Home on a care order: who the children are and what the care order is for

Compared to children in other placements, there is much less known about the characteristics and needs of children in the UK who are returned to their birth parents with a care order still in place. That is in spite of evidence to suggest they face more difficulties than young people in other placements. Based on a 2009 census of looked after children in Northern Ireland, just under 10% (n = 193) were found to be living at home under a care order. Case file reviews were conducted for a quarter of these young people (n = 47) to generate descriptive statistics showing a very diverse population. That was followed by semi-structured interviews with members of eight families (ten children and eight birth parent/s), providing transcripts for thematic analysis. Nearly half of the young people whose case files were reviewed had experienced at least one home placement breakdown, but nearly two thirds had a stable last home placement. Care orders appeared to serve two functions: to give legal authority to social services for the monitoring of placements, and to facilitate family access to family support services. Replacing some care orders with supervision orders might better align legal status and actual function.

Mobile Phones and Contact Arrangements for Children Living in Care

This article reports the findings from the first UK study to examine the use of mobile phones by looked after children. Contact with family and friends is important, but it has sometimes to be carefully managed to avoid unintended consequences such as placement instability. The study examined the ways in which mobile phone technology impacts on contact, drawing on the experiences of children and young people in foster-care and residential care, and of policy makers, social workers, foster parents and residential care staff. No guidance was available that addressed the issue of mobile phone contact arrangements for looked after children and young people. Three years on from the start of the study, this remains the case in the area where the study was conducted, resulting in variation in the way mobile phone use for contact is managed; the issue appears only to be specifically addressed when identified as a problem. The position of mobile phone facilitated contact as a recognised form of contact requires review. The evidence suggests it should routinely form part of children’s care plans, and that residential staff and foster parents need to be adequately prepared and supported for the dynamics of mobile phone facilitated contact.

The Reliability and Validity of a Child and Adolescent Participation in Decision Making Questionnaire

Background
There is a growing impetus across the research, policy and practice communities for children and young people to participate in decisions that affect their lives. Furthermore, there is a dearth of general instruments that measure children and young people’s views on their participation in decision making. This paper presents the reliability and validity of the Child and Adolescent Participation in Decision Making Questionnaire (CAP-DMQ) and specifically looks at a population of looked-after children where a lack of participation in decision making is an acute issue.
Methods
The participants were 151 looked after children and adolescents between 10-23 years of age who completed the 10 item CAP-DMQ. Of the participants 113 were in receipt of an advocacy service that had an aim of increasing participation in decision-making with the remaining participants not having received this service.
Results
The results showed that the CAP-DMQ had good reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = .94) and showed promising uni-dimensional construct validity through an exploratory factor analysis. The items in the CAP-DMQ also demonstrated good content validity by overlapping with prominent models of child and adolescent participation (Lundy 2007) and decision making (Halpern 2014). A regression analysis showed that age and gender were not significant predictors of CAP-DMQ scores but receipt of advocacy was a significant predictor of scores (effect size d=.88), thus showing appropriate discriminant criterion validity.
Conclusion
Overall, the CAP-DMQ showed good reliability and validity. Therefore, the measure has excellent promise for theoretical investigation in the area of child and adolescent participation in decision making and equally shows empirical promise for use as a measure in evaluating services which have increasing the participation of children and adolescents in decision making as an intended outcome.

What's in the Numbers? Child Welfare Statistics and the Children (NI) Order

This article draws attention to the importance of routinely collected administrative data as an important source for understanding the characteristics of the Northern Ireland child welfare system as it has developed since the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 became its legislative base. The article argues that the availability of such data is a strength of the Northern Ireland child welfare system and urges local politicians, lobbyists, researchers, policy-makers, operational managers, practitioners and service user groups to make more use of them. The main sources of administrative data are identified. Illustration of how these can be used to understand and to ask questions about the system is provided by considering some of the trends since the Children Order was enacted. The “protection” principle of the Children Order provides the focus for the illustration. The statistical trends considered relate to child protection referrals, investigations and registrations and to children and young people looked after under a range of court orders available to ensure their protection and well-being.

Doing Relationships and Sexuality Education with Young People in State Care

Background: Existing literature indicates that young people in state carehave particular sexual health needs that include addressing their social andemotional well-being, yet little has been published as to how thesecomponents of sex education are actually delivered by service-providers.Objective: To analyse the processes involved in delivering relationship andsexuality education to young people in state care from the perspectives ofa sample of service-providers with a role in sexual health care delivery.Design: Qualitative methodological strategy.Setting: Service-delivery sites at urban and rural locations in Ireland.Method: Twenty-two service-providers were interviewed in depth, and datawere analysed using a qualitative analytical strategy resembling modifiedanalytical induction.Findings: Participants proffered their perceptions and examples of theirpractices of sex education in relation to the following themes: (1)acknowledging the multi-dimensional nature of sexual health in the case ofyoung people in care; (2) personal and emotional development educationto address poor self-esteem, emotional disconnectedness and an inabilityto recognise and express emotions; (3) social skills’ education as part of arepertoire of competencies needed to negotiate relationships and safer sex;(4) the application of positive social skills embedded in everyday socialsituations; and (5) factual sexuality education.Conclusion: Insights into service providers’ perceptions of the multidimensionalnature of the sexual health needs of young people in statecare, and the ways in which these service-providers justified their practicemake visible the complex character of sex education and the degree of skillrequired to deliver it to those in state care.

