Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/03085759231197229
Catherine Nixon, Indiya Kurlus, Melissa Hunt, Kirsty Deacon, Sarah McGarrol, Donald Lamb, Helen Etchells, Lorna McNaughton, Gillian Henderson
Scotland’s Children’s Hearings System is a unique statutory system that makes decisions about the need for compulsory professional involvement in the lives of children who are maltreated, in conflict with the law or displaying alarming behaviours. It was designed to facilitate in-person, child-centred discussions about the measures needed to ensure the care and protection of children. The Covid-19 pandemic challenged the ability of the Hearings System to fulfil this role due to the physical closure of Hearings Centres and the need to rapidly develop a virtual system. In this paper we present a realist-influenced synthesis exploring how contextual factors such as public health guidelines, emergency legislation, technological challenges and wider structural inequalities interacted with the delivery of virtual hearings to affect the participation and rights of children during the pandemic. We also describe how learning from the experiences of the participants of hearings was critical to understanding how virtual technologies could be adapted to provide a more rights-respecting approach to participation. We conclude by arguing that there is a need to ensure that the voices of children, which are largely absent from discussions around the use of virtual technologies, are incorporated into decisions made about their continued use within Children’s Hearings.
{"title":"The rapid development of a virtual Children’s Hearings System in Scotland: A realist-inspired synthesis assessing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the participation and rights of children","authors":"Catherine Nixon, Indiya Kurlus, Melissa Hunt, Kirsty Deacon, Sarah McGarrol, Donald Lamb, Helen Etchells, Lorna McNaughton, Gillian Henderson","doi":"10.1177/03085759231197229","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759231197229","url":null,"abstract":"Scotland’s Children’s Hearings System is a unique statutory system that makes decisions about the need for compulsory professional involvement in the lives of children who are maltreated, in conflict with the law or displaying alarming behaviours. It was designed to facilitate in-person, child-centred discussions about the measures needed to ensure the care and protection of children. The Covid-19 pandemic challenged the ability of the Hearings System to fulfil this role due to the physical closure of Hearings Centres and the need to rapidly develop a virtual system. In this paper we present a realist-influenced synthesis exploring how contextual factors such as public health guidelines, emergency legislation, technological challenges and wider structural inequalities interacted with the delivery of virtual hearings to affect the participation and rights of children during the pandemic. We also describe how learning from the experiences of the participants of hearings was critical to understanding how virtual technologies could be adapted to provide a more rights-respecting approach to participation. We conclude by arguing that there is a need to ensure that the voices of children, which are largely absent from discussions around the use of virtual technologies, are incorporated into decisions made about their continued use within Children’s Hearings.","PeriodicalId":92743,"journal":{"name":"Adoption & fostering","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135963497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/03085759231193638
Sahana Mitra, Saraswathi Bhaskar, Matthias Bode
Among several other countries, India has launched numerous digital initiative programmes aimed at integrating and upgrading various socioeconomic, political and health and social care arenas. One such area is child adoption, where a move away from the analogue system and towards digitalisation began in 2015. The Indian Ministry of Women & Child Development introduced the Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS), a digital adoption formalisation platform, under the Central Adoption Resource Authority, a nodal body that monitors and regulates both in-country and intercountry adoptions. This government initiative centralised adoption data from all over India, including the number of children declared free for adoption and the number of prospective parents registered and seeking to adopt. Against this context, this study aims to map the development of adoption in India through digital systems and the influence of digitilisation on those involved in the pre- and post-adoption phases. Drawing on both Western and Indian literature, as well as observations from an ongoing qualitative study on adoption digitalisation in India, this study discusses the benefits and limitations of digital systems for the people connected to them. The findings provide a comprehensive view of the interaction of technology and society and how this operates in the sociocultural context of adoption in India. Future implications for researchers and adoption social workers and consultants are discussed.
