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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]

The Assessment and Action framework for looked after children, designed to improve outcomes for all children in public care and those at home on care orders, is now well established in the UK. This paper offers a critical evaluation of the framework by examining the model of childhood upon which it is premised and by exploring its relationship to children's rights as conceptualized in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). It will be argued that the particular child development model which underpins the framework addresses the rights of looked after children to protection and provision but does not allow for their participation rights to be sufficiently addressed. A critical review of the research concerning the education and health of looked after children is used to illustrate these points. It will be argued that what are missing are the detailed accounts of looked after children themselves. It is concluded that there is a need for the development of additional research approaches premised upon sociological models of childhood. These would allow for a greater engagement with the participation rights of this group of children and complement the pre-existing research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this journal, Liz Trinder (1996) helpfully describes three types of social work research. Using examples from studies undertaken by the Dartington Social Research Unit over a 30-year period, this reply explores the overlap and complimentarity between types of research and suggests ways in which several sources of evidence will lead to a common conceptual framework in UK children’s services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International evidence suggests that schools are locations where systems, practices, and cultures can enable harmful sexual behaviours. However, in England, welfare assessments primarily used by statutory social services largely target young people and their families, with limited capacity to assess environments beyond the home. Where young people display harmful sexual behaviours within educational settings, social care systems are yet to assess the factors within schools that may accelerate risks associated with harmful sexual behaviours. This exploratory article presents evidence on the opportunities for school assessment using cumulative learning from two studies. The first investigated enablers and barriers to addressing harmful sexual behaviour in schools. The second employed the learning from the first through an action research study to develop school context assessments within a child protection system. Both studies employed a mixed‐methods approach including observations, case review, focus groups, surveys, and policy reviews to access data. Synthesized findings highlight the value of exploring school contexts when assessing the nature of extrafamilial abuse; the opportunities and challenges of utilizing research methods for assessing school environments; and the role new assessment frameworks could play in supporting the inclusion of school contexts, and research methods, into welfare assessments of extrafamilial abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our re-analysis of census data shows that 95% of kinship arrangements are 'informal', i.e. made outside the formal child welfare system. Interviews with 80 children aged 8-18 years in informal kinship care and their carers showed that most children were well attached to their kin carers, but one-third had been taunted or bullied because they did not live with their parents. Many children tightly controlled who knew about this potentially stigmatizing information. Most children had good numbers of adults and children in their social networks, and for three-fifths, their parents were still key figures in their lives. The children who regarded few people as very important to them significantly more often lived with older kin carers (many of whom were in poor health), were more often anxious and depressed, and did not talk about their living situation to others. A considerable number of children worried about their carers' poor health and about their own future if they died. The significance of these findings for statutory and voluntary services is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]