Reconstructing child welfare through participatory and child centred professional practice

This questionnaire study examined the adjustment of 245 lone-parenting women following marital separation. A composite model included intrapsychic variables as intervening between demographic and contextual variables and adjustment (life satisfaction). Regression analyses showed that the demographic and contextual variables were partially mediated by the intrapsychic variables. The path model indicated that the intrapsychic variables (sense of coherence, control, depression, and grief) had a direct impact on life satisfaction and that there was an indirect path for depression through sense of coherence (SOC) and control. It was concluded that the intrapsychic variables had a more powerful relationship with women's post-separation life satisfaction than did the demographic/contextual variables. Social implications and recommendations for future policy are considered.

Reconstructing child welfare through participatory and child-centred professional practice : a conceptual approach

The 'child' in child welfare/protection is seen as a dependent waif and an object of interest, on whose behalf adults speak and act. An alternative perspective has argued for child-centredness, and includes concepts of child liberation, rights and citizenship. Policymakers and practitioners who may accept the underlying principles may be concerned about the appropriateness and applicability of such principles in relation to practice with children and their parents in child welfare/protection cases. This paper discusses a conceptual framework for research that aims to explore participatory and child-centred professional practice by critically evaluating and developing, for professional practice, the practical meanings of 'participatory' and 'children as citizens'. We do not present research outcomes based on empirical data; instead, we present our conceptual framework as the first stage of research in progress into participatory and child-centred professional practice.

Constructing meanings and identities in child protection practice

Examines a contemporary and contentious social problem, child maltreatment, and the policy and practice in response to it, child protection.

The limitations of using statutory child protection data for research into child maltreatment

Child protection legislation has undergone a number of changes since its inception, changes that have redefined the population of children in need of protection. However, child protection data on notifications and substantiations remain the most common source of data for statistics on the rate of maltreatment and the breakdown of specific maltreatment types. In the present study, three factors are identified that have compromised the accuracy of child protection data reporting the incidence of child abuse and neglect: (i) the legislative changes that mandate child protection services to protect children from harm rather than from identifiable adult actions; (ii) the shift from the Harm Standard to the Endangerment Standard; and (iii) the assignment of responsibility solely to parents.

Nurses' perceived training needs in child protection issues

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to explore nurses' perceptions of their current skills and knowledge and training needs to identify cases of child abuse and their understanding of their roles and responsibilities in relation to child abuse. Nurses, including health visitors and midwives, have been recognised as having a key role in the protection and care of children, especially in identifying and referring possible cases of child abuse and neglect.

Design/methodology/approach – A structured questionnaire concerning knowledge and training needs in child protection was sent to all nurses employed in a Scottish NHS Primary Care Trust (approximately 1,900), of whom one-third (667) responded. These survey results were complemented by semi-structured interviews with 99 members of the nursing workforce.

Findings – Almost all training in child protection had been confined to health visitors, resulting in the Trust giving an implicit message that child protection is not a role in which other nurses need have any involvement. In general, those nurses who both worked with children and had involvement in child protection issues, considered themselves to be most in need of knowledge around child protection work, to have the greatest level of knowledge and to consider further training a priority.

Research limitations/implications – Nurses who had an interest or involvement in child protection work were more likely to participate in the research, which may have biased the results.

Practical implications – Training strategies need to address the diversity of nurses' involvements in child protection work through the development of training programmes which are appropriate for different workplaces and different occupational groupings. Nurses in some settings will need to be first convinced they have the potential to play an important role in protecting children from abuse and neglect.

Originality/value – Many NHS Trusts have in recent years introduced mandatory training in child protection for all staff in contact with children. However, previously published studies have considered training issues only in respect of nurses identified as working directly with children, whereas this study explores child protection issues for all nurses employed in a primary care NHS Trust.

