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The early childhood years are pivotal as they mark the beginning of a young child's life journey into education. This paper offers critical reflections of the early childhood care and education landscape in Singapore as it has evolved over the last decade. The discussion will draw on findings of the study "Vital Voices for Vital Years 2" (2019) to explicate the issues, debates and challenges facing the early childhood care and education sector. It argues that recent developments in the sector with stepped increases in government funding and strategic policy development, augmented by the establishment of national agencies committed to improving the quality of care and education, have achieved significant milestones in the country. However, a more critical perspective of the role of early childhood in policy and practice to meet the diverse needs of young children and families is necessary for envisioning education as a pathway to inclusion and social equality, and for building a truly inclusive society.

Efforts of Ghanaian Universities and Colleges of Education in training pre-school teachers have been found inadequate and unable to meet their training needs. As a result, other private and non-governmental organisations have been contributing to the education of early childhood practitioners, although on pilot basis. Currently, most pre-school teachers remain untrained. Using the Cultural Historical Activity Theory as a Framework, this paper proposes a contextual approach to pre-school teacher education using radio as a training tool for teachers. The radio is easily accessible, handy, far reaching to remote rural settlements (than the Internet) and low in cost. It is suggested that as in other community radio efforts it should be localised so the community "runs" their own stations. Specific programmes should be devoted to topics on child development, child survival, early childhood pedagogy and other practical issues relevant to pre-school classrooms. The paper concludes by suggesting periodic community (of stakeholders) meetings to form a support group.

Research on the intersection between migration management and child protection is limited and, yet, contradictions between these two domains and ambivalence in the area of child migrants' rights across the developed world have already been highlighted. Based on fieldwork with policymakers and service providers in Albania, a middle-to-high income country with a significant history of emigration, this paper aims to shed light on the interaction of these institutional and policy domains and the impact they have on professional practice. The State's impact on migrant children's rights at the domestic level is affected by the resourcefulness of its system of social and child protection. This key factor appears to affect the work of professionals on the ground and ultimately mean a variety of categories of child migrants have limited access to child protection services. Professional practice in this context highlights the need to include material dimensions--the resources needed to realise child protection on the ground--in its definition, and to consider the impact of multi-scalar influences on service providers' work. The two domains of migration management and child protection appear to converge in the case of unaccompanied minors (UAMs). In turn, stateless, returned migrant children and those from very disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds are overlooked, giving rise to unequal access to state support. Nonetheless, an overall disjuncture appears in the context of transnational child protection, due to the rigid focus on nationality as a precondition for state support.

The emergence and subsequent decline of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria provides new challenges for Western governments facing the return of foreign fighters and their families to home soil. This article focuses on the children of returned foreign fighters and more specifically on the international responsibility to provide all children, particularly those most vulnerable and in need, with an education. A critical discourse analysis of public debates surrounding the return of the children of Australian foreign fighters illustrates the tension that exists between the rights of children, citizenship and a nation's capacity to overcome a culture of fear. We argue that we are currently witnessing the emergence of a new type of human being; a particularly insidious and dangerous form of 'child citizen refugee'. The paper employs fear as a symptom of modern life and Arendt's poignant lesson of exclusion and persecution to investigate why the children of returning foreign fighters may be denied the right to an inclusive education. We argue that fear is the antithesis of inclusive education and highlight how ill-equipped we are to overcome the ubiquity of fear to engage in an ethical project of educational inclusion for these children.

The recognition of social work as a writing-intensive profession is the first step needed to bridge the divide between academic and practice writing. The demonstration of persuasive writing skills rarely achieves a highly-ranked social work curriculum priority despite the recognition by faculty that these skills are essential for effective practice. This paper features curriculum examples that incorporate persuasive writing skills, the use of related rubrics, a proposed framework for bridging the gap between academic and practice writing, and a comprehensive illustration of persuasive writing in the form of a child welfare court report. It concludes with recommendations for enhancing student writing skills.