{"title":"Mapping the digitalisation of child adoption in India: Challenges and future possibilities","authors":"Sahana Mitra, Saraswathi Bhaskar, Matthias Bode","doi":"10.1177/03085759231193638","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759231193638","url":null,"abstract":"Among several other countries, India has launched numerous digital initiative programmes aimed at integrating and upgrading various socioeconomic, political and health and social care arenas. One such area is child adoption, where a move away from the analogue system and towards digitalisation began in 2015. The Indian Ministry of Women & Child Development introduced the Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS), a digital adoption formalisation platform, under the Central Adoption Resource Authority, a nodal body that monitors and regulates both in-country and intercountry adoptions. This government initiative centralised adoption data from all over India, including the number of children declared free for adoption and the number of prospective parents registered and seeking to adopt. Against this context, this study aims to map the development of adoption in India through digital systems and the influence of digitilisation on those involved in the pre- and post-adoption phases. Drawing on both Western and Indian literature, as well as observations from an ongoing qualitative study on adoption digitalisation in India, this study discusses the benefits and limitations of digital systems for the people connected to them. The findings provide a comprehensive view of the interaction of technology and society and how this operates in the sociocultural context of adoption in India. Future implications for researchers and adoption social workers and consultants are discussed.","PeriodicalId":92743,"journal":{"name":"Adoption & fostering","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135963514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/03085759231195943
Andy Phippen, Emma Bond
Online harms and the resultant safeguarding approaches are a key challenge for those working in the children’s workforce. However, safety narratives and a wish to prevent harm, rather than mitigate risk, have arguably caused a safeguarding environment that is neither mindful of children’s rights nor in their best interests. When supporting adopted and looked after children, there are some specific challenges that can result in further caution in supporting children in their use of digital technology. Empirical data presents observations on a professional environment where, with a dearth of training or policy direction, professionals are left to bring their own biases and beliefs into safeguarding judgements and, in the rush to protect, often forget the importance of working across stakeholders rather than trying to resolve issues independently.
{"title":"Biases, concerns and the erosion of rights: Addressing digital issues with adopted and fostered children in a policy vacuum","authors":"Andy Phippen, Emma Bond","doi":"10.1177/03085759231195943","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759231195943","url":null,"abstract":"Online harms and the resultant safeguarding approaches are a key challenge for those working in the children’s workforce. However, safety narratives and a wish to prevent harm, rather than mitigate risk, have arguably caused a safeguarding environment that is neither mindful of children’s rights nor in their best interests. When supporting adopted and looked after children, there are some specific challenges that can result in further caution in supporting children in their use of digital technology. Empirical data presents observations on a professional environment where, with a dearth of training or policy direction, professionals are left to bring their own biases and beliefs into safeguarding judgements and, in the rush to protect, often forget the importance of working across stakeholders rather than trying to resolve issues independently.","PeriodicalId":92743,"journal":{"name":"Adoption & fostering","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135963503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1177/03085759231195935
Joanne Westwood, Jennifer E Simpson, Cath Larkins
{"title":"The changing digital landscape for looked after children","authors":"Joanne Westwood, Jennifer E Simpson, Cath Larkins","doi":"10.1177/03085759231195935","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759231195935","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":92743,"journal":{"name":"Adoption & fostering","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135963504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A participatory study with care-experienced children and young people identified longstanding problems in social work with children and recommended service improvements. The authors reflected on a digital resource co-created by this study and speculated on future digital adaptations that might address some of the service development needs that children and young people identified. This was inspired by Haraway’s (1985) call to imagine cyborgification in order to break from dominant thinking while being cautious of how power operates in human-machine conjunctures. The imagined digital adaptations focus on connecting to people and places, leisure, education, accommodation, journey planning through care and systems accountability. Imagining cyborgification highlighted how digital adaptations are embedded in, and not a substitute for, trusting relationships. Adaptations must be co-developed by intergenerational groups of children and professionals. Bourdieu’s (1985 , 1986 ) notions of habitus, field and capitals could guide theoretically informed feasibility testing, drawing attention to distributions of resources. Key questions relate to: When can digital adaptations challenge the dominant habits and politics of social care, strengthen deep relationships and secure social, cultural and economic capital in the hands of young experts and their adult allies, so that systems can redress inequalities and promote accountability?