Child abuse investigation: an in depth analysis of how police officers perceive and cope with daily work challenges

Purpose: The purpose of the current study was two-fold: to explore police officers' perceptions of the daily challenges involved in child abuse investigation and how those challenges affect their ability to undertake child abuse investigations, and to explore how these challenges are managed on a daily basis. Design/methodology/approach: This study employed a qualitative research design. In-depth interviews were conducted with a diverse sample of 25 police officers working in child abuse units across three Australian states. Findings: Inductive thematic analysis revealed that heavy caseload and collaboration with other professional groups are two key sources of negative work stress frequently associated with child abuse investigation. Further, despite the provision of organisational strategies aimed at reducing work stress, the officers tended to rely predominantly on informal coping mechanisms.  Research limitations/implications: This study has raised many questions for further research aimed at developing interventions to assist police organisations in managing work stress. Originality/value: This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the key challenges associated with child abuse investigation and the coping mechanisms employed for overcoming these challenges from the unique perspective of police officers authorised to investigate child abuse.

Foucauldian analysis and 'the best interests of the child'

In this thesis I have developed a theoretical framework using Michel Foucault’s metaphor of the panopticon and applied the resulting discursive methodology to prominent risk assessment texts in Tasmanian Government child protection services. From the analysis I have developed an innovation poststructural practice of discursive empathy for use in child protection social work. Previous research has examined discourses such as madness, mothering, the family and masculinity using Foucault’s ideas and argued that each is a performance of social government. However my interest is in ‘the best interests of the child’ as governmentality; risk as the apparatus through which it is conducted and child abuse its social effect. In applying a discursive analysis, practices of risk assessment are therefore understood to actually produce intellectual and material conditions favourable to child abuse, rather than protect children from maltreatment. The theoretical framework produces in this thesis incorporates three distinct components of Foucault’s interpretive analytics of power: archaeology, genealogy and ethics. These components provide a structure for discourse analysis that is also a coherent methodical practice of Foucault’s notion of ‘parrhesia’. The practice of parrhesia involves social workers recognised that social power is subjectively dispersed yet also hierarchical. Using this notion I have analysed ‘the best interest of the child’ as a panopticon and argued that child abuse is a consequence. This thesis therefore demonstrates how child protection social workers can expose the political purpose involved in the discourse ‘the best interests of the child’, and in doing so challenge the hostile intellectual and material conditions that exist for children in our community. In concluding, I identify how discursive empathy is a readily accessible skill that social workers can use to practice parrhesia in a creative way.

Professionals’ views on child sexual abuse attrition rates

Child sexual abuse cases often do not result in convictions; this attrition is due to factors inside and outside the control of the justice system. The aims of the current study were to: (1) establish the most important factors in contributing to the attrition of child sexual abuse; and (2) suggest ways to reduce the attrition associated with these factors. This study focused on system improvements to determine where efforts should be prioritised. The research approach consisted of in-depth interviews with 31 professionals from various disciplines (including police, judges, child welfare officers, doctors and psychologists). The interviewees represented a diverse group of professionals offering unique perspectives. Thematic analysis revealed five broad areas requiring focus for improvement and further reform: greater specialisation, facilitating the accessibility of services, making the trial process more user-friendly, overcoming misinformed beliefs and adequate representation of child sexual abuse. These areas, along with professionals’ practical recommendations, are discussed.

A legacy of assimilation : abuse in Canadian native residential schools

Unlike the position in Australia, Canada has appropriately responded to the revelations of forced removal of indigenous children by apologising to those persons who suffered through the Native Residential Schools - Canada has also sought to facilitate settlements with many of these persons with validated claims.

Reflexivity: a concept and its meanings for practitioners working with children and families

Reflexivity is a concept that is increasingly gaining currency in professional practice literature, particularly in relation to working with uncertainty and as an important feature of professional discretion and ethical practice. This article discusses how practitioners working in child and family welfare/protection organisations understood and interpreted the concept of reflexivity for their practice, as one of the outcomes of larger, collaborative research project. This project was conducted through a series of workshops with practitioners. The overall research that aimed to expand practitioners’ practice repertoires from narrowly-defined risk assessment, to an approach that could account for the uncertainties of practice, included the concept of reflexivity as an alternative or a complement to instrumental accountability that is increasingly a feature in child welfare/protection organisations. This article discusses how the concept of reflexivity was explored in the research and how practitioners interpreted the concept for their practice. We conclude that while concepts like reflexivity are central to formal theories for professional practice, we also recognise that individual practitioners interpret concepts (in ways that are both practically and contextually relevant), thus creating practical meanings appropriate to their practice contexts.

