Child & Family Social Work最新文献

Most children who are removed from their homes by social services have siblings. Yet, siblinghood is an unnoticed and understudied field of interest. Professionals lack a framework for addressing this common issue in out-of-home placement decision-making and caregiving. The current study examined how professionals in family group homes in Israel perceive and approach sibling bonds, as well as the main barriers and benefits they identify regarding siblinghood among children in out-of-home placements. Five focus groups were held with 34 professionals, and a thematic analysis was conducted. The participants identified siblings as a source of support, comfort and security to one another. On the other hand, they worried about the sibling bond inhibiting a child's development. They also revealed two approaches regarding the role of out-of-home placements: a space for individual development versus a transition station in the child's and family's life journey. They also referred to the uniqueness of every sibling group and, hence, the significant weight of professional intuition in decision-making processes. The discussion addresses the challenges of intuitive decision-making in cases of siblings in out-of-home placements and stresses the need for more informed decision-making processes.

Conflicts are common in adolescent friendships and romantic relationships. The ways girls in care navigate conflicts in close relationships have implications for their resilience, since their family relationships are compromised. We employed qualitative and quantitative approaches to explore the conflicts in the friend and romantic relationships of 37 girls in care. They completed an interview about the conflicts with their best friend and boyfriend and a measure on the positive and negative quality of the friendship and romantic relationship within which the conflicts took place. Thematic analysis indicated the girls experienced more intense and volatile conflicts with their boyfriend than best friend. However, the intensity of these conflicts was mitigated by their positive perceptions in their quantitative reports. Despite conflicts, the girls reported significantly higher levels of positive than negative relationship quality within their romantic relationships and similar levels of negative quality between the two relationships. Findings highlight the girls' struggles with their romantic relationship compared to their friendship and especially their attempts to interpret conflict within a more global assessment of relationship quality. The findings provide a nuanced understanding of the girls' relational patterns, which can be used to inform interventions to support their development of healthy relationships.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major criminal, social and public health problem. As one effort to prevent IPV and intimate partner homicide, several countries have adopted legislation requiring professionals to disclose IPV to the authorities (commonly referred to as mandatory reporting). The child welfare service (CWS) is centrally positioned for detecting, reporting and preventing IPV, but there is limited empirical knowledge concerning how the service handles IPV cases or of social workers' awareness of mandatory reporting of IPV. Using qualitative interviews, we explore how CWS workers in Norway describe their discretionary space and mandatory obligations towards adults subjected to IPV. Our findings indicate an inexpedient interplay between understandings of professional mandate and individual responsibility and local routines and organisation and insufficient knowledge about IPV and mandatory reporting. We suggest that a reframing of CWS workers' understanding of their discretionary space is needed to ensure that their individual responsibility towards adults subjected to IPV is understood as part of their mandate. This reframing presupposes structural efforts, such as formal training. We propose further investigations concerning how local organisation and routines either facilitate or interfere with systematic and thorough handling of IPV in families with which the municipal CWS meets.

Understanding more about the discharge of care orders is vital—whether a care order remains in place has significant implications for children and their families and for local authorities. While there has been comprehensive research about the process and outcomes of care proceedings, much less is known about the discharge of care orders—particularly how, why and when care orders are ended and the differences between applications that are granted and those that are not. The present study combined data from an anonymized administrative data on discharge applications, a detailed analysis of children's e-records and qualitative interviews with family justice professionals to create the first detailed profile of discharge applications across England and Wales. This paper reports, for the first time, the number of discharge applications and outcomes across England and Wales, highlighting regional as well as between-country variation. Drawing on data from children's e-records and interviews with professionals, highlighting how and why local authorities are more likely to submit discharge applications, and to have applications granted, than parents. Recommendations are made for how to adapt professional practice and policy around discharge applications to better meet the needs of children and families.