The paper explores what lies behind the development of Sámi child protection services in practice. The study is an empirical investigation of how policymakers and child welfare leaders reflect on the challenges and opportunities in this field. All the twelve participants in the study worked in northernmost counties of Norway that are part of the Sámi-language administrative district. Although Norwegian regulation is clear when it comes to the cultural and linguistic rights of Sámi children, it is hard for child welfare services to adhere to this in practice. In this article, the focus is on one important aspect that we argue contributes to this situation, which we refer to as "invisible differentness". Due to the historical misuse of ethnic information in Norway, there is no practice of recording Sámi ethnicity in Norwegian censuses. This makes the Sámi population invisible in both statistics and the Norwegian child welfare system, whose administrative branch does not ask about indigenous status. As such, the administrative system does not help child welfare services to consider Sámi identity when meeting with Sámi children and families. As a result, it is up to the caseworker and his or her personal knowledge of the family to preserve the children's rights to recognition and protection of their Sámi culture and language. This creates a vulnerable situation for Sámi children and families and the protection of their rights. The authors argue for the importance of including ethnicity in the administrative language and system of child welfare services.

This article presents critical commentary on the relationship between wider policy in Ireland for children, and the practice of social workers and social care workers who work with children on the ground level. An overview of the current policy context for children is achieved through a focused commentary on the literature. This operates around three broad themes. First, the pervasive influence of a children's rights paradigm on policy in Ireland must be accounted for. Second, policy that is manifest as a feature of regulation, audit, accountability and compliance culture is considered. Finally, an overview of key policy related to specific areas of practice with children in Ireland is mapped out. Following a review of the literature, the utility of a Jansson ([2017]. "Empowerment series: Becoming an effective policy advocate" (8th ed.). Boston: Centage Learning) Framework of Policy-Practice is explored for practitioners who seek to make better links between policy and their practice in the field. The proposition is that the Framework offers one theoretical mechanism for practitioners who are concerned with strengthening policy and practice links. The discussion in this paper is timely and relevant in the context of increasing external regulation defined by a cultural shift towards audit, compliance and accountability, and related processes of professionalisation. To date, development of literature in Ireland for social professionals on the relationship between policy and practice remains broadly neglected.

This paper uses first person inquiry and presentational form to argue the case for a sensory approach to understanding professional connection and disconnection with children who may be being abused. The approach is underpinned by an epistemology or theory of knowledge which stems from a participatory world-view where appearances are not permanent or separate from us: the act of perception takes place between the active sensible world and our own bodies, where "otherness" expresses itself directly to our senses. Thus perception, conceived in this way, can lead to right action in the moment; or discounting what is actually being said by a child and disconnection. Buber's notion of the "I-You" is used to explore feelings and the movement to relation when professionals witness children's "stories of suffering" (Buber, 1965; Laub, 1992; Jones, 2008). The paper concludes by arguing the case for practitioners to become researchers of their own practice in rigorously facilitated inquiry groups. It is argued that this form of practitioner-research serves to quality assure frontline practice, and create new knowledge (or practice wisdom) such that feelings can be constructively worked with to improve connection with the lived reality for children.

Background: Though evidence-based policy (EBP) has attracted considerable attention from the public, academics, and governments, prior studies have revealed little about how political parties, institutions, and policy context shape the adoption and implementation of these policies in the American states. Aims and objectives: Develop objective criteria for measuring these policies, as well as a hierarchy which describes the features that make some policies more advanced. This paper presents the first comprehensive study on EBP in the American states. Methods: Using assessments by the Pew and MacArthur foundations to measure EBP in the states for four topics: criminal justice, juvenile justice, behavioural health, and child welfare. Assess the relationship between EBP use and state political and institutional factors. Results: Democratic governors, Republican legislatures, state innovativeness are significant predictors of EBP engagement. Discussion and conclusions: This research makes a substantial contribution to the study of EBP and opens new avenues for future research on the political, cultural, and institutional factors that influence EBP adoption and implementation. In an era of extreme partisanship, our study finds that EBP is a policy niche where actors and institutions across political parties use research evidence to inform effective and efficient policies in ways that maximise the electoral incentives that such policies can offer.

