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Aiming for participation of foster children within organizationally specialized social services: a bureaucratic or a relational act?
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The objective of this research was to conduct a systematic review of systematic reviews related to Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as it relates to children and young people involved with child welfare agencies. This systematic review sought to comply with the guidance from the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis on umbrella reviews. Fourteen databases were searched using predefined terms. Six hundred seventy-four original hits were retrieved for title and abstract searching after independent searching by the authors. Of those, fourteen were included for full independent reads and all fourteen were selected after discussion. Each systematic review was appraised using an eleven-point quality checklist from JBI. A thematic review was conducted to ascertain the themes across all systematic reviews. Three themes emerged (i) children’s voice is not taken seriously; (ii) relationships are an important determining factor in (un)successful participation; and (iii) the context of participation is important. Our conclusion is that despite mandated UNCRC requirements to involve children and young people within the child protection system, the possibilities for children and young people to express their views remain restricted.
The social services in Sweden are clearly influenced by international development towards organisational specialisation. However, little is known about how organisational structures are associated with the client work of social services. The article presents a narrative research review aimed to summarise and discusses empirical research on organisational structures in the social services and how these structures might influence client work. Building on the tension between specialisation and integration, the article identifies both the advantages and the disadvantages of the different approaches to organising social services along a continuum from high levels of specialisation, via coordination and collaboration solutions, to high levels of integration. The findings suggest that, to function adequately, social service organisations need to combine and balance aspects of both specialisation and integration.
Ensuring that young people in foster care receive the support they need at the right time, is a pressing issue across health- and social services. In this study, we aim to broaden the knowledge base on what constitutes appropriate help and support from the perspective of young people in long-term foster care in Norway. As part of a larger survey, young people in foster care (N = 178) aged eleven to eighteen years provided written accounts on the open-ended question: ‘What advice would you give adults who help young people living in foster care?’. We conducted a systematic content analysis to identify themes and categories across the data. Four main themes were identified: enable participation; build trusting relationships; ensure appropriate follow-up; and cultivate belonging. Participation served as a pivoting point across the themes, as a prerequisite for young people in care to receive the services they need and develop a positive self-relationship. Our findings indicate that services must be tailored to recognise how the strengths and needs of young people in foster care change over time and differ across individuals. Developing practice tools that enhance young people’s participation is therefore paramount, as social workers, foster parents and other adults are crucial to processes of well-being and belonging.
Foster care is a sensitive topic that requires representation of the best interests of children and families. The perspectives of foster children and foster families are under-researched and there is need for more knowledge in this area. Following a PRISMA guidelines, 24 articles were analyzed. The systematic review explores foster children’s and foster parents’ perceptions of factors related to a successful placement. Both children and foster parents emphasized the importance of inclusion in the decision-making process and a need for additional help from specialists. Findings identify a number of factors that could be helpful for child welfare authorities.
This review explores the conceptualization of “child participation” in a child welfare context. The analyses are based on the theories, models and concepts researchers apply when framing their studies. Central to the authors’ conceptualizing is the understanding of why children should participate. Children’s rights are a common starting point for many authors, but they differ on whether children should participate out of consideration for children’s intrinsic value (e.g., concern for their well-being) or for the instrumental value of the participation itself (e.g., service outcome). The analysis also focuses on how authors measure participation level. The analysis showed that most authors presented a limited rights-focused goal for the collaboration with children, while a minority group problematized the concept. Although several researchers emphasize that participation requires a process, few authors see the meaning-making process as the main purpose of child participation.
In the organization of child care services, constraints restrict the potential for children’s participation in the formation and delivery of support programmes. These constraints involve the prioritization of risk management, poor understandings of what participation entails, and entrenched socio-cultural perspectives of children as vulnerable and requiring protection. However, when children’s participation is recognized as an imperative, both morally and as a means of enhancing service efficiency, and when organizational visions and practice ideologies uphold the importance of children’s involvement in decision-making, spaces for children’s agency can become part of everyday practice routines. Drawing on three examples of organizational innovations in child-directed social work, this article explores the benefits involved in “organizing for children’s agency”.
Objective
Child participation is internationally seen as an crucial aspect of the child protection and child welfare. Scholars have differences of opinion about what participation entails but even less is known about whether children and case managers have similar perspectives on participation and its goals.
