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This paper reports on data that is part of a wider evaluation of a small‐scale project that offers support to parents, children and families affected by alcohol and substance use. Using semi‐structured interviews and a focus group, the data in this paper explore mother's sense making of their substance use and their experiences of various professional interventions which have helped or hindered their personal journeys of recovery. Mothers' narratives suggested a self‐critical inner dialogue conceptualized as shame. Fear of stigma and a sense of shame derived from historical abuse and had a profound effect on how mothers perceived themselves and how they negotiated a web of professionals involved in their lives. Community projects with a focus on understanding mothers and their needs, and not the risk they posed to their children, were considered most supportive. Interventions working within a non‐judgemental and empathetic framework that fostered the importance of relationships and connection had a greater impact on mothers' long‐term recovery goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The context of this paper is family situations where young people are experiencing significant behavioural and emotional problems. Based on a qualitative study, it offers an empirical and theoretical contribution to the understanding of family‐related factors that promote or hinder behaviour change. Data were collected through face‐to‐face, semi‐structured group interviews with nine families (28 participants), all of them mandatory recipients of child welfare services in Croatia. Thematic analysis comprised primary coding designed to elicit information about individual family members' capacity for change and secondary coding of family‐level phenomena. The results indicated 10 phenomena that were judged to represent factors that helped or hindered change. The discussion section suggests three broad categories of capacity to change at family level (Goals and Priorities; Problem solving dynamics; and Development of role relationship). This analysis is offered as the basis for an examination of the concept of family capacity for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sexual exploitation of children and youth remains a critical issue within the child welfare system, despite the limited availability of models of care to support these vulnerable individuals. The START with the YOUTH (STAR‐Y) program adopts a preventative approach, offering personalized care and wraparound support to youth exhibiting at‐risk behaviours. This paper employs a case study methodology using both thematic and content analyses to longitudinally assess the effectiveness of this exploratory program. This evaluation encompasses a comprehensive assessment of various factors associated with the risk of sexual exploitation among program participants. Throughout the program's extended duration (originally planned for one year), predefined risk factors, including concerning Internet behaviours, were monitored and analysed. Qualitative data were gathered through interviews and observations, focusing on the experiences of both the youth and their foster parents. The results highlight the program's successful implementation, with youth enrollment (N = 3) demonstrating a reduction in sexual exploitation risk factors over time, including a decrease in behaviours such as concerning Internet usage. The importance of wraparound support and the foster parent‐youth relationship in mitigating risk and nurturing resilience became evident. This exploratory evaluation serves as the initial phase of a comprehensive assessment aimed at understanding how to effectively support youth within this population, including those at higher risk, such as those possibly involved in sex trafficking. The study's findings provide valuable insights into strategies for mitigating the risk of sexual exploitation among vulnerable youth, informing future endeavours to develop and implement similar programs within the child welfare system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various models of specialized foster care have been developed, but research on them is limited. This longitudinal, exploratory study analysed data on adaptive functioning, emotional and social problems and self‐concept in a specialized foster care service in Sweden. The focus of the study was on the development of the children and young people in placement. The Adaptive Behaviour Assessment System (ABAS‐II) was used to measure adaptive functioning, and the Beck Youth Inventories of Emotional and Social Impairment (BYI) was used to measure self‐rated emotional and social problems and self‐concept. Self‐ratings showed significant improvements in disruptive behaviour, anger, anxiety and depression. Adaptive functioning as rated by foster parents improved but not enough to catch up with the non‐clinical norm group. The average adaptive functioning among the participants at baseline was considerably below the Swedish norm group. Similar to the results of a previous study of the same treatment model, children and young people rated improvement while their foster parents did not do so to the same extent. Possible explanations for this are discussed in the paper. The study is limited by the lack of a control group and by data attrition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Siblings are key actors in the social network of young people in care. This paper explores young people's perceptions of changes in the quality of sibling relationships and the pathways relationships follow during the transition from the biological family into care. A thematic analysis of interviews with young Norwegian people (n = 25) in care showed that, in the biological