Bullying is a pervasive public behaviour that raises significant global concerns, inflicting harm on bullies, victims, and bully-victims. This qualitative case study investigates bully-victim role formation through the lens of symbolic interactionism. Data were collected via interviews and observations with a Chinese adolescent boy identified as a bully-victim, by his family, teachers, and peers. Findings revealed the case subject experienced relational and physical victimization, while perpetrating financial, verbal, and physical bullying. Family violence, school exclusion, and an aggressive community culture shaped the subject's aggressive responses over time. Unique aspects of the Chinese cultural context, including parent–child dynamics within migrant families and teacher–student relationships, influenced role development. This novel application of symbolic interactionism sheds light on the complex interplay between multisystem interactions, emotions, and confrontational actions underlying the case subject's bully-victim status. The study underscores the value of qualitative explorations, giving voice to bully-victims' perspectives. Findings can inform culturally specific bullying prevention and highlight how contextual interactions shape adolescents' roles. This rare glimpse into bully-victim experiences in China advances theoretical perspectives and has important implications for research and practice addressing the worldwide problem of bullying.

Child and family social workers routinely make professional judgements involving significant legal and moral questions (e.g. whether a child has been abused) and more ‘everyday’ issues (e.g. will the child be re-referred again if we close the case now?) Yet the world is capricious, and we rarely know with certainty what is going to happen in future or the likely impact of our different choices. Given the consequences of their judgements and decisions, it is imperative that social workers are provided with the best possible support. This paper reports a proof-of-concept study of a set of interventions to improve the judgemental accuracy of social workers: (i) a survey to identify respondents with above-average existing abilities, (ii) training sessions on cognitive debiasing and (iii) structured group working and (iv) three methods for aggregating individual judgements. Findings indicate that it is possible to measure the accuracy of social work judgements in relation to case-study materials and retrospective questions, while the feedback about the training was largely positive. Any future studies should aim to recruit a more diverse set of respondents, test judgemental accuracy in relation to prospective judgements and explore what types of questions would be most helpful for real-world decision-making.

This study aims to investigate the relationships between work and family conflicts, specifically work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts, parental depressive symptoms and coparenting conflict behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic. This national survey study involved the participation of 830 families in mainland China, including fathers, mothers and adolescents. Fathers and mothers provided self-reports on their experiences of work-to-family conflicts, family-to-work conflicts and depressive symptoms. Meanwhile, adolescents reported their perceptions of coparenting conflict behaviours exhibited by both fathers and mothers. The Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Model was employed to analyse these relationships. In the Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Model, paternal family-to-work conflicts were found to be positively associated with both paternal and maternal coparenting conflict behaviours, mediated through paternal depressive symptoms. Similarly, maternal family-to-work conflicts were positively linked to both paternal and maternal coparenting conflict behaviours, mediated through maternal depressive symptoms. Additionally, paternal family-to-work conflicts exhibited a direct positive relationship with both paternal and maternal coparenting conflict behaviours. However, paternal work-to-family conflicts demonstrated a direct negative association with paternal coparenting conflict behaviours. This study sheds light on the complex interconnectedness between work and family conflicts, parental depressive symptoms and coparenting conflict behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings highlight the importance of addressing work and family conflicts in understanding and managing coparenting dynamics, particularly during challenging times such as a pandemic. Such insights can inform interventions and support systems to promote healthier coparenting relationships and family well-being.

In Kenya, the number of street-involved children continues to grow each decade, with most recent estimates as high as 250 000 to 300 000. Despite efforts by local government, nongovernmental organizations, and community-based organizations to address this problem, most children who receive services end up returning to the streets. Since 2021, Agape Children's Ministry has provided time-limited, crisis-oriented services to families recently reintegrated through its Family Strengthening Programme (FSP). We conducted an exploratory programme evaluation of Agape's FSP to ascertain whether it is achieving the intended outcomes. Thirty families (n = 30 children; n = 38 caregivers) were enrolled in the FSP during the study window and participated in the evaluation. Family functioning and child well-being increased to a statistically significant and large extent from before to after the intervention. All but two children remained reintegrated at the end of the study period. Results highlight the importance of using a holistic family-based programme that reunites children with their healthiest possible family environment with a plan specifically tailored to their individual needs and unique family situations. Results also bring to the fore the need for broad governmental attention to basic needs of families as an important part of improving family functioning.