Open Adoption: Adoptive Parents' Experiences of Birth Family Contact and Talking to Their Child about Adoption

The trend towards more open adoption presents adopters with unique parenting challenges associated with satisfying the child’s curiosity about their origins, and maintaining relationships with birth family through contact. This paper focuses on the experiences of 20 sets of adoptive parents who were interviewed as part of the Northern Ireland Care Pathways and Outcomes Study. Interviews were analysed following the principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). It explores adoptive parents’ experience of talking to their child about adoption, and of post-adoption contact with members of the birth family. Adopters discussed adoption sensitively with their child, but were concerned that difficult and complex family histories would present a risk to the child’s self-esteem and emotional well-being. All forms of contact proved emotionally and practically burdensome, however adopters were committed to making it work for the child’s benefit, and were open to increased contact should the child wish it in the future. There was little relationship with birth family outside of formal contact. The study reveals a need for a mechanism to facilitate communication with birth family if adopters are to be able to respond to the child’s changing need for contact and information.

Longitudinal Pathways Between Political Violence and Child Adjustment: The Role of Emotional Security about the Community in Northern Ireland

Links between political violence and children's adjustment problems are well-documented. However, the mechanisms by which political tension and sectarian violence relate to children's well-being and development are little understood. This study longitudinally examined children's emotional security about community violence as a possible regulatory process in relations between community discord and children's adjustment problems. Families were selected from 18 working class neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Participants (695 mothers and children, M=12.17, SD=1.82) were interviewed in their homes over three consecutive years. Findings supported the notion that politically-motivated community violence has distinctive effects on children's externalizing and internalizing problems through the mechanism of increasing children's emotional insecurity about community. Implications are considered for understanding relations between political violence and child adjustment from a social ecological perspective.

Political Violence and Child Adjustment in Northern Ireland: Testing Pathways in a Social-Ecological Model Including Single- and Two-Parent Families

Moving beyond simply documenting that political violence negatively impacts children, we tested a social ecological hypothesis for relations between political violence and child outcomes. Participants were 700 mother child (M = 12.1 years, SD = 1.8) dyads from 18 working-class, socially deprived areas in Belfast, Northern Ireland, including single- and two-parent families. Sectarian community violence was associated with elevated family conflict and children's reduced security about multiple aspects of their social environment (i.e., family, parent child relations, and community), with links to child adjustment problems and reductions in prosocial behavior. By comparison, and consistent with expectations, links with negative family processes, child regulatory problems, and child outcomes were less consistent for nonsectarian community violence. Support was found for a social ecological model for relations between political violence and child outcomes among both single- and two-parent families, with evidence that emotional security and adjustment problems were more negatively affected in single-parent families. The implications for understanding social ecologies of political violence and children's functioning are discussed.

Testing a social ecological model for relations between political violence and child adjustment in Northern Ireland

Relations between political violence and child adjustment are matters of international concern. Past research demonstrates the significance of community, family, and child psychological processes in child adjustment, supporting study of interrelations between multiple social ecological factors and child adjustment in contexts of political violence. Testing a social ecological model, 300 mothers and their children (M = 12.28 years, SD = 1.77) from Catholic and Protestant working class neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland, completed measures or community discord, family relations, and children's regulatory processes (i.e., emotional security) and outcomes. Historical political violence in neighborhoods based on objective records (i.e., politically motivated deaths) were related to family members' reports of current sectarian antisocial behavior and nonsectarian antisocial behavior. Interparental conflict and parental monitoring and children's emotional security about both the community and family contributed to explanatory pathways for relations between sectarian antisocial behavior in communities and children's adjustment problems. The discussion evaluates support for social ecological models for relations between political violence and child adjustment and its implications for understanding relations in other parts of the world.

Does the Child Health Computing System adequately identify children with cerebral palsy?

Background This paper assesses the usefulness of the Child Health Computing System as a source of information about children with cerebral palsy.

Methods A comparative survey of information held on the Child Health Computing System (CHCS) and the Northern Ireland Cerebral Palsy Register (NICPR) in one Health and Social Services Board in Northern Ireland was carried out. The sample comprised children with cerebral palsy aged 5–9 years.

Results Of the 135 cases recorded on the NICPR, 47 per cent were not found on the CHCS; the majority of these children had no computer record of any medical diagnosis. Of the 82 cases recorded on the CHCS, 10(12 per cent) were not found on the NICPR; five of these cases (6 per cent) were found on follow–up not to have CP.

Conclusions Unless improvements are made in case ascertainment, case validation and recording activities, the evidence suggests that the CHCS will not be able to provide the same quality of information for needs assessment and surveillance of very low birthweight infants in relation to cerebral palsy as is provided by a specialist case register.