Method
An exploratory study was conducted, including 16 interviews with case managers and 16 interviews with young people in the Amsterdam area, the Netherlands.
Results
There is a large gap between case managers’ perspectives on participation and its prevalence in practice and the experiences and perspectives of young people under the care of child protection and welfare services. Case managers see participation as important but it is generally seen as an instrument to ensure the child’s cooperation. Young people, on the other hand, understand participation differently. They primarily want to be heard, informed and taken seriously.
Conclusions and implications for practice
The level of participation that occurs and the different perspectives of young people and case managers shows that there is currently no meaningful dialogue between the case manager and the young person. The knowledge and experience of young people is not taken seriously, given the proper value or acted upon in the process of youth care. Although social scientist have shown that children are knowledgeable social actors, the practice of child protection is falling behind.Interventions to decrease barriers to participation should therefore focus on the case managers’ perspectives of children and childhood, encouraging them to not only see but also approach children as knowledgeable social actors.
With the increasing differentiation of organisations involved in the pursuit of public health, there is also a growing need for inter-organisational integration. Starting from the concepts of differentiation and integration, this article is attempting a theoretical reconstruction based on published research on inter-organisational integration in public health and related welfare services. Different forms of integration are defined and related to each other in a conceptual framework, which is in itself an integration of different theoretical perspectives. According to this framework, integration in the field of public health requires inter-organisational collaboration across different sectors of the society. Such intersectoral collaboration can be organised mainly in the form of multidisciplinary teams across the boundaries of different organisations and sectors. Such an organisation is fragile and volatile, however, which means that it needs a lot of management support in order to survive.
Thematic analysis is a poorly demarcated, rarely acknowledged, yet widely used qualitative analytic method within psychology. In this paper, we argue that it offers an accessible and theoretically flexible approach to analysing qualitative data. We outline what thematic analysis is, locating it in relation to other qualitative analytic methods that search for themes or patterns, and in relation to different epistemological and ontological positions. We then provide clear guidelines to those wanting to start thematic analysis, or conduct it in a more deliberate and rigorous way, and consider potential pitfalls in conducting thematic analysis. Finally, we outline the disadvantages and advantages of thematic analysis. We conclude by advocating thematic analysis as a useful and flexible method for qualitative research in and beyond psychology.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has raised the profile of children's participation in the United Kingdom. Hart's ladder of participation has been the most influential model in this field. This paper offers an alternative model, based on five levels of participation: 1. Children are listened to. 2. Children are supported in expressing their views. 3. Children's views are taken into account. 4. Children are involved in decision-making processes. 5. Children share power and responsibility for decision-making. In addition, three stages of commitment are identified at each level: openings, opportunities and obligations. The model thus provides a logical sequence of 15 questions as a tool for planning for participation. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In the two sections of this article, I examine aspects of the analysis and reporting of interaction in focus groups. In both sections, I argue that the essential importance of interaction for producing the data in focus groups does not correspond to any requirement that the analysis or the reporting of that data should emphasize interaction. With regard to analyzing interaction, the goals of the research should guide the analysis of the data, and those goals might or might not emphasize interaction. In particular, a great deal of focus group research is conducted for substantive and practical purposes, where the analysis typically requires little attention to the dynamics of interaction in those groups. With regard to reporting interaction, quotations from single individuals can often be the most efficient and effectives ways to accomplish an article's goals; however, I also discuss the kinds of situations where there are good reasons to report interaction among the participants. I conclude by briefly describing a different agenda for examining the importance of interaction in focus groups.
A nation is democratic to the extent that its citizens are involved, particularly at the community level. The confidence and competence to be involved must be gradually acquired through practice. It is for this reason that there should be gradually increasing opportunities for children to participate in any aspiring democracy, and particularly in those nations already convinced that they are democratic. With the growth of children’s rights we are beginning to see an increasing recognition of children’s abilities to speak for themselves. Regrettably, while children’s and youths’ participation does occur in different degrees around the world, it is often exploitative or frivolous. This Essay is designed to stimulate a dialogue on this important topic. This Essay is written for people who know that young people have something to say but who would like to reflect further on the process. It is also written for those people who have it in their power to assist children in having a voice, but who, unwittingly or not, trivialize their involvement.
There are particular reasons why it is important for children and young people in care to have some say in the decisions that are made about their lives. The aim of this paper is to outline these and to review the developments and the research concerning the participation of children in care in processes and decisions that affect them.
