Young children returning home from care: The birth parents' perspective

While a wide range of literature exists on the experiences of children in foster care or adoption, much less is known about children who return home from care to their birth parents. This paper focuses on the perspectives of a small sample of birth parents of young children who returned home from care. It draws on findings from the Northern Ireland Care Pathways and Outcomes Study that has been following a population (n = 374) of children who were under 5 years and in care in Northern Ireland on the 31st of March 2000. As part of this study, interviews were conducted with the foster parents of 55 children, the adoptive parents of 51 children and the birth parents of nine children who had returned home from care. The paper explores the birth parents’ views on how they coped while their child was in care, how they were coping after the child had returned home and how their child was faring at home. Results revealed that these parents, and their children, were experiencing multiple difficulties and struggled to cope after the children had returned home.

Who goes where? Young children's pathways through care in Northern Ireland

This is one of a series of articles reporting on the large-scale ‘Northern Ireland Care Pathways and Outcomes Study’ (McSherry et al, 2008). The study has been examining a population of young children (n=374) who were in care under five years of age in Northern Ireland, and initially followed them across a four-year period (2000-2004). It has mapped these young children’s care careers, and explored factors relating to five care pathways that these children progressed along, i.e. towards adoption; long-term non-relative foster care; long-term relative foster care; Residence Order; and return to birth parent/s. This paper will examine the children’s care pathway patterns from 2000 to 2004, and will identify the background factors that appear to have influenced their specific care pathway. These background factors relate to the age of child, length of time in care, the child’s health, the child’s behaviour and regional variation. The findings indicate that although the care pathway patterns were to some extent similar to England and Wales, there were differences apparent to the Northern Ireland context.

Faint supernovae and supernova impostors: case studies of SN 2002kg/NGC 2403-V37 and SN 2003gm

Photometric and spectroscopic observations of the faint Supernovae (SNe) 2002kg and 2003gm, and their precursors, in NGC 2403 and NGC 5334, respectively, are presented. The properties of these SNe are discussed in the context of previously proposed scenarios for faint SNe: low-mass progenitors producing underenergetic SNe; SNe with ejecta constrained by a circumstellar medium; and outbursts of massive Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs). The last scenario has been referred to as 'Type V SNe', 'SN impostors' or 'fake SNe'.

Towards an understanding of the causes and effects of software requirements change: two case studies

Changes to software requirements not only pose a risk to the successful delivery of software applications but also provide opportunity for improved usability and value. Increased understanding of the causes and consequences of change can support requirements management and also make progress towards the goal of change anticipation. This paper presents the results of two case studies that address objectives arising from that ultimate goal. The first case study evaluated the potential of a change source taxonomy containing the elements ‘market’, ‘organisation’, ‘vision’, ‘specification’, and ‘solution’ to provide a meaningful basis for change classification and measurement. The second case study investigated whether the requirements attributes of novelty, complexity, and dependency correlated with requirements volatility. While insufficiency of data in the first case study precluded an investigation of changes arising due to the change source of ‘market’, for the remainder of the change sources, results indicate a significant difference in cost, value to the customer and management considerations. Findings show that higher cost and value changes arose more often from ‘organisation’ and ‘vision’ sources; these changes also generally involved the co-operation of more stakeholder groups and were considered to be less controllable than changes arising from the ‘specification’ or ‘solution’ sources. Results from the second case study indicate that only ‘requirements dependency’ is consistently correlated with volatility and that changes coming from each change source affect different groups of requirements. We conclude that the taxonomy can provide a meaningful means of change classification, but that a single requirement attribute is insufficient for change prediction. A theoretical causal account of requirements change is drawn from the implications of the combined results of the two case studies.

The Broad and Narrow: Case Studies and International Perspectives on Rural Women’s Research

(2004) The Broad and Narrow: Case Studies and International Perspectives on Rural Women’s Research Rural Society Vol. 14 No. 2 pp. 254-270