{"title":"We can connect: Imagining the future of digital practice with and by care-experienced children and young people","authors":"Cath Larkins, Deborah Crook, Zoe O’Riordan, Helen Casey, Lynn Froggett, Ismail Karolina, Nicola Farrelly","doi":"10.1177/03085759231199775","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759231199775","url":null,"abstract":"A participatory study with care-experienced children and young people identified longstanding problems in social work with children and recommended service improvements. The authors reflected on a digital resource co-created by this study and speculated on future digital adaptations that might address some of the service development needs that children and young people identified. This was inspired by Haraway’s (1985) call to imagine cyborgification in order to break from dominant thinking while being cautious of how power operates in human-machine conjunctures. The imagined digital adaptations focus on connecting to people and places, leisure, education, accommodation, journey planning through care and systems accountability. Imagining cyborgification highlighted how digital adaptations are embedded in, and not a substitute for, trusting relationships. Adaptations must be co-developed by intergenerational groups of children and professionals. Bourdieu’s (1985 , 1986 ) notions of habitus, field and capitals could guide theoretically informed feasibility testing, drawing attention to distributions of resources. Key questions relate to: When can digital adaptations challenge the dominant habits and politics of social care, strengthen deep relationships and secure social, cultural and economic capital in the hands of young experts and their adult allies, so that systems can redress inequalities and promote accountability?","PeriodicalId":92743,"journal":{"name":"Adoption & fostering","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135963518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/03085759231178034
Mia Gowan, Nicole Peel, Emma Elcombe, Stacy Blythe
Practising self-care is vital for foster carers to cope with the stresses of the caring role, provide the best care possible and continue in their task. This current study contributes to emerging research on the self-care practices of foster carers in Australia and worldwide. It used an exploratory design, surveying 148 foster carers about their self-care and conducting individual, semi-structured interviews enabling nine of them to elaborate on their self-care experiences. The results indicate that while the participants sometimes engage in self-care and value it as a way of maintaining their wellbeing and increasing their caregiving capacity, they face several barriers to doing this. These include the multiple responsibilities of the foster carer role, children’s commitments, employment and finances. Facilitators of self-care include social and family support, contact with other carers and carer respite. Foster care agencies and the out-of-home care system should aim to meet the self-care needs of carers by providing increased support, resources and education. Plain language summary Self-care is important for all individuals and vital for those providing care to children in out-of-home care who often have complex and challenging needs. This study asked 148 foster carers in Australia what they did to practise self-care. Foster carers demonstrated an understanding that self-care is important and a desire to practise regular self-care. However, they identified many barriers to engaging in self-care. This article explains why and how foster carers practise self-care, what prevents self-care from occurring and how to improve foster carers’ self-care practices.
{"title":"An exploration of the self-care practices of foster carers in Australia","authors":"Mia Gowan, Nicole Peel, Emma Elcombe, Stacy Blythe","doi":"10.1177/03085759231178034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759231178034","url":null,"abstract":"Practising self-care is vital for foster carers to cope with the stresses of the caring role, provide the best care possible and continue in their task. This current study contributes to emerging research on the self-care practices of foster carers in Australia and worldwide. It used an exploratory design, surveying 148 foster carers about their self-care and conducting individual, semi-structured interviews enabling nine of them to elaborate on their self-care experiences. The results indicate that while the participants sometimes engage in self-care and value it as a way of maintaining their wellbeing and increasing their caregiving capacity, they face several barriers to doing this. These include the multiple responsibilities of the foster carer role, children’s commitments, employment and finances. Facilitators of self-care include social and family support, contact with other carers and carer respite. Foster care agencies and the out-of-home care system should aim to meet the self-care needs of carers by providing increased support, resources and education. Plain language summary Self-care is important for all individuals and vital for those providing care to children in out-of-home care who often have complex and challenging needs. This study asked 148 foster carers in Australia what they did to practise self-care. Foster carers demonstrated an understanding that self-care is important and a desire to practise regular self-care. However, they identified many barriers to engaging in self-care. This article explains why and how foster carers practise self-care, what prevents self-care from occurring and how to improve foster carers’ self-care practices.","PeriodicalId":92743,"journal":{"name":"Adoption & fostering","volume":"20 1","pages":"192 - 210"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82366022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/03085759231182442
D. Golm
{"title":"A call to action: The need for routine mental health support for care-experienced children and young people","authors":"D. Golm","doi":"10.1177/03085759231182442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759231182442","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":92743,"journal":{"name":"Adoption & fostering","volume":"16 12 1","pages":"115 - 119"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77045343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/03085759231176566
Anu-Riina Svenlin, Tiina Lehto-Lundén
This article presents a synthesis of two PhD studies of Support Family Intervention (SFI) in Finland. This is a service in which volunteer families provide support and respite care to children and parents who are coping with a range of psycho-social challenges by looking after the children for one weekend a month. The aim of this article is to develop a child-centred programme theory (CCPT) of SFI that combines a meta-ethnography-based theory underpinning the use of SFI with evidence of participating children’s lived experiences. The CCPT that emerged is grounded on three elaborations of the programme theory currently informing SFI: a more nuanced description of the child as a stakeholder in the intervention, an investigation into the supportive properties of the environment and the activities provided by the support family to the child and clarification of the function of relationships as a central element of the intervention. Plain language summary Support Family Intervention is a social work service provided to children and parents in Finland and other Nordic countries. The child receives a voluntary ‘extra’ family whom they visit on a regular basis one weekend every month. At the same time, the parents get time for recovery and rest. In this article we present the results of two doctoral theses. Our focus is on how the support family can be understood from the child’s point of view. We summarise our results in a programme theory that can be used, for example, when the social worker introduces the service to the family. For the child, the home, the support family and the surroundings provide opportunities for many activities. The most important element is the relationship(s) to which the child gets access in the support family.
