking the experiences of adopted South Korean Australians (adoptees of Korean descent raised in hegemonically white families and communities) to explore how whiteness shapes and obscures one's self-understanding of adoption and how colourblindness appropriates and colonizes their identity as ‘white Asians’ or ‘invisible Asians’. These experiences will be compared and critiqued with broader adoption literature and interwoven with narrative and creative productions by South Korean adoptees—to articulate and centre adoptees' voices as experts in their own lives and to contribute to a decolonial politics of knowledge production and a step towards the decolonization of adoption.

Research evidence has shown that adverse occurrences within the kinship caregiving environment, such as the grandparents' experiences of violence and abuse, may introduce new stressors or exacerbate existing aged-related challenges, leading to adverse impacts on grandparent kinship carers. Yet no research has explored the impact of abuse and violence experienced by grandparent kinship caregivers from children in their care. This study involved narrative interviews with 31 grandmother kinship caregivers in Ghana to explore the adverse effects of the abuse they have experienced from children in their care. The study findings revealed the following impacts on grandmothers: (1) high blood pressure, (2) community violence, (3) shame and isolation, (4) low self-esteem and efficacy and (5) anxiety. Abuse incidents motivated by witchcraft accusations were legitimized by other community members, leading to acts of community violence towards the grandmothers. Despite the adverse impacts on their well-being, the grandmothers expressed grave concerns about their grandchildren and were not willing to terminate their caregiving responsibilities due to the cultural norms and obligations underlying kinship care arrangement. The findings suggest the need for the development of targeted family-based and age-appropriate education and training for children in grandparent kinship care on abuse towards grandmothers.