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Social workers carry much of the frontline authority to define risk to children and discuss it with families. Assessment reports and other institutional documents record professional views about family information, and also have the potential to convey the 'voice' of the family to institutions. Social workers have responsibility for sharing these documents with families, yet little is known about how they do this. This paper focuses on episodes when social workers introduce institutional documents in home visits, and on the family responses elicited. These are high-stakes encounters which, when they go seriously wrong, emerge in the press as tragedies and scandals. For families, these documents carry an emotional depth-charge as intimate, potentially shaming and sometimes inaccurate details of their lives are inscribed in them by and for others. Latour's (1996) concept of interobjectivity sheds light on the use of documents, while concepts of epistemic authority (Heritage and Raymond, 2005) and epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007) are employed to examine how social workers respond to parental testimony about themselves and their children. Learning how to present institutional documentation in ways that reduce the risk of emotional reactivity and treating family perspectives with epistemic justice may enhance social work practice. At a policy level, the design of documents warrants review, so that they facilitate rather than obstruct social workers' efforts to build what are already fragile relationships with families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Ronald Hughes, Judith Rycus, and their colleagues have produced a seminal review of differential response (DR) programs implemented across the nation. Their review questions nearly every aspect of the DR movement, beginning with the concept on which all DR programs are based and ending with serious concerns about the quality of evaluations conducted to date. Given current support for DR initiatives and wide variation of existing DR models, not all in the social sciences will agree with their conclusions. Nevertheless, this review represents the type of analysis critical to advancing practice in the field. Although many issues are raised in the Hughes et al. review, our response focuses on four critical points, which we believe represent the core problems identified. These include the concept that serves as the foundation for the DR movement, the role of assessments, and the primary problems with evaluations conducted to date. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information related to the impact of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) on the children. It mentions that IPV impacts families at disturbing rates, with a considerable number of children subject to severe, chronic, and multifaceted violence. It also mentions that children exposed to IPV are at elevated risk for emergent psychopathology, including depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and disruptive behavior disorders.

The article presents call for paper that explore digitalisation from a theoretical, conceptual or empirical standpoint as they relate to children, young people, their birth and adoptive parents and carers.

Researchers conducting community-based action research (CBAR) become immersed in their field site, developing close relationships and enabling members of the community to pursue social action. We contribute a nuanced analysis of the impact of CBAR on those who participate in the method, particularly participants who live rurally. Situating this work in the history and prior methodological examinations of CBAR, we demonstrate the critical relationship between this research approach and the rural landscape. Our findings speak to two research questions: how do participatory- and otherwise community-based, action-oriented research methods impact those who participate in research? And, how do researchers and research participants make sense of this impact? Using interview, observation, and photographic data, our analysis indicates that community members' perceptions of CBAR exist on a spectrum situated around two key, but fluid, positions: the 'trusted outsider' and the 'affective collaborator.' Our findings provide researchers with a stronger methodological foundation to approach community-based, action-oriented research with an ethic of care. Further, our findings provide methodologists with a better understanding of the multi-directional impact of doing CBAR and the ways we can use this information to do CBAR ethically and effectively. In this way, our paper contributes to a growing body of scholarship regarding the practice and impact of collaborative, community-based research approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, the oral health needs of children who have, or are suspected of having, experienced abuse or neglect has become a focus of concern. It is thus valuable and timely to map the contemporary nature of the research landscape in this expanding field. This review reports the findings of a scoping review of the international empirical literature. The aim was to explore the relationship between child maltreatment and oral health and how this complex issue is addressed in contemporary dental, health, and social work practice. The review identified 68 papers, analysis of which identified three themes: (1) There is a relationship between poor oral health and child maltreatment that is well evidenced but conceptually underdeveloped. (2) There are discrepancies between the knowledge of members of the dental team about child maltreatment and their confidence and aptitude to identify and report child protection concerns. (3) There are areas of local-level policy and practice development that seek to improve working relationships between dentists and health and social work practitioners; however, there is widespread evidence that the oral health needs of this group of vulnerable children are not consistently met. To orientate critical discussion and planning for future research and practice, we present the Patterns, Advances, Gaps, Evidence for practice and Research recommendations (PAGER) framework. The review's findings are likely to be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers working across dentistry, health and social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among several other countries, India has launched numerous digital initiative programmes aimed at integrating and upgrading various socioeconomic, political and health and social care arenas. One such area is child adoption, where a move away from the analogue system and towards digitalisation began in 2015. The Indian Ministry of Women & Child Development introduced the Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS), a digital adoption formalisation platform, under the Central Adoption Resource Authority, a nodal body that monitors and regulates both in-country and intercountry adoptions. This government initiative centralised adoption data from all over India, including the number of children declared free for adoption and the number of prospective parents registered and seeking to adopt. Against this context, this study aims to map the development of adoption in India