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The criminalization of young women in care remains an important practice and policy issue in England despite 2018 national guidance and the subsequent development of local authority protocols to reduce the criminalization of care‐experienced young people. This paper contributes to the emerging research on young women whose behaviour challenges professionals, through secondary analysis of case file data and narrative interviews with 24 care‐experienced young women from a national project on care and offending. Analysis focused on young women's pathways through the care, justice and education systems and identified five domains within young women's lives where available risk or resilience factors were significant in directing young women towards prosocial opportunities, to new types of victimization or to criminalization and offending. These domains consisted of placements and caregiver relationships; partner relationships; pregnancy and motherhood; participation in education; and the transition to adulthood through leaving care. The paper concludes with implications for practice for professionals working with young women, in particular emphasizing that how the care, justice and education systems respond to young women can contribute to negative pathways or transform them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Restoring children from out‐of‐home care (OOHC) to their families is the preferred outcome for all children removed by child protection services, yet little is known about how restoration processes are experienced by families and services supporting them. This paper provides important insights about Aboriginal child restoration from 40 practitioners and stakeholders at a community forum led by Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations in regional New South Wales (NSW), Australia. This is one component of larger Aboriginal‐led research, which investigates child protection experiences and pathways to successful restoration in NSW and the data source for this paper. The community forum explored the issues for families navigating family preservation, OOHC and restoration within child protection and legal systems. Findings include the need for a continuum of support for families throughout their engagement with child protection systems and crucially following the removal of their children. Barriers to effective restoration practice included a lack of access to meaningful and ongoing preservation services, insufficient cultural care planning and family finding efforts that are often too late, the pressure on services to support families without adequate capabilities or enough resourcing, the lack of transparency and the complexities in navigating the restoration process, and the lack of culturally informed support for children and their families while children are in care. Implications for policy and practice are discussed. This paper contributes to understanding practice, processes and barriers for restoration, particularly focused on the perspectives of Aboriginal families and communities, with potential insights for practice within Australia and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Understanding social factors that affected how people interpreted the meanings of COVID‐19 measures is important in postpandemic times. This study applies perspectives from research on emotions as one of the possible explanations and focuses on how institutions and their measures are perceived in the context of individual emotional situations. The aim of the study is to understand how parents with joint or shared custody arrangements in Czechia understood COVID‐19–related state interventions and how they dealt with those interventions in their lives. Analysing 16 interviews with these parents, who are considered a potentially vulnerable group, and their interplay with pandemic public policy, the paper suggests the importance of parenting fantasy. The term ‘fantasy’ builds on Illouz's scholarship and reflects individual sense‐making (ideas or practices) based on close and intense personal relationships related to parenting. This paper claims that the existence of this fantasy (in the form of a fulfilled parenting fantasy) or its non‐existence (in the form of a disruption of parenting, called a negative relationship by Illouz) codetermined how these parents dealt with the pandemic measures—whether (and how strongly) they conformed to them or whether they perceived (or used) them as a threat. [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 safety of practitioners working in the area of domestic abuse is a current subject of research and practice concern, as services endeavour to better understand constantly evolving tactics of violence and abuse and respond appropriately. This paper reports on a subset of findings from a practice‐led research project focussed on capacity‐building workers and their organizations to address domestic abuse, which highlighted the ongoing concerns expressed by practitioners—particularly female practitioners—about their own physical, emotional, and professional safety. Ethnographic notes were taken of Community of Practice discussions in four regions of New South Wales, Australia, involving 69 senior health practitioners from a range of service streams: specialist domestic abuse, mental health, substance use, and child protection. Themes identified through thematic analysis included the following: a tailored approach to practising safely; attending to physical safety; threats to professional identity; promoting emotional well‐being; documentation to support worker safety; and attending to cultural safety. These themes are encapsulated in the practitioner question: Who's got my back?—highlighting the importance of legislation, policy, and practices that provide an environment in which safety and support are embedded in a culture of care at every organizational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses critical realism to identify mechanisms that activate successful relationships. It draws data from a longitudinal, mixed‐methods study of youth who used multiple services. It examines functionality of four relational mechanisms: power, recognition, responsiveness and mutuality that lead to positive change and explores the implications of these for practice with youth with complex needs. [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]

