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Child and family social work in Canada: Issues and challenges within a neo-liberal political context

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... Child protection systems internationally are experiencing a crisis of confidence, and a subsequent re-imagining of both purpose and form (Kruk, 2015;Featherstone et al., 2018;Keddell, 2018;Kim and Drake, 2018). Within the UK, the general shift in Child and Family Social Work policy and service development to systemically informed RBP approaches provides an excellent opportunity to move towards an approach to working with families which acknowledges, analyses and addresses their immediate issues in the context of their relationships, the stressors of their environment and the impact of wider societal processes and discourses. ...
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Social work practice has an essential, yet ambiguous, relationship with theory. This state of affairs is currently evident in the range of contemporary relationship-based practice (RBP) models being applied within Child and Family Social Work. This article argues that there is an urgent need for a theoretically coherent conceptualisation of these models to enable social work practitioners to embrace their common precepts and so enable more effective interventions. In contrast to attempts to show the distinctiveness of current models for reasons of fidelity, model identity and marketing, this unifying approach advocates for recognition of the commonality and complementarity of contemporary RBP models. The article argues that systemic theory which applies a social constructionist orientation can provide this coherence, helping social workers develop their practice in an informed way. In making this case, the emergent evidence base is noted and recommendations are made about how greater convergence and complementarity can be promoted. This article contributes to the debate about how practice and policy should be guided by theoretical ideas of coherence, alongside more utilitarian ideas advocating the importance of evidence and effectiveness.
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This is a study of a group of Hong Kong social workers who have worked in mainland China for the past decade building a social work profession. In an unfamiliar environment full of uncertainties and obstacles, the interactions of these overseas professionals with local state and societal actors have effected change in the transmission of knowledge and techniques across borders, forging of local alliances to initiate change, adaptation of professional practices to local contexts, and contestation of encroachments on their professional autonomy, ethics, and standards. In their endeavours to introduce novel knowledge and practices into the mainland, these social workers have actively engaged with state agents and inspired indigenous societal actors, attempting to turn them into ‘rooted cosmopolitans’ and to create opportunities and platforms for state-in-society rather than state-versus-society scenarios.
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The protection of human rights and the promotion of social justice is a shared spirit manifested within all social work. Islands of local concern are directly affected by global stresses and inequalities, and the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development has created a space for repositioning social work globally in addressing these challenges. This article opens up definitions and examples of international social work, arguing the need for integrating an international outlook within social work education and policy in order that the emerging workforce, wherever they may be, are equipped with the knowledge, skills and values for international action.
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Whilst service-user involvement in social work education generally is increasing, young people’s involvement has, to date, been limited, and as such their voice is missing. Social media potentially offers mechanisms for addressing this, widening young people’s participation. This article presents the findings of research, conducted in partnership with young people, exploring different types of social media currently available that may have the potential to be used in social work education to provide young people with a voice. Using methods developed from systematic review processes, the research set out to find, synthesise and collate these different resources. The findings suggest social media could provide an appropriate mechanism for enabling young people to share experiences relevant to social care. However, whilst some resources do exist, there are fewer than expected. A need is identified to develop new sustainable ways of enabling young people to have a voice. Current approaches were found to replicate barriers associated with service provision being compartmentalised, service led and framed by eligibility criteria. Recommendations are made for a united response from social work education institutions supporting approaches that give ownership to young people themselves whilst promoting sustainability and continuity.
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I review new findings on (a) college students' perspectives on their living arrangements after their parents' divorces, (b) their relations with their parents as a function of their living arrangements, (c) their adjustment as a function of their parents' relocation, and (d) the amount of college support they received. Students endorsed living arrangements that gave them equal time with their fathers, they had better outcomes when they had such arrangements and when their parents supported their time with the other parent, they experienced disagreement between mothers and fathers over living arrangements, and they gave evidence of their fathers' continuing commitment to them into their young adult years. These findings consistently contradict the recent, influential public policy recommendations of Judith Wallerstein.