through digital systems and the influence of digitilisation on those involved in the pre- and post-adoption phases. Drawing on both Western and Indian literature, as well as observations from an ongoing qualitative study on adoption digitalisation in India, this study discusses the benefits and limitations of digital systems for the people connected to them. The findings provide a comprehensive view of the interaction of technology and society and how this operates in the sociocultural context of adoption in India. Future implications for researchers and adoption social workers and consultants are discussed. Plain Language Summary: The process of adoption in India was largely paper based until 2015. With the launch of the Digital India movement in 2015, newer digital facilities were introduced in various socioeconomic, political, health and social care sectors. Adoption was one such area: the Indian Ministry of Women and Child Development introduced a digital adoption formalisation platform called the Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS). It was established under the Central Adoption Resource Authority, which is responsible for monitoring and regulating both in-country and intercountry adoptions. CARINGS is a centralised database of the children waiting for adoption and prospective parents registered and seeking to adopt. It aims to streamline the adoption process and make it more efficient and transparent. A qualitative study was conducted to explore the impact of digital adoption on those involved in the pre- and post-adoption phases. The study included the perspectives of adoption social workers, adoption consultants, prospective adopters and adoptive parents. The present paper maps the influence of digital adoption in the pre- and post-adoption phases and discusses the advantages and challenges that arise from the interaction of technology and society. The paper concludes by presenting the future implications of digital adoption for researchers, adoption social workers and consultants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The quality of the helping relationship is experienced when theories and principles are enacted in practice. Here, the people social workers seek to serve are able to decide whether the practice they experience is useful. One way that social workers can enhance the quality of the relationships they develop is to 'start where the person is at'. In order to explore what this phrase means in and for effective social work practice, this paper revisits Martin Buber's articulation of the I/thou relationship seeking to shed light on the notion of personhood in this value-based profession. Two participants, within a larger research project exploring the experiences of social workers in the Australian child welfare field, independently used the language of personhood to refer to the way they conceptualised the process of engaging with people. Both were referring to enacting the transcendent value of each person in terms of a practice philosophy. These personal narratives inspired the authors to move away from the usual professional discourse about the skills involved in relationship building and instead reflect on their own practice in order to capture something philosophical about caring relational processes. Revisiting humanistic conceptualisations of the helping relationship such as the I/thou has the potential to discourage practitioners from seeing relationships as transactional. This has particular significance in practice contexts characterised as risk-averse, austere or involuntary, and/or where people may be feeling anxious, stressed and/or simply unheard. Contemporary implications for social work practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork with children and adults in an Urdu-speaking Bihari camp in Bangladesh, this paper critically explores the ambiguities, nuances, and messiness of children's everyday lives and the complex ways in which children negotiate and exercise their agency. With a critical and reflexive analysis of children's experiences in everyday lives, this paper aims to make a meaningful contribution to the knowledge of childhood and children's everyday lives in the majority world context by focusing on an under-researched minority within Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) Child File, the only national dataset cataloging child maltreatment reports. It includes variables representing economic distress frequently used in published research. At the national level, these variables are demonstrably implausible, substantially underestimating economic distress. Method: This paper reviews recent work using these variables, analyzes the NCANDS data directly, demonstrates why the economic variables in NCANDS are unusable at a national level, and provides recommendations for incorporating economic measures using NCANDS. Results: We find 19 articles that have used these variables within the past 10 years. Most states provide implausible estimates. Economic measures can be incorporated into NCANDS data by either subsetting to s states with plausible estimates of these variables in given years, or appending county-level economic Census data. Discussion: Without addressing these variables' issues in plausibility, use of them will yield biased estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper presents a re-analysis of the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) data presented by Briggs et al. (2022). Methods: We review five components of that article: The aims, variables, analytic strategy, analysis, and conclusions. Results: We conclude that several of the NCANDS variables used are invalid at the national level, and that this is sufficient to call the research into question. We find concerning issues in analytic strategy and analysis as well, many stemming from a failure to account for the serious underreporting of services in NCANDS, and the wide variability in data quality and consistency across states. We also found what we consider to be issues with their statistical analysis. Discussion: The reanalysis presented in this article shows no pattern of disparate within Child Protective Services (CPS) outcomes by race and, therefore, no support for the Briggs et al. claim of pervasive anti-Black racism within the CPS system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the findings from a systematic review of parenting interventions used by social workers to support vulnerable children in the United Kingdom. The study focused on children from birth to 11 years and 11 months based on Munro's rationale for early intervention. From the 423 papers initially identified, twelve met the inclusion criteria for this review. Four common themes were identified: developing relationships, the effectiveness of parenting interventions, societal impact on families and health and psychological concerns. The importance of effective relationships between parents and social workers was identified as key to effective parental interventions but there was limited evidence of improved outcomes for children despite this. A common factor in the studies was the level of parental deprivation which in many cases was associated with a range of mental health issues frequently seen in association with drug and alcohol abuse and domestic violence. The review