ABSTRACT In the United States, 37 states and 4 territories allow for the termination of parental rights (TPR) due to parental disability. Twenty‐eight of these states and all four of the territories specifically include parental intellectual developmental disability (IDD). Policies that call for the TPR based on factors outside of parental abuse or neglect have myriad negative effects on individuals, families and communities, including long‐term adverse health outcomes for children who have been removed from parental custody, delays in prenatal care for pregnant people whose stigmatized identities may result in involuntary TPR and an increased burden on already overtaxed child welfare systems. This paper analyses policies and proposes an alternative policy modelled after advocacy from other groups of parents with marginalized identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Research on children's experiences of parental separation highlights equality and fairness between parents as one explanation for why children wish for symmetrical time‐sharing between parents. In this paper, we analyse adolescents' narratives and ask how adolescents negotiate closeness and distance with their parents, with a specific emphasis on issues of loyalty when adolescents' views diverge from symmetry and fairness. Narratives from qualitative interviews with 11 Norwegian adolescents aged between 12 and 17 were analysed. Ideas from the theory of invisible loyalties were applied to analyse the interviews, resulting in two topics, namely, ‘Bookkeeping of parents’ fulfilled and failed obligations’ and ‘Negotiations of obligations between parents and adolescents’. According to the adolescents in this study, fairness does not necessarily mean equal time‐sharing. Fairness is subject to negotiation, and adolescents' loyalty to parents is justified by fulfilled and failed obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT On arrival in the European Union, most migrants who apply for asylum stay often for extended periods of time in asylum centres, putting parenting practices under pressure. Despite an increased interest in the functioning of migrant families, the perspectives of migrant fathers remain marginalized in practice, policy, and scientific research. Very little is known about how migration impacts fathering practices and how migrant fathers may best be supported in their parental role, especially in unique parenthood contexts such as when residing in an asylum centre. This paper aims to explore migrant fathers' parental practices, experiences, and perspectives while raising their children in an asylum centre in Belgium. Semi‐structured interviews with 21 fathers in asylum centres were conducted. The findings were thematically analysed. The analysis shows that staying in an asylum centre challenged fathers' ability to fulfil paternal tasks and responsibilities such as ensuring safe accommodation, providing food, fulfilling material needs, and bringing their children to school. Different coping strategies such as seeking (in)formal support and problem‐solving were expressed to answer the daily challenges and resist existing reception structures. For most fathers, the roles of provider and protector were the most important. We argue that migrants' unique voices, experiences, and understandings remain left unheard in the organization and the practical implementation of asylum reception initiatives, limiting support for fathers in these institutions and hindering the enjoyment of their roles as fathers during adverse and stressful periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Supervision is integral to social work practice; however, how it operates in day‐to‐day practice remains poorly understood. Existing research mainly comprises quantitative and qualitative accounts of social workers' and supervisors' experiences of supervision. More recently, a small number of studies examining the content of supervision have added to our understanding of what happens in supervision. However, supervisory interactions outside formal supervision have received scant empirical attention. This paper draws on an ethnographic study of four social work teams in England, exploring how formal and informal case discussion supports social workers' sensemaking. Data comprised observations of case talk in the office space (n = 21) and group case discussions (n = 2), recordings of one‐to‐one supervision (n = 17) and semi‐structured interviews (n = 22). Findings highlighted the importance of space in how social workers perceived and engaged with supervision. Supervisory spaces involve the interaction of physical, thinking and emotional spaces to create spaces that are supportive, task‐focused and reflective. Moreover, these supervisory spaces are not confined to formal one‐to‐one supervision or to the dyadic supervisor–supervisee relationship. This raises questions for how child protection social workers can be best supported, across diverse supervisory spaces and relationships, to ensure their practice is effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that the number of children and young people needing care keeps rising and fewer people are becoming foster carers, efforts to support carers and workers in foster caring are essential. This paper considers the experiences of carers and foster care agency workers involved in Australia's piloting of the Mockingbird Family. With a view understanding experience, data were collected via focus groups with carers and agency workers (n = 20) involved in piloting, implementation and evaluation. Deductive analysis applied the theory of experience to generate understanding of experience, as both intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions to capture strengths in the Mockingbird Family's foster caring networks. These dimensions of experience included collective passions of carers and workers; experiential change over time; collective experiences as a moving force; and experiences as transformational. Understanding of experience associated with the perceived strengths of the Mockingbird Family, including strategies to promote strong professional relationships between carers and workers, is an important element in strengthening environments of children and young people in care. Safe and stable environments are crucial for wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social workers routinely make judgements and decisions as part of their everyday practice. The nature and quality of these can have a significant and long‐lasting impact on the children and families concerned. In this paper, we present an analysis of more than 20 000 judgements (n = 21 193) made by social workers (n = 586) in relation to case vignettes, based on a series of anonymized referrals (n = 12) to social services in England. We do so to ascertain how accurately the social workers were able to predict subsequent actions, events and outcomes, and to calculate the ratio of true positives to false positives at various decision thresholds. We find that the social workers' predictions were more accurate than chance in relation to all but one of the referrals, albeit at the cost of a high rate of false positive errors. We consider these findings in relation to what appears to be a general lowering of the threshold for child protection interventions in England in recent years and in relation to who suffers the injustice of false positive errors in child and family social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Using aggregated national data, this paper re‐examines the outcomes of the Australian and Norwegian protective systems during the past decade and compares it to the trends and issues identified in our earlier 2012 study. We outline the context of increased service demand affecting both countries with rapid expansion and reform of their policies and approaches. A convergence has been occurring regarding their focus upon risk and its relationship with family support. However, in Australia, there was an increasing attempt to provide greater support and reduce its rate of investigation of notifications, but there was increasing rates of children in state care, particularly for Indigenous children. In Norway, there is less appetite for risk and consequently far higher rates of investigation, but their propensity for providing a diverse array of