family, sibling relationships are characterized by alliances, parentification, conflicts or nonexistence. After admission to child welfare services care, sibling relationships developed along multiple pathways. Their sibling relationships reshaped into either close and supportive, conflictual or completely broken relationships. Sibling relationships were dynamic, complex, with the pathway, and its impact on well‐being, being unique to each young person. Sibling relationship quality in the biological home did not predict relationship quality after admission to child welfare services. The implications for social worker practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several motives underlying the process of deciding to become an adoptive family. However, research exploring this issue is scarce and essentially focused on infertility as the main motivation. The present mixed‐method study aims to fill in this gap by exploring, retrospectively, the motives to adopt of 126 Portuguese adoptive parents. The Parents' Interview on the Adoption Process was used to identify the motives to adopt and describe the adoption decision‐making process. Seven main motives (biological issues, filling in a void/loneliness, adoption as a life project, expanding the family, philanthropy, contact with the child protection system and parenthood) were identified. These motives can be centred on the self, the child or both simultaneously and are characterized by dynamism, permeability and interconnection. Findings allowed for establishing conceptual considerations on motivations to adopt and recommendations for adoption practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating work and family demands can be challenging for families caring for a child with one or more disabilities. The pandemic and its changes to work, schooling and service delivery potentially added to these challenges. This exploratory mixed methods study sought to understand how the pandemic affected adoptive parents' work–life fit and service use. A total of 200 participants responded to survey questions about parenting an adopted child with a disability prior to, and after, the onset of Covid‐19. More than half of the parents (59.2%) reported that it was somewhat to very difficult to integrate both work and family demands. Parents with greater access to workplace flexibility and supportive supervisors had significantly less difficulties combining work and family. Families who reported more problems with accessing mental health services, special education and respite care reported significantly more challenges with work–family fit. Parents reported increased stress due to the pandemic changes, but many also shared positive changes such as more time for family. Online services were experienced as effective for some children and reduced time spent driving to appointments. Recommendations for workplace and social service practice and policy supporting adoptive parents of children with disabilities are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children placed in residential care are significantly over‐represented in youth justice systems. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with service providers, this exploratory study examines practice factors that impact on the criminalization of this group of children across multiple services and systems, including in the residential care environment, police, lawyers, courts and youth justice systems, as well as multi‐systems practice with this group in one Australian state. Positive outcomes were observed for children in residential care where well‐functioning care teams existed, as well as for children in therapeutic residential care settings. However, clear limitations were identified across all phases of children's youth justice system involvement, including placement with offending peers, the criminalization of behaviours of concern, greater use of remand and detention, limited support to navigate legal and youth justice processes, challenges to service collaboration, and limited applicability of sentencing considerations. The findings indicate a pervasive level of systemic disadvantage for this group of children, and imply that a holistic strategy underpinned by affirmative action across several systems will be necessary to address the ongoing criminalization of children in residential care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vague programme descriptions are known to impede implementation and evaluation. Yet social work change programmes often fail to describe in detail how they aim to provide better outcomes for children and families. This study focused on the Systemic Practice Model (SPM), which is a Finnish adaptation of Reclaiming Social Work, a practice model developed in England. The SPM aims to deliver systemic practice in children's social care and has recently been widely disseminated across Finland. However, research has found both considerable variation in its delivery and a lack of clarity about what it is. This study, applying realist evaluation, aimed to formulate a programme theory based on the perceptions of key informants (n = 12) involved in the national development and dissemination of the SPM during the period 2017–2019. The analysis yielded three core components (a systemic team, systemic weekly meetings, and systemic practice) and two context‐mechanism‐outcome (CMO) configurations, which represent causal chains of the SPM. The findings should enable its quality implementation and meaningful outcome and process evaluation. The findings will also aid organizations and practitioners both to identify changes required in their service provision and prevent adverse effects. This programme theory should be tested and refined with empirical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review