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This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the role of poverty in the placement of children in out-of-home care and in family reunification. We examined court cases that successfully challenged policies of child welfare agencies resulting in children's placement into substitute care or in failure to reunite children with their families for ‘reasons of poverty.’ We briefly describe court mandated programs and evaluate the effectiveness of one of these programs in preventing substitute care placement, facilitating more timely reunification, and reducing agency costs. We conclude that child welfare agencies have removed children from their homes and have failed to reunite children with their families for ‘reasons of poverty.’ Our analysis also indicates that providing families with economic or material resources can prevent unnecessary substitute care placement, facilitate reunification, and be cost effective. Other child welfare practice, policy, and research implications are discussed.
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In 1997, the provincial government of Québec, the second most populous province in Canada, initiated a new child-care policy. Licensed child-care service providers began offering day-care spaces at the reduced fee of $5.00 per day per child for children aged 4. By 2000, the policy applied to all children not in kindergarten. Using annual data (1993-2002) drawn from Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, the results show that the policy had a large and statistically significant impact on the labor supply of mothers with preschool children. (c) 2008 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved..
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The author meta-analyzed studies comparing child adjustment in joint physical or joint legal custody with sole-custody settings, including comparisons with paternal custody and intact families where possible. Children in joint physical or legal custody were better adjusted than children in sole-custody settings, but no different from those in intact families. More positive adjustment of joint-custody children held for separate comparisons of general adjustment, family relationships, self-esteem, emotional and behavioral adjustment, and divorce-specific adjustment. Joint-custody parents reported less current and past conflict than did sole-custody parents, but this did not explain the better adjustment of joint-custody children. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that joint custody can be advantageous for children in some cases, possibly by facilitating ongoing positive involvement with both parents.
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This study investigates the relationship between childcare arrangements and developmental outcomes of young children using data from Cycle 1 of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. Models of the determinants of Motor and Social Development (MSD) scores for children aged 0­47 months, and of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test assessment scores (PPVT) for children aged 4­5 years are estimated controlling for a variety of non-parental childcare and early education characteristics. The results suggest that infant-toddler non-parental care arrangements have insignificant or negligible impacts on developmental outcomes (MSD). For preschoolers, modes of care and early education do not, on aver- age, influence cognitive development (PPVT). The results of fixed effect estimates for a sample of siblings aged 0­47 months confirm the preceding conclusion. The analysis is repeated to identify the determinants of the probability that the child's MSD (PPVT) score is in the bottom part of the distribution of MSD (PPVT) scores and the conclusions are similar.
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In At Risk, Karen J. Swift and Marilyn Callahan examine risk and risk assessment in the context of professional practice in child protection, social work, and other human services. They argue that the tools, technologies, and practices used to measure risk to the individual have gone unquestioned and unstudied and that current methods of risk assessment may be distorting the principles of social justice.Central to this study is an examination of the everyday experiences of workers and parents engaged in risk assessment processes in Canadian child welfare investigations. Going beyond theory, Swift and Callahan highlight how risk evaluations play out in actual interactions with vulnerable people. Pointing out that standardized risk assessment tools do not take factors such as class, race, gender, and culture into account, At Risk raises important questions about the viability of risk management plans that are not tailored to individual situations.
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Cognitive, contextual, and perceptual factors contributing to quality coparenting were examined in a survey of 135 respondents (54 males, 81 females) who were separated/divorced former partners coparenting minor-aged children. Respondents indicated, for the most part, a coparenting atmosphere of anger and hostility. The regression analysis indicated that satisfaction with financial child support arrangements (Beta = .219, p= .041), less hostile divorce proceedings (Beta = -.291,p= .003) and forgiveness (Beta = .319, p =.003) were the strongest predictors of quality coparenting. Emerging conflict issues between former partners were regarding children and finances, specifically access to the children and child financial support. These findings have implications for family policy which could assist with facilitating a civil and cooperative coparenting environment.
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A model rebuttable legal presumption of equal parental responsibility, defined as children spending equal amounts of time in each parent's household, in contested child custody cases, is articulated. This model, a unique hybrid of the “approximation standard” and a joint custody presumption, addresses the concerns of critics of each of these presumptions, and serves as a template for legislators and policymakers seeking to establish equal or shared parenting statutes within their jurisdictions. It also removes post-divorce family therapy from the shadows of the adversarial process. Contrary to the claims of equal parenting opponents, it is argued that jurisdictions with shared parenting statutes retaining the indeterminate “best interests of the child” standard have fallen short of full implementation of equal parental responsibility, and that mounting empirical and public support for the presumption warrants a more sustained effort in this regard.Please see here for a companion article by Edward Kruk.