This paper reviews the research literature from the UK, North America, Australia and New Zealand. It explores the perceptions of children and young people in care concerning the extent to which they have been able to participate in decisions that affect them, the reasons they want to do so, and what is required to make it effective.
Children and young people in care clearly wish to have some say in the way decisions are made about their lives and generally do not believe that they have adequate appropriate opportunities to do so.
Genuine and effective participation depends on several conditions: opportunity and choice in ways to participate, access to relevant information, the availability of a trusted advocate, proper resourcing, and supportive policy and legislation. Feedback from children and young people is also required to indicate whether it is happening.
In this article, we develop a model for child participation in child welfare services (CPC). Child participation has gained increasing attention in research, policy and practice in the last couple of decades. Two perspectives have concurrently moved this agenda forward—childhood sociology and children's rights—leading to an almost irrefutable understanding of children as social actors with independent rights. We integrate these perspectives in one model in our CPC model. We base the model on the rights-based Lundy model of child participation and develop it with theoretical insights from childhood sociology and social work as well as empirical insights from the literature on CPC. To capture the specific conditions of child welfare services and the social world of the child, we add contexts as a new overarching element in our CPC model. We also expand the four elements in the original Lundy model to include time and space, voices, direct and indirect audiences and influence and statutory power. The CPC model is designed to conceptualize how child participation unfolds as both a right of the child a social practice within the specific setting of child welfare services.
The article is open access.
Children in out-of-home care are entitled to a safe and stable living environment. In Sweden, appointed social workers in child protection services are assigned to follow up out-of-home care and ensure that children’s needs are met. Drawing on qualitative data collected in Sweden, this paper explores social workers’ dialogues with children in care and whether and how these dialogues allow for the children’s participation. The analysis includes individual interviews with social workers and young people with experience of out-of-home care as children. The concepts of openings, opportunities and obligations proved helpful in identifying individual and organizational commitment in relation to child participation through dialogues. The findings revealed that, for children and young people, their participation is dependent on recognition, commitment and action from social workers. At times this means respect their wish no to talk to a social worker. The paper discusses appointed social workers’ possibilities for being able to satisfy these demands. We learnt from the social workers that they are open to the children being involved and they strive to fulfil their obligations in relation to dialogues with the children. However, their organizations have not fully developed strategies or tools to increase the participation in respect to each individual child´s wishes. Our conclusion is that appointed social workers need opportunities, such as time, skills and organizational support, to create genuine dialogues with children to ensure that all children feel heard and listened to.
The processes of forming working relationships with children and adolescents are often different than those with adults because of their physical, psychological, cognitive, emotional, and social stages of development. Additionally, they are at risk for many unique problems due to their dependency on and vulnerability to harm by adults. Their problems may be related to an absence of adequate family support and appropriate adult models, exposure to unhealthy social systems and traumatic situations, attachment issues, and difficulties with emotional regulation. Peer conflicts can also create distress for youth. Further, while children and adolescents are dependent on adults to get most of their needs met, they are often distrusting of adults, including social workers. The purpose of this chapter is to consider how social workers can engage with members of this population and develop relationships with them based on trust.
The aim of this thesis is to study, analyze and understand the relationship between children and youth in foster care and their responsible child welfare workers. The empirical material consists of qualitative interviews with foster children (n=53, three interviews/child, in total 159) and child welfare workers (n=17) conducted in a national evaluation of a pilot project with supervision representatives, and two focus groups conducted for the thesis. Examples of central theoretical concepts in the thesis are institution, role, professionalism and recognition. The interviewed children highlighted that the relationship with child welfare workers is negatively affected by a lack of time, availability, and trust. The children desire close and trustful relationships with child welfare workers, but generally they expect a relationship characterized by distance and formality. The child welfare workers emphasized that the relationships are affected by organizational constraints, such as time pressure and lack of continuity. Further, the work is characterized by role conflicts and contradictory expectations of professionalism. On the one hand, the child welfare workers stress the importance of closeness and trust in the relationships. On the other hand, they are expected to maintain formality, distance and functional specificity. The current relationship is affected by institutional prerequisites that are made visible by prevailing regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive expectations. These different expectations shape and constrain the child welfare workers’ discretion, at the same time as they also create internal conflicts. By applying the theory of recognition, it becomes evident that the foster child is expected to be recognized through closeness, rights, and solidarity by the child welfare worker. Under current institutional conditions, tensions arise between these different forms. The discussions focuses on which form of recognition should constitute the starting-point for the relationship, and how closeness versus distance is affected by recognition through rights.
