Child & Family Social Work最新文献

The safety of practitioners working in the area of domestic abuse is a current subject of research and practice concern, as services endeavour to better understand constantly evolving tactics of violence and abuse and respond appropriately. This paper reports on a subset of findings from a practice-led research project focussed on capacity-building workers and their organizations to address domestic abuse, which highlighted the ongoing concerns expressed by practitioners—particularly female practitioners—about their own physical, emotional, and professional safety. Ethnographic notes were taken of Community of Practice discussions in four regions of New South Wales, Australia, involving 69 senior health practitioners from a range of service streams: specialist domestic abuse, mental health, substance use, and child protection. Themes identified through thematic analysis included the following: a tailored approach to practising safely; attending to physical safety; threats to professional identity; promoting emotional well-being; documentation to support worker safety; and attending to cultural safety. These themes are encapsulated in the practitioner question: Who's got my back?—highlighting the importance of legislation, policy, and practices that provide an environment in which safety and support are embedded in a culture of care at every organizational level.

The sexual exploitation of children and youth remains a critical issue within the child welfare system, despite the limited availability of models of care to support these vulnerable individuals. The START with the YOUTH (STAR-Y) program adopts a preventative approach, offering personalized care and wraparound support to youth exhibiting at-risk behaviours. This paper employs a case study methodology using both thematic and content analyses to longitudinally assess the effectiveness of this exploratory program. This evaluation encompasses a comprehensive assessment of various factors associated with the risk of sexual exploitation among program participants. Throughout the program's extended duration (originally planned for one year), predefined risk factors, including concerning Internet behaviours, were monitored and analysed. Qualitative data were gathered through interviews and observations, focusing on the experiences of both the youth and their foster parents. The results highlight the program's successful implementation, with youth enrollment (N = 3) demonstrating a reduction in sexual exploitation risk factors over time, including a decrease in behaviours such as concerning Internet usage. The importance of wraparound support and the foster parent-youth relationship in mitigating risk and nurturing resilience became evident. This exploratory evaluation serves as the initial phase of a comprehensive assessment aimed at understanding how to effectively support youth within this population, including those at higher risk, such as those possibly involved in sex trafficking. The study's findings provide valuable insights into strategies for mitigating the risk of sexual exploitation among vulnerable youth, informing future endeavours to develop and implement similar programs within the child welfare system.

The criminalization of young women in care remains an important practice and policy issue in England despite 2018 national guidance and the subsequent development of local authority protocols to reduce the criminalization of care-experienced young people. This paper contributes to the emerging research on young women whose behaviour challenges professionals, through secondary analysis of case file data and narrative interviews with 24 care-experienced young women from a national project on care and offending. Analysis focused on young women's pathways through the care, justice and education systems and identified five domains within young women's lives where available risk or resilience factors were significant in directing young women towards prosocial opportunities, to new types of victimization or to criminalization and offending. These domains consisted of placements and caregiver relationships; partner relationships; pregnancy and motherhood; participation in education; and the transition to adulthood through leaving care. The paper concludes with implications for practice for professionals working with young women, in particular emphasizing that how the care, justice and education systems respond to young women can contribute to negative pathways or transform them.

The context of this paper is family situations where young people are experiencing significant behavioural and emotional problems. Based on a qualitative study, it offers an empirical and theoretical contribution to the understanding of family-related factors that promote or hinder behaviour change. Data were collected through face-to-face, semi-structured group interviews with nine families (28 participants), all of them mandatory recipients of child welfare services in Croatia. Thematic analysis comprised primary coding designed to elicit information about individual family members' capacity for change and secondary coding of family-level phenomena. The results indicated 10 phenomena that were judged to represent factors that helped or hindered change. The discussion section suggests three broad categories of capacity to change at family level (Goals and Priorities; Problem solving dynamics; and Development of role relationship). This analysis is offered as the basis for an examination of the concept of family capacity for change.

This article brings together the experiences of parents whose children are placed in out-of-home care (OHC) with the theoretical concept of moral injury. The findings are based on empirical data from a research and development project conducted in seven Swedish municipalities with the aim of developing support for such parents. This article draws on a data set of qualitative interviews with 40 parents, 30 mothers and 10 fathers, with children in OHC. The interview transcripts were analysed thematically, with an abductive approach to theories and the empirical data. The findings illustrate how parents of children in OHC experience moral injury in relation to seven aspects: professionals' morally problematic and distressing behaviour, problematic services, an adversarial system, systemic bias, parent's actions, children's withdrawal and feeling excluded. The injuries are related to events in several periods—prior to the child's removal, during the execution of removal and during OHC—and tend to last for many years. These findings stress that the social services must be aware of the injuries parents experience and must minimize the possible harm and moral injury. We also suggest that parents of children in OHC should have an appointed social worker as a means of support.