Risk and resilience, knowledge and imagination: the enlightenment of David Almond's Skellig

In what Ulrich Beck calls "risk society," and Anthony Giddens a "runaway world," a climate of fear and insecurity has been created by scientific progress, leading to a loss of confidence in the ability of experts to manage risk. Resilience is at the forefront of psychology research informing child-rearing strategies (Luthar, et al.); it entails an approach to child welfare that focuses on fostering internal (psychological) and external (cultural) assets that develop a child's ability to triumph over adversity in the form of individual, familial, and cultural stresses.

Practitioner perspectives on the family risk evaluation tool : an aide to decision making or 'just another form to fill in'?

The findings of research that explored how child protection practitioners in Queensland used the Structured Decision Making (SDM) tools are presented, focusing on how the Family Risk Evaluation tool (FRET) was used in decision making. The main finding was that the FRET was not used to assist the decision making of practitioners and consequently was ineffective in targeting the children most in need of a service. For practitioners, it was 'just another form to fill in'. As suggested by the participants in this research, a better strategy than the implementation of the SDM tools to improve decision making is the development of practitioner expertise through higher education.

Fracturing the façade : exploring the impact of childhood sexual abuse

Examination of previous empirical literature illustrates how researchers have concentrated on documenting the impact of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) on the later psychological functioning of survivors, through comparisons with those who have not had such a history. Only more recently has there been a focus on assessing the relationship between aspects of the abuse and specific psychological difficulties. This thesis investigated the relationships between CSA characteristics and women’s later psychological adjustment. The role of attributions, coping methods, parenting competency and marital satisfaction were also investigated. Qualitative data on perception of benefit and general reflections of participants were used to explore participants’ self-esteem, locus of control, decisions relating to parenting, disclosure experiences, and attributions in relation to their abuse, including the search for meaning. Recruitment through newspapers and counselling services led to 118 women volunteering to complete a questionnaire evaluating the characteristics of their CSA and their current psychological adjustment. Of this group, 33 subsequently volunteered to participate in a telephone interview that explored in greater depth issues related to the long-term impact of their CSA. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted on the data. The women reported a high prevalence of dysfunction in their families of origin. Abuse had generally commenced by middle childhood, and lasted for a number of years and often involved a number of perpetrators. Perpetrators were most likely to be intrafamilial, with stepfathers being over-represented. Sexual activities generally involved physical contact, with participation often induced by the use of coercion. Participants demonstrated significant difficulties in psychological adjustment, but attributions regarding the abuse improved over time. Some concerns were expressed regarding parenting competency, and avoidant coping methods were favoured. In general, participants were satisfied with their current marital relationship. Significant associations were found between coping methods, attributional style, beliefs and various psychological adjustment measures. Participants, in general, demonstrated low self-esteem and displayed an external locus of control. As a consequence of their experience of CSA, many participants reported they had decided not to have children. For those who did have children, CSA was almost universally seen as having had an impact on their parenting. Disclosure of CSA was usually delayed for a number of years, with poor outcomes generally resulting from disclosure when it occurred. Women with current partners rated them as very caring and not controlling. Participants were generally still searching for meaning in their abuse, despite many having accepted it. Survivors outlined an extensive range of long-term effects of CSA, and nominated a number of strategies that would assist in reducing these effects. The results of the study indicated that there are a number of characteristics associated with CSA which signal a higher risk of difficulties in psychological adjustment. Concerns of survivors regarding parenting were confirmed according to those who undertook this role. Unfortunately, concerns expressed by survivors that disclosure of their CSA would have had negative consequences was usually the case when they did finally disclose. However, the accessing of social and family support appeared to have an important role in changing the attributions of survivors regarding their CSA. Furthermore, change of attributions in relation to abuse may provide the key to resilience in survivors against the negative impact of CSA on later psychological adjustment.

Experiences of the stolen generation : laws and inequalities

Examines the inequalities of the Aboriginal Australian and politics, government, history, legal status and the effects of Aboriginal institutions in Western Australia. The researcher found that the destruction and disappearance of documents, files and records greatly impacted the thesis.