identified a number of successful outcomes across a range of parenting interventions. However, what was surprising was the limited input from the children themselves within this review. Applying our findings to practice, the authors recommend a number of ways to contribute to the development of parenting interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a time when both extensive international and national protest and criticisms are directed toward the Norwegian Child Welfare Services, it is of great interest to researchers to gain insight into the viewpoints presented in protest groups on social media. The paper aims to give insight into the ethical judgement involved in research on digital communities where it is difficult to decide whether certain material is public or not. In addition, the paper reflects on the social consequences of understanding some participants as vulnerable versus understanding them as citizens, in a social work/child protection context on social media. A considerable amount of literature focuses on ethical questions in Internet research. There is also literature on the ethical considerations connected to resistance and protest groups on social media. There is, however, less existing research about the ethical decision-making within the field of social work, child protection and client protests on the Internet. This paper analyses certain experiences from a qualitative research project regarding Facebook groups protesting Child Welfare Services in Norway. The paper concludes that in some social media research contexts, as the one presented here, taking extra care to anonymize participants in publications is sufficient to secure privacy, and covert collection of data is possible without jeopardizing ethical guidelines. Further, by developing practical ethical judgement, we can – in some social work contexts – avoid putting people into categories like "vulnerable" and instead approach the participants in public Facebook groups as citizens with socio-political opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuous caring relationships are crucial to the wellbeing of children living in out-of-home care, with the family environment of long-term foster care usually the preferred placement for achieving relational permanence. Some children, however, experience a cycle of instability with the impact of placement disruption exacerbating emotional and behavioural difficulties and thereby undermining subsequent foster relationships. This paper reports on a service evaluation of a residential facility specialising in short-term placements for children who have experienced disruption, with the aim of interrupting the cycle of placement instability. Overview of 34 children's placement trajectories show that most were enabled to re-enter foster care and of those who are now aged over 18 years (n = 29), over half (n = 16) remained in family placements until adulthood. For four children, detailed individualised assessment indicated residential care as the most appropriate option for avoiding future disruption. The paper gives cause for optimism that relationships in the residential setting have the potential to build emotional resilience and capacity for connection. There is paucity of information on how residential staff achieve these relationships in practice. Focus groups and interviews with ten staff and managers illuminate relational practices in the residential setting that are simultaneously family-like and trauma-informed. Plain Language Summary: Long-term caring relationships in stable placements are important to the wellbeing of children who are not living with their parents. However, some children experience repeated instability and disruption when successive foster care placements end prematurely, sometimes under difficult circumstances. This can be a very upsetting experience and may have a serious impact on children. Emotions and behaviours that they struggle with can worsen, which may make things harder for them with their next foster family, leading to a cycle of instability, with fewer opportunities for continuous long-term caring relationships. This paper looks at an approach used by a residential facility, Children's House, where children who have experienced many foster placement endings can temporarily live. The goal is to stop the cycle of premature placement endings and to offer an experience of stability. The paper notes the journeys of 34 children who spent a period living at this specialist residential unit. Many (29 children) are now aged over 18 years, and over half of these (16 children) were able to stay in family placements until reaching adulthood. For four children, assessments recommended that residential care was the best option for avoiding future disruption in their lives. The findings of this paper suggest that relationships with staff in residential settings may offer children opportunities for genuine connection, as well as building emotional resilience. There is limited information available on how staff develop caring relationships with children in residential settings. This paper includes data from focus groups and interviews with ten staff and managers from Children's House. This helps to explain how relationships are built, in a way that is similar to family life but also shaped by staff's knowledge about how trauma can affect children's ability to form relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to investigate in detail the strategies and efforts of children consumer protection national policies in order to conduct a comprehensive review of ongoing practices. Through content analysis, the paper investigates four dimensions of national policies: general elements of children consumer protection policies, marketing communication restrictions, harmful product-specific restrictions, and empowerment and education in five different countries of diverse cultural dimensions: Germany, the USA, the UK, Spain, and Croatia. The paper fills an existing research gap by emphasizing practices of children consumer protection strategies that should be encouraged and those that should be avoided, thereby formulating the recommendations needed to prevent the negative consequences of marketing communication. The findings confirm that successful strategies have strong national legislations, market self-regulation, and education on media literacy. Advertisement for all potentially harmful product categories should be strictly regulated in order for children to be fully protected. According to the results, Germany and the UK are the most efficient in children consumer protection policies, followed by Spain, Croatia, and the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social work case files hold rich detail about the lives and needs of vulnerable groups. Traditional case-reading studies to gain generalisable knowledge are resource-intensive, however, and sample sizes thereby limited. The advent of 'big data' technology, and vast repositories of centrally stored electronic records offer social work researchers novel alternatives, including data linkage and predictive risk modelling using administrative data. Free-text documents, however – including assessments, reports, and case chronologies – remain a largely untapped resource. This paper describes how 5000 social work court statements