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The purpose of this study was to describe how fathers (n = 263) spent time with their preschool-age children and to compare it in different family structures. Data were gathered by structured questionnaires. The instrument included five categories of variables for the time spent: the quantity of time, physical activities, fathers' attitude towards interaction with children, time spent on other activities and conflicts related to the time spent. Fathers' family structure was associated with father-child involvement. Divorced fathers and fathers in non-traditional families appreciated interaction with children more compared with fathers in traditional families. The findings can be used to develop the knowledge base on fathers and to further develop practical measures and forms of support.

The present study was designed to shed light on the relation between parenting stress, father's alcohol use, child characteristics and father's engagement and availability. The study cohort comprised 821 fathers of preschool children in Finland. Parenting stress and child's mood, acceptability and demandingness were related to father's engagement to the preschooler and to the extent of the father's availability. Parenting stress began a cycle of alcohol abuse and child-negative characteristics, and eventually led to a decrease in joint father-child activities, father's feeling of compulsory engagement, daily conflict situations, difficulty in including the child in everyday activities and a reduction in the amount of time spent directly or indirectly together. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)

Parental empowerment plays an essential role in maternity and child healthcare. Professionals delivering these services are ideally placed to improve parents' empowerment and well-being. This study aims to describe the supporting factors of parental empowerment from the perspective of self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, or queer (LGBTQ) parents in Finland. The study was conducted using a qualitative inductive design, and 22 parents participated. Interviews were conducted between July and September of 2016 and analysed using inductive content analysis. Four categories emerged: 1) Parents' willingness to create socially recognized families, 2) Parenthood support, 3) Respectful partnership with all parents, and 4) Accessible services. Services were more empowering when parents were treated with dignity. This focus requires gender-neutral communication and a clear sense of security for parents. The findings indicate more education on LGBTQ-related issues is still needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents results from Finland's 2018 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth. It mentions indicators on the basis of which grades are assigned including organized sport participation, active transportation, and sedentary behavior. The report card reveals that governmental support for physical activity (PA) promotion among school-aged children and youth in Finland during past few years has been stronger than ever before.