aimed to identify and evaluate interventions that have the potential to foster engaged fathering to enhance children's health and development. Relevant articles published in the last 20 years were searched in Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Web of Science databases. The quality of studies was assessed independently by two reviewers using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Checklists. Thirty out of 3968 articles met the inclusion criteria and were subsequently reviewed. Studies were conducted in six countries (USA, Australia, Canada, Germany, Vietnam and Taiwan). Twenty‐one studies were targeted interventions while nine were universal interventions. The interventions involved parenting education, physical activity, nutrition, father–child socialization, father delivered infant massage and father–infant skin‐to‐skin contact. Authors of the studies reported that the interventions led to significant improvements in positive parenting behaviours and fathers' engagement with their children and better physical health and developmental outcomes among children. Notwithstanding the reported benefits of the interventions, all 30 studies had one or more methodological problems that call in question the generalizability of the findings. Future, well‐designed, RCT studies with larger sample sizes and clear measures of fidelity are warranted to replicate and strengthen findings reported in this review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child‐welfare practices transformed drastically in 2020 after governments instituted quarantining and social‐distancing measures. Child visitation, mental health evaluations and treatment, and court hearings either ceased or only accessible via information communication technologies (ICTs). Peer‐reviewed published scholarship about technology use in child welfare is limited to voluntary, supplemental contexts and insufficient to understand the nuanced effects of this transition on vulnerable populations. We used a critical case study ethnography to name this phenomenon, 'pandemic practice', and describe how case‐management challenges were compounded and/or masked by pandemic practice. Mandatory ICT use in case management contributed to injustices for some families in the child‐welfare system, including children spending extended time in foster care, families receiving superficial treatment services and irreparable harm to timely case progression. We used technology adoption theory and technological capital framework to identify and understand the complexities of pandemic practice beyond a simple digital divide perspective. We present a hierarchy of technological capital necessary to participate in pandemic practice, suggestions to create sufficient capital and implications for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth in foster care overwhelmingly display heightened risks for both internalizing and externalizing behaviours. Few studies document how and under what conditions foster parents effectively respond to child behaviours. The overarching purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between foster parents' parental monitoring, youth behaviours and foster parent–youth relationship. This study utilized secondary data from National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well‐being (NSCAW II) to examine the experiences of 298 youth and their caregivers. Results indicated that parental monitoring was positively associated with lower rates of internalizing and externalizing behaviours. Interestingly, higher parental monitoring was also associated with a more positive relationship between the child and caregiver, as perceived by the youth. Demographic characteristics of youth or foster parents were not significantly associated with parental monitoring. The youth–foster parent relationship mediated associations between parental monitoring and both (a) self‐reported internalizing and externalizing behaviours and (b) caregiver reports of adolescents' externalizing but not internalizing behaviours. These findings suggest that the youth–foster parent relationship is a key mechanism to focus on and underscores the need for specialized foster parent training that emphasizes a relational approach to dealing with behavioural concerns. Future research should continue to explore these associations longitudinally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the benefits of monthly family team meetings for parents involved with child welfare. Findings are shared from semi-structured, qualitative interviews conducted with 17 parents whose children had been placed in substitute care. While much of the scholarship on family meetings focuses on opportunities for family voice, this study found that parents received multiple benefits from meetings including, but not limited to, the opportunity for input into decision-making. Specifically, parents appreciated receiving information and feedback, encouragement, and a range of other supports from members of the team. Meetings also facilitated communication and improved the coordination of services and other efforts by team members. Notably, parents reported that regular meetings helped to hold caseworkers and other providers accountable regarding their activities and duties related to the case, often resulting in better follow through. Parents and their advocates were also able to use meetings to push child welfare to respond in a timely way to parents' progress. These findings should be viewed as preliminary evidence of how a particular model of family meetings might work and thereby expand our understanding of what family team decision meetings can do to improve parents' experiences and child welfare outcomes more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]