This study is based on a follow-up in 2014 of a survey conducted in 2003 among Swedish child welfare social workers. The same questionnaire used in 2003 (n = 309) was distributed to social workers (n = 349) who, in 2014, were working with the same types of tasks as in the previously investigated areas. The overall aim was to examine and analyse how working conditions have developed over these eleven years. From the results, two general patterns emerge. The first shows a deterioration of their working conditions, with higher work demands, increased role conflicts and less possibility to influence important decisions. The intention to leave the workplace or the profession had also increased. The second overall pattern concerns the emerging changes in job content, where the work today seems to be focused on conducting investigations whereas the vast majority of the social workers in 2003 also mentioned other tasks, such as giving advice and support, as being part of their job content. Contrary to their wishes, the social workers of today seem to have less time to devote to direct contact with clients. The consequences of these changes for the professional role of social workers and for their clients are discussed. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers.
This state-of-the-art literature review, based on a literature search of multiple scientific bibliographic databases, aims to shed light on what is known about barriers and factors facilitating child participation within the child protection and child welfare services from both children's and social workers' perspectives. The personal relationship between the child and the social worker is mentioned as one of the most important facilitators for participation, although multiple barriers in creating this relationship are demonstrated by both children and case managers and social workers. In studies, children say they should always participate while social workers and case managers identify many situations where, according to them, participation is inappropriate. Professionals' objections to participation mainly stem from the socio-cultural image of children as vulnerable and in need of adult protection, and a lack of understanding of what participation actually entails. Interventions to strengthen participation should be directed at making social workers and case managers aware that children are knowledgeable social actors.
Participation by children in child protection remains a complex area of practice. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study exploring the views of 26 children, aged 6–17 years, about their participation in the child protection system in England. All of the children were subject to a child protection plan and were living at home at the time of interview. The children's understanding of the child protection process was categorized, and the majority of children, including the youngest, were found be at least partially aware of the child protection process, often struggling to make sense of the professional intervention in their families on the basis of partial information. It is argued that decisions about children's involvement should take into account not only children's age and understanding, but be seen in the context of wider family dynamics. Participation in formal processes such as child protection conferences was experienced as difficult and emotive. The child's relationship with their social worker was central to meaningful participation.
Children in foster care often have no means of influencing matters that concern them, and can easily become outsiders in their own lives. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child enshrines the rights of capable children to express their views freely in matters affecting them and to be heard in any judicial or administrative proceedings concerning them. The aim of this study is to analyse foster children's participation in child welfare processes in different time periods and contexts from the perspective of children and social workers. The data comprise semi-structured interviews of eight children and young people aged seven to 17 in family foster care, as well as interviews of four child welfare social workers. Ethical questions were taken carefully into account. The results suggest that participation in matters concerning them is very significant to children, although they do not always want be active participants (e.g. in meetings). The children hoped that social workers would take a genuine interest in them, listen to them and take their opinions and wishes into consideration. Children sought true and essential information about the reasons for placements and the plans for their future. They felt they were better heard and more able to influence their own affairs after being placed in a foster home than during earlier phases of services. The study identifies many obstacles in children's participation at different systemic levels. Children's loyalty to their parents may prevent them from expressing their opinions. According to social workers, the most serious obstacles in participatory work with children are related to a lack of human and time resources. Social workers need time, work practices, skills and practical wisdom through which children's personal experiences, opinions and wishes can be better heard. They also seek support in handling the emotional aspects of child-protection work and suggest some other measures to develop their work.
Within social services, an increasingly significant movement supports giving “voice” to children and youth, enabling them to express their views and to have those views taken into account in matters that affect them. In this article, the author draws from narratives of young people who grew up in foster care, examining stories of their efforts to impact the course of their own lives. The article explores the ways that very specific contexts and relationships of power shaped the utterances of young people in the foster care system and distorted, muted, or amplified their abilities to express their need and interests. This is a beginning attempt to identify ways that contexts of speaking in foster care can be understood and altered in order to strengthen the capacity of young people to voice their concerns and aspirations.