{"title":"Respite care from the child’s perspective – The Support Family Intervention in Finland","authors":"Anu-Riina Svenlin, Tiina Lehto-Lundén","doi":"10.1177/03085759231176566","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759231176566","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents a synthesis of two PhD studies of Support Family Intervention (SFI) in Finland. This is a service in which volunteer families provide support and respite care to children and parents who are coping with a range of psycho-social challenges by looking after the children for one weekend a month. The aim of this article is to develop a child-centred programme theory (CCPT) of SFI that combines a meta-ethnography-based theory underpinning the use of SFI with evidence of participating children’s lived experiences. The CCPT that emerged is grounded on three elaborations of the programme theory currently informing SFI: a more nuanced description of the child as a stakeholder in the intervention, an investigation into the supportive properties of the environment and the activities provided by the support family to the child and clarification of the function of relationships as a central element of the intervention. Plain language summary Support Family Intervention is a social work service provided to children and parents in Finland and other Nordic countries. The child receives a voluntary ‘extra’ family whom they visit on a regular basis one weekend every month. At the same time, the parents get time for recovery and rest. In this article we present the results of two doctoral theses. Our focus is on how the support family can be understood from the child’s point of view. We summarise our results in a programme theory that can be used, for example, when the social worker introduces the service to the family. For the child, the home, the support family and the surroundings provide opportunities for many activities. The most important element is the relationship(s) to which the child gets access in the support family.","PeriodicalId":92743,"journal":{"name":"Adoption & fostering","volume":"109 1","pages":"138 - 156"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84887573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/03085759231183644a
Kerry O'Halloran
The legal note on this case is in two parts: part one, examining the facts and outlining the process, was considered in the last issue of Adoption & Fostering (O’Halloran, 2023); this part studies the court’s review of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case law which, it felt, had not been taken into account by Judge Larkin. The case concerned an appeal by a Health and Social Care Trust against the decision of Judge Larkin to refuse an application by the Trust for an order freeing Joy, a 5-year-old child, for adoption pursuant to Article 18 of the Adoption (Northern Ireland) Order 1987. The court had already allowed the appeal and the freeing order had been made. The question of post-adoption contact was the only remaining issue in the present hearing. The court was assembled to provide reasons for reaching the decision it did and to reiterate some important points pertaining to good practice and procedure regarding freeing for adoption applications in this jurisdiction.
{"title":"Northern Ireland","authors":"Kerry O'Halloran","doi":"10.1177/03085759231183644a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759231183644a","url":null,"abstract":"The legal note on this case is in two parts: part one, examining the facts and outlining the process, was considered in the last issue of Adoption & Fostering (O’Halloran, 2023); this part studies the court’s review of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case law which, it felt, had not been taken into account by Judge Larkin. The case concerned an appeal by a Health and Social Care Trust against the decision of Judge Larkin to refuse an application by the Trust for an order freeing Joy, a 5-year-old child, for adoption pursuant to Article 18 of the Adoption (Northern Ireland) Order 1987. The court had already allowed the appeal and the freeing order had been made. The question of post-adoption contact was the only remaining issue in the present hearing. The court was assembled to provide reasons for reaching the decision it did and to reiterate some important points pertaining to good practice and procedure regarding freeing for adoption applications in this jurisdiction.","PeriodicalId":92743,"journal":{"name":"Adoption & fostering","volume":"41 1","pages":"233 - 237"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81294417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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