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The gathering of 'wishes and feelings' in UK child protection proceedings (s.53 Children Act 2004) should highlight the child's opinion of social work intervention and services provided. However, with no statutory social work guidance on participation currently in place, children frequently miss opportunities to be involved in their own child protection planning. This paper is drawn from a 3‐year study into participation in child protection social work. It includes findings from qualitative interviews, and one focus group, with social workers, parents, children and participation workers, from three local authorities in the United Kingdom. The findings revealed some examples of significant gaps in service provision, particularly from the perspective and understanding of the child. The skewed translation of wishes and feelings legislation, along with its subsequent (and often inadequate) application to practice, prevents children from understanding and responding to social work intervention and can lead to idiosyncratic practice. This paper provides recommendations for a practical response to practitioner dilemmas regarding wishes and feelings and bridges the gap between research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a qualitative study of child protection in the UK. The research involved children's practitioners from a range of agencies, including social care, education, health and youth offending, who were asked about working together on complex child protection cases. The aim was to explore how participants talked about complexity in these cases, in order to deconstruct influential perspectives on interprofessional working. Interview transcripts were analysed using critical discourse analysis, a qualitative method that examines patterns of language use in relation to social structures of power and control. The findings identified three overall perspectives: clinical, expert system and relation‐centred approaches, which practitioners combined in various ways. These perspectives have a bearing on how the ‘team around the child’ is conceptualized in discourse about child protection. The paper links these findings to the assumptions of predictability and control currently embedded in policy and practice guidance, and explores their implications for social workers and other children's practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although research on the experiences of unaccompanied asylum‐seeking young people in the UK has grown steadily in recent years, their experience of fostering and of the role played by foster carers in helping their adjustment have been neglected. This paper reports findings from the first UK study into these experiences, describing issues arising from initial assessment and preparation for fostering and the ways in which young people and foster carers adjusted to their lives together. It assesses the progress made by young people during placement, the strategies that appeared helpful to relationship building, and the extent to which young people had become integrated within the wider network of family relationships. Given that most young people first arrive as teenagers, it also considers the ways in which foster carers and social workers helped young people prepare for adult life in the context of uncertainties arising from the asylum process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, post-adoption contact between adoptive and birth families traditionally includes letterbox and/or face-to-face methods of communication. Because of the emphasis in the UK of adoption from the public care system, post-adoption contact is often supported and mediated by social work professionals. The growth in the use of e-communication, through for example social media, has created concerns regarding the use of such technologies for the purposes of 'virtual contact' following adoption. This paper reports the findings of a study of this emerging practice. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 adoptive parents and six adopted young people. Findings suggest that virtual contact presents both challenges and opportunities for adoptive families. We conclude that virtual contact is complex, but with appropriate boundaries and consideration of different interests, can work well in some cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor outcomes for young people in and leaving care have been well documented and research has indicated that the expectations of professionals working with children and young people looked after is a significant influence, particularly in relation to education. An evaluation of an independent children's residential school in Scotland provided a rare opportunity to analyse and compare the views of different kinds of staff about desirable outcomes and how successful outcomes could be achieved. Care workers, teachers and specialist support staff shared some views, but also held contrasting expectations, which appeared to be linked to differing emphases in their models for working with young people. This paper offers tentative explanations for such differences and concludes with suggestions on how to help align service staffs' expectations of young people leaving their care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores children and young people's experiences of a sibling camp based in the United Kingdom. Sibling camps are an intervention based on children's activity holidays that aim to promote meaningful contact for siblings separated in public care. This study adopted a qualitative approach using semi‐structured interviews with 11 children and young people; this included one sibling group of three and four sibling groups of two. The children's ages ranged from 8 to 17 years old, and they had all attended at least one camp with their sibling. Findings highlighted how the children valued the extended time they could spend with their siblings at camp, and how they felt this enabled them to better understand their siblings and improve their relationships. Findings also showed how the children developed close supportive relationships with the staff at the camps, who ensured they were cared for, and they also supported them with managing their relationships, which some participants acknowledged at times could be challenging. The participants also valued spending time with other sibling groups who also experienced separation. The study found camps provided a space for these children to maintain links with their siblings and to strengthen their sibling bonds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family support services, an integral part of many welfare systems across the developed world, have witnessed a growing demand for the use of relationship and strengths‐based whole‐family approaches in the belief that this increases service engagement and effect. Despite this, knowledge that delivering services using such approaches can be challenging and calls for the identification and exploration of methods likely to promote and sustain their use. Restorative approach is an ethos and method centred on building and sustaining positive relationships, which is increasingly being adopted in family and children's services in the United Kingdom. Despite this, the scarcity of research conducted in this area as yet, means little is known of its use and effect in this context. This article draws on empirical data collected in a wider study exploring the efficacy of different family service delivery models to describe the use of restorative approach in family service provision and determine whether its adoption promotes sustained use of strengths and relationship‐based whole‐family approaches when working with families. Furthermore, it explores whether the process incorporates wider evidence‐based methods of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the 1‐year outcomes of youth transitioning out of a residential care facility in South Africa. Those outcomes are compared with both national data on youth in the general population and care leavers from the United Kingdom. Analysis of the outcomes of 52 care leavers showed that they had fairly secure accommodation, low levels of homelessness, and low levels of criminal involvement and substance abuse. However, care leavers were particularly vulnerable in their educational attainment and employment outcomes and ran the risk of being not in employment, education or training. This has economic and psychological consequences for youth, who are then forced to rely on others for their livelihood and it can increase their feelings of depression, isolation, and despondency. Results from this study provide insight into the challenges and needs of young people transitioning out of residential care, which provides guidance on what to prioritize for practice. This research has implications not only for improving the understanding of care leaving in South Africa and Africa, but also for the existing knowledge based on research internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]