Recent policy initiatives have begun to recognize something that has long been indicated by research findings and by studies of young people's views: that, for children in local authority care, having a positive and sustained personal relationship with their social worker promotes their well-being. This article presents findings from a research study in which the views of young people in care were elicited on the role of the social worker. Their response, that a good social worker is like a ‘friend’ and an ‘equal’, appears to challenge notions of the professional social work role. However, attention to the detail of what the young people meant by these terms demonstrates that, in fact, they are compatible with social work values and best practice. It is argued that, in order to accord with these young people's wishes and with research findings on what promotes best outcomes for looked after young people, social workers must be enabled to give more time to sustained direct work with children in care. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.
This article provides a children's rights critique of the concept of ‘pupil voice’. The analysis is founded on Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which gives children the right to have their views given due weight in all matters affecting them. Drawing on research conducted on behalf of the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People, the article assesses some of the barriers to the meaningful and effective implementation of the right within education. It is argued that the phrases which are commonly used as abbreviations for Article 12, such as ‘pupil voice’, have the potential to diminish its impact as they provide an imperfect summary of the full extent of the obligation. The article proposes a new model, which has four key elements, for conceptualising Article 12—Space, Voice, Audience and Influence.
Effective child participation in child protection proceedings has proved difficult to achieve in Norway. Although participation is in principle accepted as a human right and something of benefit to children, when children's health is at stake there is a tendency to view participation in decision-making processes by children as potentially disruptive to their well-being. The purpose of this study is to review the research evidence for effects, positive or negative, of participation on health outcomes for children in care.
A scoping review of major health and social work research databases was undertaken. Searches in five databases yielded 1830 studies of which 21 were finally included in this review. Studies were included if a relationship between health and participation was evident from the data presented, even if this was not the main objective in the study at hand.
We conclude that when participation is successful, it may have beneficial side effects. Chief among these are that participation may improve children's safety, increase the success of care arrangements and increase feelings of well-being for children involved. Evidence for long-term effects of successful or failed participation attempts on subsequent health outcomes is however largely absent.
This paper reports on a research study exploring the views of 27 children and young people on their involvement in a child protection investigation. Their perspectives on the personal and professional qualities of the professionals involved and on the choice, influence and representation they experienced and prefer are discussed. One of the most striking findings is that most of the children and young people had experienced a positive relationship with a social worker. Overall, many reported improvements at home, at school and in their health and behaviour. Their responses to different aspects of the intervention are discussed within the context of their rights to participation, choice and representation. It is acknowledged that children lack agency in promoting these rights in child protection work and concluded that these are best promoted through the development and maintenance of a relationship of trust, offered by a key professional in their network. Drawing upon Heard & Lake's (1997) work on attachment theory, it is suggested, further, that relationships and processes which embody supportive and companionable interactions are more likely to offer opportunities for representation and participation than those which are dominant and submissive. Finally, it is argued that children's services should be based on a human rights perspective, the discourse of which has more in common with the values of respect and honesty than with cost effectiveness and business management.
Child welfare workforce turnover rates across private and public child welfare agencies are concerning. Although research
about the causes of child welfare workforce turnover has been plentiful, empirical studies on the effects of turnover on child
outcomes are sparse. Furthermore, the voices and experiences of youths within the system have been largely overlooked. The
purpose of this study was, first, to explore the experiences and opinions about child welfare workforce turnover and retention
of youths in the child welfare system; second, to explore a relationship between the number of caseworkers a youth has had
and his or her number of foster care placements; and third, to harness the suggestions of youths in resolving the turnover
problem. Youths in the child welfare system (N = 25) participated in focus groups and completed a small demographic survey. Findings suggest that youths experience multiple
effects of workforce turnover, such as lack of stability; loss of trusting relationships; and, at times, second chances. The
article concludes with suggestions for caseworkers, state trainers, local and state administrators, and social work researchers
on engaging with youths in relationships that facilitate genuine systems change around social work practice and the child welfare workforce
crisis.
Samhällsvetenskapliga metoder
- A Bryman
- Bryman A.
Human Services as Complex Organizations
- Y Hasenfeld
- Hasenfeld Y.
A Modest Proposal for Treating Children with Respect in Care Proceedings
- A Hollingworth
- Hollingworth A.