The article highlights the ratification of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in Jordan in 1999. CRC stands at critical crossroads that will determine whether it will end up as just another declaration of noble intentions or a genuinely effective tool for enhancing the well-being of children. The clearest manifestation of the government's top-level political commitment to children has been through Jordan's early ratification of the CRC, and Their Majesties' explicit endorsement of the nation's duty to address issues pertaining to children's well-being: in a monarchical political system as Jordan's, Royal Patronage of a cause is usually crucial to its success. Children have also been described by the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the youth of the future. Even before having ratified the CRC had been part of various regional initiatives aimed at improving social planning and education for children. It has also been signatory to the Charter of the Rights of the Arab Child since it was enacted in December 1984. In this sense, adopting the CRC for Jordan can be seen as an extension of an already existing and active commitment to child welfare. Within Jordanian Arab society, a religious, moral, humanitarian and cultural significance is also attached to children, with a corresponding duty towards their welfare and well-being. Culturally, the child is seen as the crucial generational link in the family unit, the key to its continuation, the living person that ties the present to the past and to the future. A lot of importance is attached to education in particular, as it is perceived to be a source of security for the child within an economically and politically insecure regional context. Such attitudes are important in the sense that they reflect the prevailing value-base towards children in Jordanian society, and their position within the family and community.

Social workers are constantly predicting the future. In England and Wales there is a legal duty on them to do so, as the 1989 Children Act requires workers to assess not only whether children "have" suffered significant harm, but also whether they are "likely" to do so. Similarly, in Northern Ireland social workers are required by The Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 to do the same. On a more mundane level, social workers are constantly making predictions about whether a parent might use and benefit from a particular service, whether there will be a further incident of domestic violence or even whether a family will be in (or not) for a home visit. Yet predicting the future is hard and doing so with complete accuracy is impossible. Social work is not the only area where prediction is necessary. In the "Good Judgment Project," forecasts made by experts were found, over relatively long timeframes, to be no better than chance. On the other hand, some forecasters were able to outperform not only chance but also highly trained intelligence analysts with access to classified data. Clearly, human judgment is often highly fallible but, in the right conditions, can be incredibly helpful. Might it be possible to improve social work forecasts about the future? This paper considers key issues in theorising prediction in social work, including conceptions of risk, free will and self-determination. It then turns to practical issues, such as the relationship between forecasting and decision-making, and considers some possible research methods and issues associated with them. To illustrate the potential of this approach we describe how we have started to explore the face-validity value of this approach with social workers and how we have measured the accuracy of forecasting in social work.

Through a Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS), this systematic literature review explores the role of the Educational Psychologist (EP) in relation to child protection and safeguarding as it has been conceptualised within the research base over time. Key databases were searched and a conceptual map, informed by experienced EPs, guided further purposive searching with a focus on conceptual saturation. 24 papers across multiple areas of child protection and safeguarding work were included. Drawing on wider debates, it is suggested that changing legislative and socio-political climates have resulted in a shift within the research base from 'thinking about doing' towards 'thinking about thinking', where a safeguarding agenda is prioritised and there is less focus on child protection. Implications for EPs' practice with children and families are considered, and further opportunities for research suggested.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) has risen up the global advocacy agenda and is recognized as an important child-safeguarding issue. The topic crystallizes key debates in my module, "Culture and Development in Africa," and enables Geography undergraduates to explore complex intersections of childhood, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity in diverse African communities. In this paper, in light of in my efforts to teach for social transformation, I reflect on the inquiry-based learning approach I adopt and on its potential benefits. Conscious of postcolonial feminist critiques of processes of racialized "Othering", I discuss dilemmas about how to frame FGM/C and support students' critical engagement with the conflicting, sometimes confusing, discourses of cultural relativism and universal human rights. I seek to foster independent learning and research skills using a "real world" NGO assignment. Qualitative feedback suggests students develop more in-depth subject-knowledge, reflections on the ethics of "development", changes in self-theories and gain important skilful practices that may enhance their employability. Linking my teaching to my work with a charity tackling FGM/C has enabled co-learners to regard this as both a cultural practice that affects "distant others", and as a form of gender-based heteronormative violence and child abuse that has resonance in the local community.

The Program of Intervention for Prevention of Institutionalization (P.I.P.P.I.) is a programme that integrates research, training, and intervention in working with families living in vulnerable situations. It is funded by the Italian Ministry of Welfare and, since 2011, has cumulatively involved roughly 8000 professionals from Social and Health Services and Schools, as well as 4000 children and their families in more than 200 territories across Italy. P.I.P.P.I. focuses on supporting children and families through multi-professional, holistic, and resilience-based interventions, in order to reduce child neglect. Bronfenbrenner's ecology of human development and its definition of neglect are the rationale for the programme, and discussing the theories on community and community capacity linked with resilience theory, this paper reflects on enabling community as an approach to alleviating social disadvantage and promoting child, family, and community wellbeing and resilience. The cases of two territories in Southern Italy will be presented and reviewed in order to illustrate how the service-school-family relationship was promoted within a resilience community approach. Using information from meetings, focus-groups with professionals, and document reviews, programme implementation will be presented and discussed to explore how the governance of social services and school-based service providers make decisions and organize activities to facilitate participation by children, parents, teachers, and social professionals, enabling more community development. Implications for practice, policy and research are highlighted.