family support has been decreasing yet remains far greater than in Australia. Nonetheless, Norway's rate of children in state care is increasing, but not for children under 5 years, whereas Australia is removing far more infant children and having them in care longer, while Norway has far more adolescents in care, particularly in residential care. Within stretched systems, both countries are needing to develop workforce planning and development strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper explores how seven organisations from the children's social care sector in England adapted their service during the Covid‐19 pandemic restrictions to better meet the needs of young people experiencing extra‐familial risks and harms. Particularly, it focuses on these organisations' experience of attempting to transform services in a unique crisis context and considers what insights this situated study offers into the processes of innovation and practice improvement in the sector. Twelve respondents from these seven organisations participated in semi‐structured interviews, which were analysed both narratively and thematically. Six of these participants were interviewed longitudinally over 6 months, enabling consideration of barriers encountered within their innovation journeys and the factors and conditions that facilitated the process. From these, three longitudinal narrative accounts were selected, highlighting themes emblematic of the overall dataset. The findings indicate that, unencumbered by the usual constraints of bureaucracy, organisations could adapt service provision with unprecedented speed, to respond in more youth‐centred and welfare‐oriented ways to young people's needs. Rapid cycles of iterative development in response to young people's feedback suggested a surprising potential for agility and responsivity in the children's services sector, raising questions about whether and how this might be mobilised outside of crisis conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT With 72% of Vietnamese households using the Internet after Vietnam first had access in November 1997, the traditional culture of parent–child communication within families in particular has been significantly influenced by the arrival of this technology. This paper presents a mixed‐method study that surveyed 464 parent–child dyads, conducted 30 in‐depth interviews and 6 group discussions held in three major cities across Vietnam. The results demonstrate how the parents and their children use the Internet and recognize the influence of this technology on their communication. It is apparent that despite the old ways of a top‐down or hierarchical relationship in traditional homes, parent–child communication is moving in the direction of a more equal and open manner despite some disparities in the understanding and respecting of each other's emotions and perspectives due to conflicts created by generational gaps and cultural understandings. The positive and negative impacts of the Internet on parent and child communication are acknowledged, but this study advocates for a change from informal communication rules related to Internet usage and suggests developing a professional system that supports parents and children to manage the parent–child communication issues and challenges more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Understanding more about the discharge of care orders is vital—whether a care order remains in place has significant implications for children and their families and for local authorities. While there has been comprehensive research about the process and outcomes of care proceedings, much less is known about the discharge of care orders—particularly how, why and when care orders are ended and the differences between applications that are granted and those that are not. The present study combined data from an anonymized administrative data on discharge applications, a detailed analysis of children's e‐records and qualitative interviews with family justice professionals to create the first detailed profile of discharge applications across England and Wales. This paper reports, for the first time, the number of discharge applications and outcomes across England and Wales, highlighting regional as well as between‐country variation. Drawing on data from children's e‐records and interviews with professionals, highlighting how and why local authorities are more likely to submit discharge applications, and to have applications granted, than parents. Recommendations are made for how to adapt professional practice and policy around discharge applications to better meet the needs of children and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child and family social workers routinely make professional judgements involving significant legal and moral questions (e.g. whether a child has been abused) and more ‘everyday’ issues (e.g. will the child be re‐referred again if we close the case now?) Yet the world is capricious, and we rarely know with certainty what is going to happen in future or the likely impact of our different choices. Given the consequences of their judgements and decisions, it is imperative that social workers are provided with the best possible support. This paper reports a proof‐of‐concept study of a set of interventions to improve the judgemental accuracy of social workers: (i) a survey to identify respondents with above‐average existing abilities, (ii) training sessions on cognitive debiasing and (iii) structured group working and (iv) three methods for aggregating individual judgements. Findings indicate that it is possible to measure the accuracy of social work judgements in relation to case‐study materials and retrospective questions, while the feedback about the training was largely positive. Any future studies should aim to recruit a more diverse set of respondents, test judgemental accuracy in relation to prospective judgements and explore what types of questions would be most helpful for real‐world decision‐making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing recognition, in the UK and internationally, of the huge costs of recurrent appearances of parents in local authority care proceedings. This paper contributes to pressing policy and practice concerns to reduce recurrence. It presents qualitative longitudinal data from the first study of fathers' experiences of recurrent care proceedings in England. Demonstrating the emotional impact of repeat proceedings and successive loss of children on fathers, in terms of grief, loss and shame, we highlight the trauma and abuse in their developmental histories. We consider complex connections between anger and shame for these fathers, including within the arena of family justice. With the use of literature on complex trauma, shame and parental disengagement, we explore ideas for re‐framing fathers', and professionals', resistance to engagement and for better understanding fathers' intense emotions. We suggest that the link between shame and complex trauma and the value of shame reducing, dignity promoting practice in response provide a valuable way forward for working with fathers. As is recognized to be the case for mothers, without holistic, empathic interventions to address the vulnerabilities of such fathers, the risks for children, mothers and fathers are unlikely to reduce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]