Re-examining Social Work Roles and Tasks with Foster Care

In order to promote developmental outcomes with children and young people and to nurture their positive health and well-being in foster care, social workers and case managers are required to direct professional attention toward both the child or young person and her/his daily living environment(s)—at home, at school, and in the local neighborhoods in which they live. When viewed from an ecological perspective, foster care environments are represented conceptually as a nested cluster of settings ranging from immediate life spaces and networks of relationships in a foster home, at school, and in a neighborhood, to organizational contexts holding a statutory duty of care for children and young people assigned looked after status, along with national policies and statutes which frame foster-care environments. This article explores how social-work roles and tasks with children and young people in foster care change as Social Workers transition from case management roles within state, provincial, or local authority departments to become Supervising Social Workers, or Team Managers of Foster Carers, or Directors of foster care services.     

Chapter 10. Patterns of Career Development in Child and Youth Care

Abstract

Patterns of career development in the field of child and youth care are reexamined in relation to roles that involve working directly with children in specific settings as well as in relation to roles that involve working indirectly in support of children through working with other adults, be these parents, other caregivers or professionals. Other career roles involve working in support of human service systems that impact on the care of children and young people and influence family welfare. Finally, some career roles involve working at the macro level to formulate policies that shape the culture of caring communities to support the health and well-being of children. Each career role presents important challenges and offers valuable opportunities for influencing the lives of children, young people and their families.     

Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI): A Systemic Approach to Complex Developmental Trauma

Children and youth who have experienced foster care or orphanage-rearing have often experienced complex developmental trauma, demonstrating an interactive set of psychological and behavioral issues. Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) is a therapeutic model that trains caregivers to provide effective support and treatment for at-risk children. TBRI has been applied in orphanages, courts, residential treatment facilities, group homes, foster and adoptive homes, churches, and schools. It has been used effectively with children and youth of all ages and all risk levels. This article provides the research base for TBRI and examples of how it is applied.     

Chapter 11: Therapeutic Foster Parent:

Training can help foster parents manage reactions to the foster child, avoid stress and burnout, and cope with the difficult times so that placement is sustained. Training is necessary so foster parents will not take the child's aggressive behavior personally, will avoid becoming embroiled in power struggles, and will be less likely to become hurt or embarrassed by the child's behavior. Training will involve individual consultation by the social worker as well as participation in a foster parent group. Staff will assistn foster parents to develop behavioral management and communication skills as well as their own coping and self-control skills. Foster parents are given permission to take care of their own needs, are assisted in developing stress management skills, learn how to increase their own self-esteem, and learn to use cognitive approaches to handle their own emotions. Foster parents develop an understanding that they cannot change the child's behavior but can only change the way which they respond to the child, which may provide the child opportunities to change his or her own behavior.     

Chapter 14: Foster Care:

Specialist foster family care may be the treatment of choice for emotionally disturbed or behaviorally unmanageable children. The child and family often need a break and breathing space from each other. The child and birth parents can be involved in a treatment group, and the foster parents will be seen regularly so they may be involved in supporting the treatment goals. Biological parents will benefit from observing the foster family as role models in parenting, and practitioners are able to examine and reinforce the coping and adapting skills of the children.     

Providing Foster Care for Adolescents: Barriers and Opportunities

This study used quantitative and qualitative data from a larger research project regarding foster parent experiences to examine the characteristics that predict a parent’s willingness to foster an adolescent. Data collected from closed- and open-ended items related to reasons for not fostering a teen were also analyzed. Findings suggest parents who are older and were a foster child themselves, increased the likelihood they would foster a teen. When discussing reasons for not fostering an adolescent, parents identified fears of problem behaviors and concerns about negative impact on other children; findings that were corroborated in responses to the open-ended comments.     

The listen to me project: Creating lasting changes in voice and participation for children in care through a youth-led project

In this article, we present the results from a youth-led project on the voices and participation of children in state care in Ontario, Canada. The purpose of this project was for youth to share their voice about what they wish child protection workers and agencies could do to improve their experiences within the child protection system. Many youth in care in Canada and internationally report that their voices are not heard and that they are not involved in decisions involving their care. Seven themes were extracted from this voices of youth project asking child welfare workers and agencies to listen to [them] and believe [them], keep [them] informed and be honest, involve [them] in decisions, support [them], keep [them] connected,; ignite [their] passions, and don't give up on [them]. Suggestions from the youth involved in this project are offered on ways to create true and meaningful change in child welfare.     