Public inquiries in the child welfare field are employed as a mechanism to bring attention to policy and practice issues and soothe public concerns at failures in the care and protection of children. The paper addresses the question of whether the inquiry is a worthwhile arena for researchers who wish to see their findings used to inform policy. The paper draws on the Victorian Inquiry into Vulnerable Children and the Northern Territory inquiries into child abuse to inform the discussion. Our conclusions are that the inquiry mode, whilst unpredictable is too important a public policy tool for researchers to ignore.

People with intellectual impairments are recognised as having communication difficulties and even people with mild intellectual impairments can be challenged by complex language and limited literacy. The focus of this paper is parents who have learning disabilities, outlining a novel approach to support them in stressful case conference situations. Parents with intellectual impairments are frequently the subject of multiple interventions, case conferences and legal proceedings which challenge their communicative capacity. Case conferences often involve professionals with little or no experience of learning disability, including social workers and lawyers. The language in these case conferences can have complex sentence structure, low frequency legal vocabulary and difficult concepts, which are challenging for learning disabled parents to follow. The Communication Facilitator role is a recently developed approach to supporting parents in case conferences, aimed at enabling LD parents to understand and contribute to the proceedings. This paper reports the motivation and practical issues in developing the role, and the use of Communication Facilitator in child protection meetings where there are high stakes for not understanding, resulting in the potential removal of children from the parental home.

The Signs of Safety approach to child protection has been gaining prominence around the world and this approach has developed through learning from good practice. Generally, examples of good practice are derived from adults who pose a risk to children, while this paper outlines an example of good practice that engages an adolescent in building a safety plan. It addresses the balance needed to be struck between the complex nature of addressing concerns and developing a rigorous safety plan while not shaming the young person and creating resistance or avoidance. This paper therefore sets out how the Signs of Safety approach can be synthesised with narrative practice to create an effective approach in working with young people. Using the externalising process along with re-membering conversations, positive alternative stories can be created about the young person's identity that support desistance and promote engagement with the authorities. A case example is used to demonstrate this synthesis where a young person has displayed harmful sexual behaviour towards a child. Consideration is given as to how this approach reduces shame-inducing practice often associated with statutory child protection processes. It concludes with the potential for such an approach to be applied more widely to working with young people.

In spite of research demonstrating conceptual weakness in many child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention programmes and outdated modes of delivery, students continue to participate in a diversity of initiatives. Referring to the development of a games-based approach to CSA prevention in Australia, this paper examines empirically based attributes of effective CSA prevention programmes for schools including contemporary pedagogies for learning. The paper draws on findings to inform the conceptual development phase of Orbit, an online, free and equal-access, games-based educational approach to CSA prevention for children aged 8-10 years. First, the paper provides a review of CSA prevention in schools and games-based approaches to key learnings in prevention. Second, an overview of Orbit (the Feeling Safe sexual abuse prevention project) is provided. Finally, implications for the development of games-based prevention programmes are offered and an argument is made for the advancement of games-based prevention resources.

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This article reports on research regarding interprofessional education (IPE) in child welfare conducted in 2009 and 2010. Pre service nursing, social worker and teacher education candidates participated in a workshop that "exposed" (Charles, Bainbridge & Gilbert, 2010) students to IPE in child welfare. This paper addresses a gap in literature in IPE in child welfare. Literature in IPE precedes a description of the workshop followed by an explanation of the integrated expert presentation, case study, modeling, reflection and small and large group processes. Results of the survey administered to workshop attendees are presented. Likert scaled questions indicate a high degree of satisfaction with the workshop organization, pedagogy and objectives. Responses to the open-ended questions align closely with the Thistlethwaite and Moran (2010) learning outcomes framework. It is clear that pre-service students learned with, from and about each other's discipline. 2 tables and an extensive reference list are included.