Social workers often fail to engage fathers in child protection investigations (CPIs), especially when they involve domestic abuse (DA) by fathers. The aim of this study is to examine the strategies used by social workers to achieve cooperation with fathers in CPIs that involve the father being suspected of DA against the child's mother. With the use of qualitative methods, we conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with 15 social workers during their work on 12 CPI cases. Through thematic analysis, two main strategies for achieving cooperation were created: (1) Securing an Initial Bond, which involved reducing the tension in CPI proceedings and affirming the father; (2) Maintaining the Bond while addressing the father's abusive behaviour, which involved negotiating with fathers about the DA and helping them shift their perspective on how their behaviour has impacted the victims. This analysis is rooted in the framework of shame, guilt and social bonds. However, there is a risk that these strategies may lead to the DA being minimized or overlooked. Striking a balance between building a bond and addressing abuse is crucial, and the timing of addressing DA plays a central role.

Families from migrant backgrounds are found to generally underutilize mainstream child and family support services and recourse more to their social networks and community-based actors for support. This article explores the role of migrant community resource persons (CRPs). Drawing on the novel concept of welfare bricolage, the study sought to unravel CRPs' take on family support and their position in the family support landscape beyond the dominant framing as instrumental intermediaries. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 27 CRPs in Flanders, Belgium, to which thematic analysis was applied. This thematic analysis was guided by key principles of welfare bricolage. The findings add to the existing knowledge that CRPs creatively and flexibly shape community-based family support outside and independent of the predefined, mainstream pathways. CRPs seek to strengthen families and their communities by purposefully assembling and deploying a wide range of resources from various support systems. The findings expand the notion of family support, what it is and who provides it, and thus provide an impetus to reconsider child and family social work in superdiverse settings. This article therefore informs government authorities and formal and informal actors working to support family welfare.

Children from single-parent families typically face severe developmental risks, especially those with prior experience in child abuse. This study aimed to investigate the child abuse experience and social competence of children from single-parent families and discuss the possible mediation effect of resilience in Mainland China. This study analysed 431 single-parent children samples collected in China (50% females, M_age = 13.10). Group comparison analyses were conducted to illustrate group differences in social competence between single-parent children with and without child abuse experience. In addition, path analyses were conducted to examine the mediation effect of resilience between child abuse and social competence. This study findings indicated that single-parent children with physical and emotional abuse experience did not perform significantly worse in social competence, but those with emotional neglect were found to do worse. Resilience fully mediated the effect of physical abuse and partially mediated the effect of emotional neglect on single-parent children's social competence, while it did not mediate the impact of emotional abuse. This study contributes to understanding the mechanisms between child abuse, social competence and resilience of children from single-parent families in Mainland China. The findings have implications for social services for single-parent children who are abused.

Research suggests that the demands of parenting have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for mothers. Widespread loss of childcare and in-person schooling forced parents to make adjustments to care for their children in new ways, many while working remotely. This qualitative study, guided by Walsh's theory of family resilience, examines mothers' experiences with stress and resilience as they adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were gathered as part of a longitudinal, mixed-methods study that examined family stress and resilience among mothers of children ages zero to five. The authors conducted in-depth interviews between June and August 2020 with mothers (n = 15) of children under age six. Three themes emerged to characterize pandemic parenting: 24/7 parenting, changing expectations, and making it work. Recommendations are provided for researchers and practitioners working with mothers of young children, with emphasis on mothers' aptitudes for resilience in times of crisis.

Research on the challenges child protection social workers (CPSWs) face has increased remarkably in developed nations with the goal of finding sustainable solutions. There is a significant number of vulnerable children in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), yet little is documented and known about the role of CPSWs in supporting the children, and the challenges they face that must be addressed to ensure effective and efficient service delivery. The study presents findings from in-depth interviews with 11 certified social workers recruited from five non-governmental organizations in Lagos and Kano states, Nigeria. A realist thematic methodological analysis was performed on the data. Findings were organized and discussed around two major themes including child-focused remedial work and challenges encountered. Providing essential remedial services such as food, clothing, shelter and counselling/therapeutic services emerged as the primary responsibilities of Nigerian child protection social workers (NCPSWs). Their work-related challenges include frustration due to limited resources and resistant children, shortages of social workers and high caseloads, whereas systemic challenges include the non-adoption and non-implementation of the 2003 Child Rights Act (CRA), the lack of legal recognition for the profession and government support. Implications and recommendations are drawn for practice, policy, and research.