Chapter 13: Group Therapy for Birth Parents of Children in Foster Care

Psychological impairments render many biological parents of children placed in treatment foster care incompetent to meet child-rearing tasks. Service agreements identify and address critical areas of dysfunctioning but do not engage parents in a broader inventory of their parental functioning and dysfuntioning. A group method provides mutual support, exploration, and a positive child-rearing model. A clinical assessment of parenting that highlights ongoing developmental needs of nurturance and empathy, limit setting, structure, role modeling, reality testing, and separation and individuation is used to promote progress. Parents gain insight into their own overall impairments, origin of impairments, and compensatory techniques. Parents recognize broader responsibility for parenthood enhancing reunification efforts.     

Seeking Safety,Finding Abuse: Stories from Foster Youth on Maltreatment and Its Impact on Academic Achievement

The safety of foster children and youth is the primary concern of the U.S. Department of Human Services. Yet, not all certified foster care homes offer the safety children need. This article reports the findings of a phenomenological study of foster youth reporting maltreatment occurring at the hands of foster parents. With a scarcity of studies on the abuse occurring at the hands of foster care providers, this study offers an important glimpse into the realities of life in care. Through in-depth interviews, this study reveals the harm perpetrated by foster care providers and the probable connection between maltreatment in care and barriers to academic achievement.     

The Influence of Perception on Maternal Sensitivity in Foster Care

This study examined the association between perceptions of children's care needs and maternal sensitivity with 76 dyads in foster care. Foster mothers were more sensitive to typically developing children perceived as requiring easier care and were less sensitive to children with developmental delays. Adopting foster mothers were sensitive with children requiring complex care. Older children were perceived to need more care and to be delayed in development. Nearly half of the sample were perceived to be developmentally delayed. Foster mothers were less sensitive to children with multiple placements. Perceptions of caregiving needs can influence the quality of interactions.     

Coping Alone: Examining the Prospects of Adolescent Victims of Child Abuse Placed in Foster Care

The ability of a young person to cope effectively with stressful life events appears to be associated with their previous experiences and relationships. Young people in foster care who have histories of child abuse, therefore, may find they cannot cope effectively with the situation they find themselves in. This paper attempts to highlight the problems they face. A group of 21 young people were interviewed and were asked to complete the Frydenberg and Lewis Adolescent Coping Scales. Their social workers provided information on their past history both in care and prior to coming in to care. It emerged that the young people who had experienced physical and/or sexual abuse were significantly (p < 0.02) more likely to be/have been involved in problem, or Crisis, foster placements. Additionally these young people displayed less adaptive coping strategies than the young people who had not been abused. The most significant differences indicated that the victims of abuse were more likely to try and cope with stressful situations by themselves, while the other foster adolescents were significantly (p < 0.004) more likely to find support from their friends. Case studies, with reference to the teenager's own accounts, help to illustrate how a history of abuse can complicate the already difficult fostering processes, and can also affect the long-term coping abilities of the victims. The consequences of these issues are discussed.     

Does child care quality matter? A comparison of children's developmental outcomes across classrooms with different quality standards

It has long been an established view that children who attend high-quality early learning programs are more likely to be school ready. However, some studies have found that program quality is not as important to child outcomes as is participating in some form of early learning. This study aimed to compare 2 early learning classrooms in the same school with different quality standards to determine whether the differences in quality significantly affected children's developmental gains during the academic year. Results indicated no significant differences in the developmental outcomes of children on the basis of classroom type. One possible explanation for the lack of differences is that both classrooms were in the same school. Other studies have found that child care programs benefit from partnerships with programs that have higher quality standards. The findings demonstrate a need for further research about the benefits of child care program partnerships.     