held by the Child and Family Court Advisory Support Service in England (Cafcass) were analysed using natural language processing (NLP) based on simple rules and mathematical principles. Thirteen factors relating to harm and risk to children involved in care proceedings in England were identified by automated computer techniques, and almost 90% agreement with professional readers achieved when the factors were clear-cut. The study represents an innovative approach for social work research on complex social problems. In conclusion, the paper discusses learning points; practical implications; future research avenues; and the technical and ethical challenges of NLP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances the global and transnational agency approach to the study of out-of-home childcare, specifically the institutionalization of children. Based on existing studies, we highlight gaps in the current knowledge of global and transnational actors who shape child institutionalization around the world, including who these actors are, what they do and why, as well as the implications of their activities for children and families. We argue that the rise of global and transnational actors in out-of-home childcare requires systematic scholarly analysis if we are to understand the ongoing change in the global politics, policies, and practices of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the child welfare system and related institutions with American Indian children and families has been marked by numerous atrocities, including unnecessary separations, assimilation, and trauma. The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was enacted in 1978 to promote the stability and security of American Indian tribes and families. For children involved in the child welfare system, ICWA prioritizes the placement of American Indian children with family or tribal members. This paper examines placement outcomes for American Indian children using recent national data over 3 years from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. Multivariate regression analyses showed that American Indian children were significantly less likely to be placed with same-race/ethnicity caretakers than their non-American Indian counterparts. In addition, American Indian children were not more likely to be placed with relatives or have trial home placement compared to non-American Indian children. These findings suggest that ICWA is not reaching its intended objectives regarding placement goals specified in the law regarding American Indian children. These policy shortcomings have significant implications for American Indian children, families, and tribes in terms of well-being, family connection, and cultural loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Barth et al. (2021) published an article in this journal identifying ten topics in the field of child welfare that are frequently discussed among professionals, advocates, and researchers in an effort to shape discussions of practice and policy reform. Concerned that these discussions are often poorly informed by the research evidence, Barth et al. intended to offer a corrective to these common, erroneous narratives. The Editor-in-Chief, Bruce Thyer, asked for suggestions for commentators and then invited some number of respondents to offer their perspectives on the original article. Here, we respond to each of the submitted papers, highlighting areas of agreement, and addressing other topics where we—sometimes sharply—disagree. We welcome an ongoing, fact-based, respectful dialogue to help shape child welfare reform. Efforts to improve the child welfare system are urgently needed; we stand by our view that large-scale practice and policy reform, in particular, must be guided by the best available research evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this invited paper, we critique Barth and colleagues' (2021). "Research to Consider While Effectively Re-Designing Child Welfare Services" paper that presents 10 commonly held misconceptions in child welfare to provide a foundation for child welfare system reform. We argue that research alone cannot guide the reform of the child welfare system. Rather, we argue that people with lived expertise in the child welfare system and programs must be involved in all parts of collaborations in order to re-design child welfare. Research has limitations and privileging it in setting any reform agenda and efforts is potentially dangerous. We conclude that for effective child welfare system re-design to occur, research-policy-practice partnerships must be built with people with lived expertise in the child welfare system and programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parents of children in out-of-home care receive little support from social services. Drawing on qualitative data collected in the project 'Parent at a distance', in which social services in seven municipalities in Sweden aimed to improve support to parents whose children are placed in foster care, this paper explores social workers' discourses about parents to children in care. The analysis is based on focus group data in which a total of 52 social workers reflected on parents to children in care and how they can be supported by social services. The concept of interpretive repertoires was used to analyse how social workers in interaction construct parents and their support needs. The identified repertoires of change, acceptance, permanency, biology and non-biology may contribute to the understanding of why so few parents receive support, even though legislation stipulates that placements should be temporary. The paper concluded that discourses may shape support practices and thus it is crucial that social workers reflect on and develop their awareness about their constructions of parents and their role for children in out-of-home care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on qualitative findings on how young people in long-term foster care in Ireland interpret permanence and stability. We focus principally on subjective and relational permanence, emphasising the significance of these concepts for social work, while extending some conceptual approaches to permanence. Importantly, findings from this study highlight conceptual gaps in how permanence and stability are conceptualised in research and we outline an approach which more fully embraces the multi-dimensionality of young people's life experiences and emotions. Recent studies underline that permanence encompasses several elements (e.g. ecological, legal). However, this paper extends current research in illustrating how Irish young people in foster care experience permanence and stability every day, and how these experiences embrace discursive, emotional and temporal dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the systematic review described in this article was to determine the outcomes for individuals exposed to severe neglect in congregate care institutions such as orphanages. In this context, severe neglect refers to failure to meet children's basic physical, developmental, and emotional needs due to inadequate resources. In this systematic review of previous systematic reviews and meta-analyses, searches of 10 databases were conducted, 18 papers that met inclusion and exclusion criteria were