‘Poor prison flowers’: convict mothers and their children in Ireland, 1853-1900

Pregnant women and mothers were among the thousands of individuals who were sentenced to at least three years’ penal servitude and admitted to the nineteenth-century Irish female convict prison. While some babies were born behind bars, others were permitted to accompany their convicted mothers into the prison after the penal practice of transportation had ceased. Other dependent children were separated from their convicted mothers for years, cared for by family members or friends, or accommodated in Ireland’s growing web of institutions. Using individual case studies, this article focuses on convict mothers and their young offspring. It draws attention to the increasing restrictions on the admission of infants that were imposed as the nineteenth century progressed, the problems that children of various ages in the penal system seemed to pose for officials, and the difficulties faced by incarcerated mothers who wished to maintain communication with their offspring. This article argues that while there were benefits to parenting within the confines of the prison, sentences of penal servitude had a significant impact on the lives of dependent offspring by dislocating families, separating siblings, or initiating institutional or other care that broke familial bonds permanently. In so doing, the article reveals attitudes towards motherhood as well as female criminality and institutionalization generally during this period and sheds light on an aspect of convict life unique to the women’s prison.

Phonic skills mediate improved literacy outcomes in at-risk primary school children: results from the Ready-to-Learn Programme

Background
Learning to read is a key goal during primary school: reading difficulties may curtail children’s learning trajectories. Controversy remains regarding what types of interventions are effective for children at risk for academic failure, such as children in disadvantaged areas. We present data from a complex intervention to test the hypothesis that phonic skills and word recognition abilities are a pivotal and specific causal mechanism for the development of reading skills in children at risk for poorer literacy outcomes.
Method
Over 500 pupils across 16 primary schools took part in a Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial from school year 1 to year 3. Schools were randomly allocated to the intervention or the control arm. The intervention involved a literacy-rich after-school programme. Children attending schools in the control arm of the study received the curriculum normally provided. Children in both arms completed batteries of language, phonic skills, and reading tests every year. We used multilevel mediation models to investigate mediating processes between intervention and outcomes.
Findings
Children who took part in the intervention displayed improvements in reading skills compared to those in the control arm. Results indicated a significant indirect effect of the intervention via phonics encoding.
Discussion
The results suggest that the intervention was effective in improving reading abilities of children at risk, and this effect was mediated by improving children’s phonic skills. This has relevance for designing interventions aimed at improving literacy skills of children exposed to socio-economic disadvantage. Results also highlight the importance of methods to investigate causal pathways from intervention to outcomes.

Self-refraction, ready-made glasses and quality of life among rural myopic Chinese children: a non-inferiority randomized trial.

PURPOSE: To study, for the first time, the effect of wearing ready-made glasses and glasses with power determined by self-refraction on children's quality of life. METHODS: This is a randomized, double-masked non-inferiority trial. Children in grades 7 and 8 (age 12-15 years) in nine Chinese secondary schools, with presenting visual acuity (VA) ≤6/12 improved with refraction to ≥6/7.5 bilaterally, refractive error ≤-1.0 D and <2.0 D of anisometropia and astigmatism bilaterally, were randomized to receive ready-made spectacles (RM) or identical-appearing spectacles with power determined by: subjective cycloplegic retinoscopy by a university optometrist (U), a rural refractionist (R) or non-cycloplegic self-refraction (SR). Main study outcome was global score on the National Eye Institute Refractive Error Quality of Life-42 (NEI-RQL-42) after 2 months of wearing study glasses, comparing other groups with the U group, adjusting for baseline score. RESULTS: Only one child (0.18%) was excluded for anisometropia or astigmatism. A total of 426 eligible subjects (mean age 14.2 years, 84.5% without glasses at baseline) were allocated to U [103 (24.2%)], RM [113 (26.5%)], R [108 (25.4%)] and SR [102 (23.9%)] groups, respectively. Baseline and endline score data were available for 398 (93.4%) of subjects. In multiple regression models adjusting for baseline score, older age (p = 0.003) and baseline spectacle wear (p = 0.016), but not study group assignment, were significantly associated with lower final score. CONCLUSION: Quality of life wearing ready-mades or glasses based on self-refraction did not differ from that with cycloplegic refraction by an experienced optometrist in this non-inferiority trial.