This paper details the socio-legal factors that shape the relationship between the child, the family, and the state, and the ways unaccompanied migrant children's lives have come to be defined and contested. The legal identity of migrant children is socially situated within a history that intertwines social movements of helping professionals, legal jurisdictions characterized by increasingly intolerant approaches to juveniles, and shifts in the treatment of unauthorized migrant youth under immigration law over time. In a globalized world, this triangular relationship between children, families, and the state becomes increasingly complex and dynamic. Social policies and legal norms often lag far behind the diverse and fluid domestic arrangements of transnational family ties. The article begins by tracing how the creation of the juvenile court and the emergence of the tutelary complex have radically shifted the notion of migrant children as legal subjects in the United States. Through the legal case of Polovchak v. Meese and the advent of the Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status, the author argues that the law and institutional practices ensnare youth between competing allegiances to the state and to the family. It is critical to understand the gravity of these forces on the ways youth navigate the complex and uneven terrain of everyday life.

Between 65 and 70 percent of youth in the juvenile justice system have mental health disorders, with some studies estimating that at least 20 percent of these youth have severe disorders that significantly impair functioning. Many of these youth are entitled to adequate and responsive mental health services through federal programs like Medicaid's Early Periodic Screening Diagnosis and Treatment Program (EPSDT), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504). Despite these entitlements to care, by and large, the systems that serve youth fail to provide mental health services that address the individualized needs of justice-involved youth. There is tremendous potential for advocates and system actors to use these entitlements to get youth individualized, appropriate care. Each actor in the juvenile justice system can play a critical role in helping to ensure youth get the services they need. This paper will discuss how advocates and court partners can better meet the mental health needs of children in the juvenile justice system through these entitlements.

This paper presents a protocol for a funded study of technical assistance strategies used to support the use of evidence, and, in particular, how participatory processes contribute to the use of evidence to improve outcomes for populations. Findings from the study will increase understanding of the relationships between technical assistance, stakeholder participation and evidence use in child and family services. The authors argue that publishing such a protocol can increase transparency between researchers and practitioners and raise awareness of the need for research on how stakeholder participation can strengthen evidence use in child welfare service settings. The authors also reflect on the potential value and limitations of published protocols. This study will systematically gather input from stakeholders with expertise in technical assistance to develop a compilation of strategies that can be used to support the use of evidence. The study will identify strategies that include stakeholder involvement and assess which strategies under what conditions facilitated the use of research evidence. The study will address four research questions: What technical assistance strategies are used to support the use of research evidence? What are the consensus-driven terms and definitions of identified strategies? To what extent do technical assistance strategies involve stakeholders and for what purpose?

Introduction: Negative parental behaviour is among the significant risk factors that can have a negative impact on an individual's development. In certain contexts, when appropriate protective factors are available, individuals deal with adversity better and it does not come to a decrease in their social performance nor their achievement in various spheres of life. Purpose: The purpose of the presented paper is to provide a literature review on the role of resilience in dealing with harsh circumstances when negative parental behaviour occurs in a family. Methods: In the study, the traditional desk research method was used to gather data. Conclusions: Exposure to negative parental behaviour -- including abuse and neglect, as well as domestic violence, can have detrimental consequences for children's health and welfare. Under such circumstances, protective factors available to children play a significant role. Exposure to negative parental behaviour, including abuse and neglect, as well as domestic violence, can have detrimental consequences for children's health and welfare. Under such circumstances, protective factors available to children play a significant role. If a family fails to protect a child or even represents a risk factor in the child's life, the importance of other social institutions, such as schools, church, peer groups, etc., increases, as both internal and external protective factors are important. They can provide children at risk with support, help them develop own coping strategies and foster their resilience in order to overcome significant adversity in their families without serious harm. An individual's resilience is a decisive factor in the process of dealing with threatening situations.