selected for review, their quality was assessed, and data were extracted and synthesized. The 550 primary studies included in the 18 systematic reviews and meta-analyses were relatively well designed, allowing confidence to be placed in their results. Severe neglect was associated with a wide range of problems in the domains of physical development, cognitive development, attachment, and mental health. The severity of adverse outcomes was partly influenced by the duration and severity of deprivation and a constellation of risk and protective factors. Prevention policies should aim to eliminate large underresourced congregate care institutions for infants. In taking steps toward this, policies should aim to adequately resource congregate care institutions to meet children's developmental needs for nutrition, stimulation, and attachment to a stable primary caregiver with adequate parenting skills and training. Early placement in adoptive or foster families, with access to routine physical and mental health-care service available in developed countries, is the most viable effective intervention for child survivors of severe neglect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the importance of material objects for looked after and adopted children integrated as part of life story work practices. Conducting life story work is believed to be good practice within direct work with looked after children in England and there are a range of diverse practices, including life story books, later life letters and memory boxes. Through a creative design project developing a playful memory product for looked after children, we have had the opportunity to capture sector perspectives on life story work approaches and these are interspersed throughout this commentary. Combining multi-disciplinary theoretical perspectives and these sector insights, we explore how special material objects are important for children's identity and continuity of sense of self. The paper highlights the importance of children telling their own stories of these objects, giving them agency and control over their life story narratives. In a context of austerity, life story work may not be prioritised by social workers who have many other competing demands and limited resources. We emphasise the need for professionals to recognise the value children give to objects and to provide them with opportunities to both keep these safe during placement moves and to tell their own story through their objects alongside more traditional, formal life story work. The recommendations have implications for children in out of home care in many country contexts, not just England where the research has been conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The five important papers in this series reflect the evolving state of research on violence and victimization. Their findings and methods underscore the importance of studying poly-victimization as the more encompassing genesis of harm across stages of development, rather than singular, isolated events. That is, children and youth who experience one type of violence are more likely than not to have experienced (or will experience) many others. Poly-victimized children become victims of further abuse and trauma and, in turn, are at increased risk of becoming perpetrators toward peers and future partners. These five papers incorporate a wider lens that is more inclusive of gender minority and ethnic minority youth, as well as underserved populations such as youth served by the juvenile justice systems (especially girls). Important developments were described in terms of recruiting difficult-to-reach populations, and ways to screen for psychological maltreatment in the background of youths. These papers demonstrate how the field is moving away from narrowly focused studies of violence/victimization, toward a more integrative, person-centered strategy. Such a strategy looks for common elements, such as healthy relationship development, that move us closer to common causes and solutions. These solutions should involve universal prevention via our education system that promotes well-being, enhances resilience, and reduces poly-victimization for all youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To systematically review international evidence on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions targeting the mental health, wellbeing, and retention of child and family social workers and their impact on child and family outcomes. Method: Systematic review and narrative synthesis of quantitative comparative studies. Published or unpublished research was sought via 12 bibliographic databases, websites, contact with experts, and citation tracking. Studies in any language were eligible for inclusion. Quality was assessed using Cochrane appraisal tools. Results: Fifteen studies were identified from 24 papers. Three studies considered individual-level interventions, with mixed and inconclusive findings. Eleven considered organisational interventions, with mixed but more promising findings. One study considered community-level interventions, with positive findings but a serious risk of bias. Only one study considered costs. Conclusion: The quality of evidence overall does not warrant clear recommendations for services. Organisation-level interventions show some promise. Robust, high-quality interventional studies are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The staccato rhythms of experiential time remain obscured in much of the literature on participatory research, where time is treated as a reassuring constant – a backdrop for human activity. This article addresses the discordances between lived temporalities and existing theorisations of participatory methodologies. It takes participatory research with lone child migrants as a particularly rich case to think with, given the proliferation of contradictory and often punitive applications of time these young people encounter in their interactions with migration and welfare regimes. The core argument developed is that unless temporality is given due theoretical and methodological attention, aims of contesting and unsettling inequities through participatory research will have limited success and can wind up reproducing exclusions and oppressions. In response to these critiques, the paper temporalizes participatory research through three reconstructions: working with and against time, de-centring shared time and collectivising the time of participatory research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Childhood disability can heighten risk of neglect and abuse and may also impinge upon the parenting task. Even so, a gross deficiency of published literature on social work parenting capacity assessment for disabled children is evident. This paper provides a critical commentary on approaches to assessments of the capacity of parents of disabled children. International review of literature on this subject matter is enacted across three themes. Findings: Themes refer to limitations to the uptake of disability-specific parenting assessment tools, use of existing generic frameworks and supplementation of generic frameworks, respectively. Throughout, a composite conceptual frame is taken up, entailing the conventions of a seminal social model of disability, extended through an affirmative non-tragedy lens. The intention is to contest articulations of disability grounded in tragedy and melancholia, otherwise instantiated by links between disability with child maltreatment in this paper. Applications: Application of insights from this paper within professional social work practice can enhance evidence-informed parenting capacity assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examines power dynamics at play in the early child-saving movement as illuminated in the case records and annual reports of the Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty (SPCC) from 1878 to 1881 and triangulated with other historical records. 