The study explored how collaboration management is connected with employee views of work and skills in the health care, social welfare, and education sectors that provide services for children and families in municipalities. Collaboration management in children and family services involves increasing awareness of services, organizing agreed collaboration practices, overcoming barriers to collaboration, managing difficult relationships with coworkers, and contributing purposively to the functionality of collaboration. Data were gathered using a postal survey. The sample consisted of 457 employees working in the health care, social welfare, and educational settings in Finnish municipalities. Overall, the results suggested that collaboration management is related to employees' positive views of work and versatile skills. Good awareness of services, well agreed-upon collaboration practices, and well-functioning collaboration were associated with employees' influence over their own work, social support being received from managers, a perception of leadership justice, employee collaboration skills, and employee retention. On the other hand, barriers to collaboration seemed to reduce employees' influence over their own work, social support, perceptions of leadership justice, collaboration skills, and employee retention. The findings indicate the need for effective collaboration management in multidisciplinary environments between the health care, social welfare, and education sectors that provide services for children and families to achieve employees' positive views of work and versatile skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Reinforcement of parental empowerment is a guiding principle in family services. It is shown that more empowered employees are more likely to empower their clients, which, in turn, produces better service system outcomes. Objective: This study examined how employees reinforce parental empowerment, and how cooperative working practices in family services and empowerment in management support employees in empowering parents. Methods: The study was conducted using a cross-sectional survey design. Data were gathered using postal surveys from employees working in health care, social welfare and education settings. In total, 457 employees responded. Results: Employees reinforced parental empowerment rather well. We found a positive relationship between co-operative working practices, empowerment in management and employees possibilities to reinforce parents’ empowerment in their work. Conclusions: Empowerment in management and co-operative working practices, like well-functioning cooperation and employee awareness of available services, are key elements for supporting employees to reinforce parental empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Janus is the property of Sosiaalipoliittinen yhdistys and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Introduction: Children and their families use a lot of different services, which poses challenges in terms of cooperation between service providers. The purpose of the study was to evaluate and compare the functioning of this cooperation between services for children and families in Finland's mainland municipalities from the viewpoints of employees and managers. Method: The study was carried out using a cross-sectional survey design. Data were gathered using two postal surveys from employees and managers working in health care, social welfare and educational settings. The data consisted of responses from 457 employees and 327 managers. Results: Employees working in primary health care and education services assessed cooperation as working better than did those working in social welfare, special health care or mental health and substance abuse services. Well-functioning cooperation at the operational and strategic level was related to good awareness of services and to agreed and well-functioning cooperation practices with few barriers to cooperation. Employees were more critical than managers concerning the occurrence of barriers and about the agreed cooperation practices. Conclusions: Successful cooperation in providing services for children and families requires an awareness of services, management structures that support cooperation, agreed practices and efforts to overcome barriers to cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hoitotiede is the property of Hoitotieteiden Tutkimusseura HTTS r.y. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Hoitotiede is the property of Hoitotieteiden Tutkimusseura HTTS r.y. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Hoitotiede is the property of Hoitotieteiden Tutkimusseura HTTS r.y. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Hoitotiede is the property of Hoitotieteiden Tutkimusseura HTTS r.y. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Despite the fact that father—child involvement has extensive effects on the health and well-being of the family, there is a paucity of research on fathers’ presence in health care research. The design and development of an instrument for assessing the characteristics of fathers’ availability and engagement with their preschool-aged children in Finland is presented. Data collection was undertaken in two separate periods involving 263 and 821 fathers. Results indicate that the father—child instrument (FCI) is ready for use in research seeking to assess fathers’ availability and engagement with their preschoolers. Further research is nonetheless required to assess the potential for a more sensitive interaction and for the generalization of the FCI. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present study was designed to shed light on the relation between parenting stress, father's alcohol use, child characteristics and father's engagement and availability. The study cohort comprised 821 fathers of preschool children in Finland. Parenting stress and child's mood, acceptability and demandingness were related to father's engagement to the preschooler and to the extent of the father's availability. Parenting stress began a cycle of alcohol abuse and child-negative characteristics, and eventually led to a decrease in joint father–child activities, father's feeling of compulsory engagement, daily conflict situations, difficulty in including the child in everyday activities and a reduction in the amount of time spent directly or indirectly together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction and aim: Several countries have been reforming services promoting the health, welfare, growth and learning of children and young people. The national structures of guidance of the services have also been transformed and there is lack of comparative knowledge about the present ministry structures across the countries. The aim of this study is to explore which ministries are guiding the organization of children and young people's services in eleven countries: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. These countries were included in the study because they have developed integrating services. The study is part of a larger study funded by Finnish Government's analysis, assessment and research activities. Methods: The scoping review was used. Search engine and database searches were made but the majority of the literature was found by using the so-called hand search. That information was sought from the websites of governments and other authorities in selected countries. Results: The most typical structure was that the services of children and young people were under the guidance of several separate ministries. In five countries, there was a Ministry of Children Denmark, Ireland, Norway and New Zealand or Ministry of Children and Families Germany. The Minister for Children and youth existed in five countries Denmark, Ireland, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden, and the Minister for Children and Family affairs in further two countries Germany and England. However, Ministry or Minister of Children or Family affairs did not have the responsibility on all the services of children and young people. For example, in England, the Minister for Children and Families was not responsible for children's health services. In Ireland, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs has been set up in 2011, and it is responsible for reforming children and family services. They have a shared goal of a common policy on children and family, which means close cooperation between all the ministries related to children's and young people's issues. For example, such a body is the Children and Young People's Policy Consortium, which has actors from five different ministries. Discussion and conclusions: It is important to identify all the ministries whose responsibilities include issues of children, youth and families. Furthermore, there is a need for the harmonisation of policy and provision across Government in most countries. This includes e.g. national children's strategy as well as novel cooperation structures to ensure the integrity of guidance on children's and young people's services. Limitations: One limitation of the review is a conceptual challenge: the concepts of "integration" and "children's services" are problematic, and the spectrum of related concepts is extensive and definitions vary from country to country. Another limitation was the fact that knowledge of children and young people's services seems to be fragmented. Suggestions for future research: Further study is needed on statutory and non-statutory guidance on the service integration in the field of children's and young people's services in different countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Describe empowerment in maternity and child healthcare from the perspective of self‐identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, or queer (LGBTQ) parents in Finland. Background: Parental empowerment is a core aspect of maternity and child healthcare. However, knowledge about LGBTQ parents' perceptions about empowerment is still lacking. Method: Qualitative design, 22 parents participating. The interviews were conducted in between July and September 2016 and analysed using inductive content analysis. Findings Three core categories emerged as follows: (a) recognition and acknowledgment, particularly being treated as a parent, irrespective of any biological or legal ties to a child; (b) cooperation and interaction, such as working together, respecting parents' autonomy, and supporting parents' full involvement; (c) equitable care, such as parents' trust in services, but also a health‐care professional's knowledge of a family's special needs. Conclusion: Empowerment was perceived as the parents' sense of being visible and recognized as a parent. This recognition requires education and structures that are inclusive of all families. In addition, the language used by professionals was a key indicator for promoting positive feelings of comfort and safety for all families. SUMMARY STATEMENT: What is already known about this topic? Parental empowerment plays an essential role in enhancing the well‐being of all families.It is a collaborative process, through which parents access knowledge, skills, and resources that enable them to gain positive control over their lives and those of their children.How parents appraise their own ability and confidence to manage their children positively impacts their children's services and their growth environment. What this paper adds? Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, or queer (LGBTQ) parent empowerment is related to gender and recognition of the parental role and its acknowledgement in health‐care services.Inclusive language and professional knowledge about LGBTQ parenting issues are key factors for positive parental empowerment.A lack of acknowledgement of poor past experiences or concerns related to discrimination in healthcare requires skills to successfully negotiate the heteronormative health‐care system, and that lack may affect parents' trust in delivered services and later even parental empowerment related to those services. The implications of this paper: More importance should be attached to the needs and challenges of LGBTQ families in delivery of maternity and child healthcare services.There is a need to develop nursing care strategies directly aimed at improving LGBTQ parental empowerment.Increasing familiarity with the terminologies and language used within LGBTQ families and parenthood can help create safer, more inclusive environments in practice. Understanding the barriers to healthcare faced by many LGBTQ parents may also reduce the likelihood of perpetuating discriminatory behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing need for support and the fragmented nature of the service system challenge us to develop services for children and their families. Child and family services are provided by the public, private and third sectors, which according to research have little or no reciprocal co-operation. The review produced information on co-operation interventions used by service providers in the field of health care, social care and education. The current evidence base is too heterogeneous and sparse to draw conclusions on the overall effectiveness of interventions to co-operation. Further high quality studies examining the effectiveness of co-operation interventions are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]