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Sixteen arguments in support of an equal parental responsibility presumption in contested child custody are presented from a child-focused perspective, and clinical and empirical evidence in support of each argument is contrasted to the conflicting evidence. These arguments are made in support of the model equal parental responsibility presumption outlined in Volume 39, Number 5, of The American Journal of Family Therapy.Please see here for a companion article by Edward Kruk.
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This is a report of a study in the state of Wisconsin of a random sample of 590 divorced mothers and fathers who shared the physical care of their children and 590 who had traditional mother custody. It examines three areas: (1) the social characteristics of the families in the survey - their education, occupations, income and family composition; (2) the living conditions of the families: residential stability and adequacy, the formation of a new family, the work hours and childcare arrangements they had, and the health of parents and children; and (3) family relationships including fathers’ contact with their child and parental relationships and disagreements. The report concludes that parents who share the care of their child post-divorce do not differ greatly from those who have traditional mother custody. The report cautions that it should not be taken as an endorsement of, or a recommendation for, a statutory presumption of shared custody on divorce. The influence of the law in changing gender roles is limited.
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Over the last forty years, the number of American households with a stay-at-home parent has dwindled as women have increasingly joined the paid workforce and more women raise children alone. Many policy makers feared these changes would come at the expense of time mothers spend with their children. In Changing Rhythms of American Family Life, sociologists Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, and Melissa Milkie analyze the way families spend their time and uncover surprising new findings about how Americans are balancing the demands of work and family. Using time diary data from surveys of American parents over the last four decades, Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that-despite increased workloads outside of the home-mothers today spend at least as much time interacting with their children as mothers did decades ago-and perhaps even more. Unexpectedly, the authors find mothers' time at work has not resulted in an overall decline in sleep or leisure time. Rather, mothers have made time for both work and family by sacrificing time spent doing housework and by increased "multitasking." Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that the total workload (in and out of the home) for employed parents is high for both sexes, with employed mothers averaging five hours more per week than employed fathers and almost nineteen hours more per week than homemaker mothers. Comparing average workloads of fathers with all mothers-both those in the paid workforce and homemakers-the authors find that there is gender equality in total workloads, as there has been since 1965. Overall, it appears that Americans have adapted to changing circumstances to ensure that they preserve their family time and provide adequately for their children. Changing Rhythms of American Family Life explodes many of the popular misconceptions about how Americans balance work and family. Though the iconic image of the American mother has changed from a docile homemaker to a frenzied, sleepless working mom, this important new volume demonstrates that the time mothers spend with their families has remained steady throughout the decades. Copyright © 2006 by American Sociological Association. All rights reserved.
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We analyze the introduction of highly subsidized, universally accessible child care in Quebec, addressing the impact on child care utilization, maternal labor supply, and family well-being. We find strong evidence of a shift into new child care use, although some crowding out of existing arrangements is evident. Maternal labor supply increases significantly. Finally, the evidence suggests that children are worse off by measures ranging from aggression to motor and social skills to illness. We also uncover evidence that the new child care program led to more hostile, less consistent parenting, worse parental health, and lower-quality parental relationships. (c) 2008 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved..
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To review important research of the past decade in divorce, marital conflict, and children's adjustment and to describe newer divorce interventions. Key empirical studies from 1990 to 1999 were surveyed regarding the impact of marital conflict, parental violence, and divorce on the psychological adjustment of children, adolescents, and young adults. Recent studies investigating the impact of divorce on children have found that many of the psychological symptoms seen in children of divorce can be accounted for in the years before divorce. The past decade also has seen a large increase in studies assessing complex variables within the marriage which profoundly affect child and adolescent adjustment, including marital conflict and violence and related parenting behaviors. This newer literature provides provocative and helpful information for forensic and clinical psychiatrists in their work with both married and divorcing families. While children of divorced parents, as a group, have more adjustment problems than do children of never-divorced parents, the view that divorce per se is the major cause of these symptoms must be reconsidered in light of newer research documenting the negative effects of troubled marriages on children.
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