1 We draw on ecological systems theory and urban ecology to examine social and spatial relationships between child-saving institutions, communities, and individuals and families. The paper adapts template analysis for archival research as a replicable approach for studying historical power dynamics embedded in social welfare institutions. This approach highlights the changing role of community members in identifying and responding to neglect and abuse and uncovers common themes that continue to impact the modern child welfare system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organisational conflict is normally recognised as a disruptive activity which interrupts relational dynamics and productivity. However, this paper will argue that in addition, if conflict is not resolved carefully, it can trigger negative affect which will in turn unsettle and destabilise a whole workforce. Based on the findings from an organisational ethnography, the author examines how conflict emerged in a child protection social work agency by theorizing on the concept of affective practice. In doing so, the author makes the argument that although affect emerges in interaction it can be exacerbated by the unintentional pursuit of problematic strategies. Examining affective practice in such a way enables studies to bring into play the atmospheric factors which impacted on those who were present at that moment so that readers can understand how people were moved, attracted to or pained by certain social interactions. This is important when trying to comprehend how coercive power approaches in social work prevent care objectives from being met. The paper will conclude by suggesting that when practitioners are preoccupied with trying to survive in the workplace they will find it difficult to meet the needs of the children and families they are working with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children entering custody within the child welfare system have been found to have high levels of trauma and significant behavioral health needs. In this paper, authors demonstrate how a structured functional well-being assessment can be used with the custody population to promote an understanding of behavioral health needs, inform case planning, and measure functional improvement over time. Specifically, this paper will: (a) briefly describe how two states implemented a common standardized assessment of functioning to inform case planning and measure well-being progress of children in the custody of a public child welfare system (b) examine what this common assessment tool reveals about the strengths and needs of children entering custody across two sites and (c) describe the magnitude of change in functional improvement measured across 6 months. This paper will contribute to the existing knowledge by sharing possible themes in functioning related to children entering custody while examining changes in functioning over time. Implications for practice, policy, and future research will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supervision is widely recognised as a core activity for social work. In this paper, we explore the nature of decision-making in supervision, using a collection of twelve audio-recordings from one child protection team in England. We apply Conversation Analysis to see how potential actions are put 'on the table', by whom, and the interactional work that occurs before any final decision is made. Within these data we find that supervision may not be an especially key site for decision-making. When actions are proposed, we identify three primary patterns: unilateral decision making, bilateral decision making and polar questions which instigate decision making sequences. In each, it is almost always the supervisor who proposes a possible future action, and the social worker who responds. If the social worker is agreeable, there is often little further discussion. When the social worker resists the proposal or there is further talk around the future action, the subsequent conversation was likely to focus on how it reflects on the worker's professional competence, rather than the merits of the action and implications for the family. These findings raise the question of how (and where) casework decisions are made in this social work team, if not in supervision. They also suggest we need to pay more attention to issues of professional standing and creating opportunities for shared decision making when thinking about supervision. Our analysis furthers current knowledge of what happens in social work supervision by demonstrating how epistemic and deontic domains, as well professional competency, are interactionally relevant forces shaping the decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past two decades have witnessed an increase in programs targeting children and youth impacted by traumatic events, with a heightened focus on ensuring that all such programs and relevant service systems are trauma informed. While such efforts are laudable, trauma-informed care (TIC) is defined in a number of ways, limiting evaluation of these initiatives, specifically as they relate to the potential for improved outcomes or reduced costs often used to advocate for TIC. Widespread interest in TIC, despite an apparent dearth of empirical research, served as the impetus for this special section. Our goal was to identify the most rigorous empirical studies available. These six papers were selected based on their inclusion of a definition of TIC, focus on at least one component of TIC in a child-serving system, and availability of empirical data demonstrating the effectiveness of their efforts. In addition to introducing these papers, we share preliminary data from a brief, anonymous survey of child-serving professionals across various systems and roles to obtain feedback about definitional and conceptual issues related to TIC. While this special section provides a representation of available empirical work, significant gaps between research and practice of TIC remain, with important implications for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a reaction paper to the article in this journal issue entitled Human Service Cartels: The Soft Repression of the Mediocracy by David Stoesz. As such, it addresses two significant questions about the Stoesz article. One question is as follows: Are we really talking about a cartel? The other question is as follows: Isn't it the power elite that promotes societal control and repression? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using decolonial perspective, this paper critically examines how certain child protection interventions in Kenya might increase childhood vulnerabilities among children from poor social backgrounds who are disproportionately represented in the justice system. Findings point to ambivalent child protection practices as a result of entrenched colonial legacies which criminalises juvenile 'delinquents', relying heavily on judicialisation while limiting social welfare investments. The study suggests alternative approaches to better child protection services that take into account southern-centric childcare practices and knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically discusses the limitations of theorising social work from psychological and sociological perspectives and argues that phenomenology offers more opportunity to understand the embodied experiences of service users and social workers themselves. The paper argues that psychology and sociology have a limited analysis of being-in-the-world, which ought to be social work's primary consideration. The paper offers an overview of the sociology of risk before embarking on an extensive description and discussion of Heidegger's and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology applied to the lived experience of child protection social workers working within risk society. The argument is put that phenomenology is a useful tool for understanding the lived experience of social work practitioners. Findings: The authors conclude that embodied social work practice containing fear and anxiety can be thought of as akin to taking part in extreme risk sports and that this is an unhealthy experience that is likely to skew decision-making and adversely affect the lives of social workers and service users. Applications: The authors argue that phenomenology can enhance understanding of practice and decision-making and offers insights into the lived experience of social workers. Phenomenology is useful for helping social workers negotiate risk-saturated environments, through a focus on meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The welfare of the child in the context of private family law proceedings is of significant international interest. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study of private law proceedings in England, which explored legal professionals' experiences of and practice within space and place. Data are derived from interviews with professionals, and observations from the waiting areas, canteens, interview rooms and offices of lawyers who represent parents in private family law proceedings. The paper focuses on winners and losers in the area of private family law, and the 'trophy', the child, who appears to be lost in the battleground of legal proceedings, but remains the ultimate prize. The concept of space is explored before moving to reflect upon the data from the interviews. The themes that emerge from the data are the relationships between the public space of the court and the vulnerability of the parties as they attempt with greater or less ease, to navigate the complexities of this formal and procedurally driven space. This paper explores the idea of the child as the ultimate 'trophy' within private law proceedings to consider its significance for family justice practice in England, and to elicit a greater understanding of the importance of space and place in private law proceedings that have remained largely unexplored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based upon ongoing theoretical work by the author. A growing number of academics are starting to problematise social work within a risk paradigm by highlighting the impact this has on how service user's experiences are atomised into units of risk, rather than having their needs understood as members of families and communities. This paper seeks to develop this discussion by offering a theoretical examination of risk from a phenomenological perspective by unpacking some of the underlying constructions of risk. Using Heidegger's work this paper attempts to first of all undertake an ontology of risk and then to examine its usefulness in the UK child protection context. The author argues that working within a risk paradigm obscures rather than clarifies understanding. The approach is rooted in an argument that "phenomenology" is the natural home of social work which is interested in the lived experiences of people within their environments or "being-in-the-world". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Drawing on historical constructions of Indigenous peoples, this paper analyses the continued impact of settler discourses of Indigenous families, parenting, and children on child welfare policy in Canada today. Findings: In this work, two provincial children's Advocate reports on the deaths of Indigenous children in care, Tina Fontaine and Alex Gervais, are critically assessed in order to explore the processes through which these colonial constructions operate to create adverse outcomes for Indigenous people. Through this analysis, a number of contemporary colonial narratives are made visible, including the belief that Indigenous parents are inherently incapable of caring for their children, and the gendered construction of Indigenous men and boys as criminal and deviant and Indigenous girls as sexually exploitable. Application: These findings suggest that greater critical reflection is needed when working with Indigenous peoples, including greater awareness of the ongoing impact of settler colonialism and the necessity of engaging in anti-colonial work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There exist ongoing calls among social work scholars and practitioners to cultivate applied knowledge of critical and emancipatory practice. In this paper, I explore the utility of text-based vignettes as instruments that can be used to elicit insight from marginalized service users on critical social work practice. To do this work, I draw on data from interviews with 20 transgender and gender diverse (TGD) social service users, along with 10 social workers, whose responses to a text-based vignette were originally used to build an understanding of the constituents of equitable social work practice with TGD people. Incorporating critical pragmatism as a conceptual framework and constructivist grounded theory as a methodological orientation, I analyze data from this study as an exemplar that substantiates the promise of using text-based vignettes in qualitative social work research to generate knowledge of critical social work practice. Specifically, I demonstrate how text-based vignettes in this study (1) contextualized the meaning, significance, and impact of oppression for service users, (2) built insight on practice that reflects solidarity and allyship, and (3) identified opportunities for social workers' reflexive use of professional power to effect change. Accounting for the tensions between empiricism and critical praxis in social work, I consider the promise of incorporating text-based vignettes to develop empirical social work literature that is rooted in the voices of marginalized service users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of alcohol and other drugs (AOD) by parents is a significant public policy concern, both in the UK and other jurisdictions such as Australia. Concern about the potential risks posed to children is also paramount in family court