The Project for the Education of Israeli Children in the Kibbutz Movement

Summary

In Israel there are various settings in which children can be raised if for various reasons they cannot live with their families. This article describes one of these programs, The Project for the Education of Israeli Children (Mif'al Lehahsharat Yaldei Israel) (Brashi, 1994), and focuses on the role of the kibbutz movement. The Project is special in that children are placed in foster families (or family homes), offering them not only warmth and love but also the opportunity for a remedial experience of family life in functioning families that provide physical and emotional support. The first part presents a general outline of the Project, and the second part describes the development of the Project in the kibbutz movement: the absorption procedures, the foster families and foster family homes, and the advantages and difficulties of absorbing children within a kibbutz framework.     

Chapter 8: Foster Parents of Mentally Retarded and Physically Handicapped Children

Two surveys of foster parents find substantial numbers of current foster parents receptive to the idea of offering care to mentally retarded or physically handicapped children although the extent of the child's disability is a factor in the decision. Barriers to providing care to such children include maternal employment outside the home, foster parents' concerns about the demands that would be made on them, and their ability to cope. Foster parents appear to find agency services regarding foster care of disabled children adequate although the level of reimbursement may be too low to cover the costs of care and may negatively affect retention of experienced foster parents.     

全面二孩政策背景下婴幼儿照料对女性工资收入的影响研究

照料孩子往往使职业女性遭受"生育工资惩罚",全面二孩政策是否会加重这种"惩罚"?研究基于广东省的问卷数据,得出如下结论:在孩子0—3岁时母亲的照料时间付出会对其工资产生负向影响;相比于一孩母亲,照料孩子的时间付出对二孩母亲工资的负向影响更强;对婴幼儿照料的支持有助于提高母亲的工资;综合考量规模优势、幼儿早教、健康卫生等因素,托幼机构照料是几种照料方式中最优的。为降低母亲照料孩子的代价并提高全面二孩政策的实施效果,研究建议:政府应大力发展低龄幼儿托育机构,建立托育服务基本保障体系,并出台政策支持不同社会主体提供多层次的托育服务,以满足家庭不断增长的托育需求。     

Caring for the orphan in the Philippines:A Policy-Capacity review

Using synthesis and an integrative approach, the article analyzes laws, policies, and institutions that protect the rights and promote the welfare of orphaned children in the Philippines. The article undertakes an exploratory review of the potential and contemporary impacts of colonialism, imperialism, feudalism, and capitalism on child and youth welfare and describes the conditions and difficulties Filipino children face in the current policy environment. To address these conditions and difficulties, the article offers a synthesis of potential and ongoing policy-capacity solutions in orphan and youth care, such as implementing a strong social supporting structure to grandparents as first caregivers, strengthening a mixed welfare system on orphan care, and legislating a national orphan policy.     

Finding Identity in Family Work

SUMMARY

The family has always enjoyed an elevated status in Ireland, yet it was not until the mid-1990s that family-based intervention work really found expression in a new division of child and youth care: community child care-workers. This paper introduces readers to an area of child and youth care work in Ireland devoted to an ecological understanding of the child “at risk” and working with the child and the child's family outside of a residential or institutional setting. The paper includes a brief interview with a community child care-worker, observations from a master's student in social care who has also worked in community child care, and concludes by reviewing 12 key areas community child care-workers must address if their status is to be secured in the Irish child and     

Models of school-age child care: A review of current research on implications for women and their children

This article discusses various models of children's out-of-school care arrangements, mainly in the United States of America. Forms of care include programs or centers, family day care homes, and self-care. The implications of each of these different systems of care and outcomes for both children and their parents are reviewed through the lens of existing research. While there is no consensus in the research literature, so-called “latch-key” children appear to experience more negative effects than supervised peers, although these negative effects may be mitigated by variables, such as the amount of time spent alone and the parent-child relationship. A small group of studies finds positive outcomes for children who participate in recreational after-school programs, although age-inappropriate care arrangements and age of participating child may be associated with negative outcomes. No research has been conducted across program types. Many mothers of school-age children without regular after-school care or alternative care on school holidays, appear to accomodate their career and work choices to their children's schedules, possibly in order to avoid the “latch-key” alternative.