decisions, where AOD consumption is framed as a child protection issue in itself. There is a need, however, for more critical inquiry into the ways in which parental use is understood and conceptualised in family court practice. Based on interviews with social workers, lawyers and judges who have worked in Family Courts in England and Wales, the aim of this paper is to pay closer attention to the constitution of parental substance use as a child protection problem. Using methodological tools devised by Bonham and Bacchi (2016), and adopting their poststructural approach to interview analysis, the aim was to pay close attention to the ways in which "reality" was made in and through participant accounts. The focus on the granularity of what, precisely, was said in the interviews unveiled some valuable insights into the ways in which parental subject positions were produced and maintained. For example, the 'traumatised' parental substance user was a recurring motif which, while rooted in a more empathetic understanding of the challenges faced by parents, could – I suggest – have unintended consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on theorists of jurisdiction to make visible how democratic self-government and the rule of law take effect in the modern administrative state. Through the lens of Caring Society v Canada, a Canadian human rights case about the funding of social services for Indigenous children, I explore an idea of jurisdictional justice that is inherently connected to the quality of democratic engagement and focuses attention on political, legal and human relationships. I argue that in the face of challenges posed by populist politics and the colonial administrative state, this relational understanding of jurisdiction provides resources for building a sense of legality that can sustain shared public meaning and promote practices of political accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unaccompanied children who do not or cannot access the child protection system in Türkiye often become engaged in child labor and find themselves living in precarity. This paper highlights narratives of survival within their culturally-assumed transition to manhood based on empirical research on the life experiences of 12 unaccompanied, male Afghan youth who came to Türkiye as unaccompanied children. These narratives reflect patriarchal culture, particularly the Taliban's extreme manifestations of patriarchy, both in a context of war and violence. Unaccompanied Afghan children migrate for survival and, after dangerous journeys, live as irregular migrants. Their daily life is marked by (1) fear of police and deportation, (2) child labor, (3) long and challenging work routines, (4) lack of leisure time, schooling, adult protection or support and (5) lack of social security. As a result, they develop survival strategies to manage their precarious lives. Their narratives share commonalities focusing on the conditionalities of constructing manhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School truancy is associated with many negative life outcomes, including violent, property, and drug offending, lower levels of education, and subsequently lower status and lower-paying jobs. These negative life outcomes are also related to future reliance on government welfare payments. This research sought to identify how high school truancy affects young people's welfare receipt dynamics in emerging adulthood. It uses longitudinal data from a nationally representative household panel survey (the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey) to estimate the effect of truancy on young people's likelihood of receiving government-paid cash transfers in emerging adulthood. We find that young people who are truant are over four times more likely to receive cash transfers than young people who are not truant. Findings also show that the extent of truancy does not impact the likelihood of welfare receipt, even when differentiating between infrequent and problem truants. We conclude with some comments on truancy's role in welfare dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a reaction paper to the article in this issue of Research on Social Work Practice entitled Research to Consider While Effectively Redesigning Child Welfare Services by Richard P. Barth and colleagues. As such, it addresses two significant questions about the article. One question is: What are the methodological limitations? The second question is: What are the implications on the methodological limitations? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first two decades of the 20th century, the expansion of private foundations and philanthropic initiatives in the United States converged with a comprehensive, nationwide agenda of progressive education and post-war social reconstruction that situated childhood at its core. From 1924 to 1928, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial was the main foundation behind the aggressive, systematic funding of the child development movement in North America. A pioneering institution, the Institute of Child Welfare Research, established in 1924 at Columbia's Teachers College, was the first Rockefeller-funded programme of its kind at an American university. The Institute was influential in helping set up a nationwide network of child welfare institutes at other universities. Twelve years later, it would also be the first of those institutes to close. Nonetheless, the Institute's context, emergence, and development have been overlooked or misrepresented by previous scholarship, which calls for a new, critical historical analysis. By drawing on a number of archival sources and unpublished materials, this paper offers a critical reconstruction of the Institute's internal, often unstable history, emphasizing its origins, members, and administrative changes. I argue that the demise of the Institute should be understood in the context of both the revision of philanthropic policies in the late 1920s and the Institute's singular emphasis on teaching and training over research. The resulting narrative allows for a deeper, more informed understanding of both the Institute's origins and its eventual folding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although media influence has long been recognised within adoption, there has been relatively little research into the nature of coverage. This article focuses on press articles from five UK national daily newspapers and their Sunday sister papers in the years 2010‒2014. This broadly coincides with the period of Coalition Government in the UK and its focus on adoption reform. Findings reveal strong support for the Government's reform programme, its rationale within child welfare and many of its specific measures, but with some contrasts between individual newspapers and critical comment found almost entirely within one pairing. Particular themes concern excessive bureaucracy and politically motivated opposition to adoption. Race and ethnicity emerge as the most frequently covered issues, dominated by critique of barriers to transracial adoption. Principal themes are often developed with inaccurate, misleading or exaggerated reporting, which in turn raises the question of how adoption agencies might respond to this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]