Background: Foster parents experience multiple challenges; however, managing problematic child behaviors can be especially difficult. Given the ecological nature of challenges associated with fostering, it is imperative that researchers identify means for combatting foster parent stress and factors that may contribute to placement disruption. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of social support for foster parents, in regards to confidence and satisfaction, as well as perceived challenges with fostering. Additionally, social support was evaluated as a moderator between reported child behaviors and foster parents' confidence and satisfaction with fostering. Method: This study included 155 licensed foster caregivers across the United States. Participants completed standardized measures (i.e., child behaviors, satisfaction and challenges as a foster parent, social support) through an online survey after being recruited via social media. Variables were analyzed through simple and hierarchal linear regressions. Results: Findings indicate that social support significantly predicted confidence and satisfaction as a foster parent; intensity of child behaviors is negatively associated with confidence as a foster parent and positively associated with an overall perception of challenges related to fostering; and social support moderates the relationship between perceived problem with child behaviors and perceived challenging aspects of fostering. Conclusion: This study indicates social support may be a protective factor for foster parents in regards to child behaviors and challenges associated with fostering. Social support is linked to variables that directly influence placement stability.

Aim: Corporate parenting in the UK may not be well-operationalised, with a potential role for educational psychologists (EPs) in promoting effective practice. This paper explores care leavers' needs and priorities from the perspective of self-determination theory (SDT), which relates the individual's motivation to the human need for competence, relatedness and autonomy. Method: Ten young people aged 16-19 from two UK local authorities were interviewed about their priorities in preparing for adulthood. Interview findings were then deductively analysed using a SDT framework. Findings: Interviews highlighted the young people's preference for graduated transition to adulthood. Analysis showed relatedness to be the most salient SDT domain, foregrounding the importance of consistent, authentic and personalised relationships. Consistent relationships motivated care leavers to engage with support and to pursue post-16 goals with enhanced self-determination. Conversely, gaps in young people's support networks undermined service engagement, potentially impeding a supported and successful transition to adulthood. Limitations: The study was small-scale and the age range, demographics and quality of leaving care support may not have been representative of a wider population. Conclusions: SDT is potentially useful for highlighting care leavers' needs and priorities when preparing for adulthood, with clear implications for corporate parenting, particularly within the relatedness domain. A possible role for EPs is proposed, which could strengthen service delivery through both systemic and individual work.

Cross-system collaborations are central to the provision of services for young children with disabilities who have experienced abuse. While multiple position papers and policy briefs emphasize and encourage these cross-system collaborations between the Early Intervention and Child Welfare systems, very limited empirical research has examined these collaborations. This intrinsic case study examines Jocelin, a young child who experienced abuse, her family, and the EI and CW professionals who support her and her family. We share three case study 'patches' to examine the approach to, as well as the quality and quantity of EI and CW services provided to Jocelin and her family. Implications for future research are discussed.

Increasing the participation of children and young people in matters related to their care and aftercare is regarded as international best practice. While research demonstrates that children and young people benefit from involvement in care-related processes, participation continues to pose challenges for social work practitioners. Studies to date have tended to focus on in-care engagement and, consequently, relatively little is known about the experiences of young people as they age out of care, particularly in terms of their perceived involvement and engagement in the planning-to-leave care process. This paper examines young people's experiences of the aftercare planning process in Ireland drawing on data from the first phase of a qualitative longitudinal study of young people leaving care. Sixteen participants were recruited at baseline and interviewed in-depth. The approach to interviewing was flexible and encouraged participants to talk about their experiences of care and the aftercare planning process. The findings indicate considerable diversity in how young people experience and attach meaning to the transition out of care. They also reveal complexities surrounding youth participation in the leaving care planning process and uncover a number of distinct facilitators and barriers to participation. Conclusions are drawn and the implications for practice are discussed.

Internationally, reviews of educational outcomes of children in care reveal consistent findings highlighting the need for considerable policy attention to be paid to their education to ensure they achieve optimal economic and psychosocial life outcomes. Important to enhancing the educational achievement of children in care are support, stability of environment, teaching resources and the recognition by all stakeholders -- birth parents, foster carers, social workers and statutory authorities -- that education is paramount to a child's future well-being. This paper highlights the perspectives of carers, teachers and children on the fostering experience with particular focus on educational outcomes drawing on a prospective longitudinal study of children in long-term care. Using a multimethod, repeated measures multi-informant design, children were assessed by carers and teachers using the Achenbach Child Behaviour Checklist and its companion, the Teacher Report. The findings indicate demonstrated gains in terms of improved scores and adaptive functioning at subsequent assessments following two years of stable care. Discussion of the findings and implications for practice will focus on the need for a coordinated strategy to improve placement continuity and focused professional and organisational support with respect to the emotional and educational needs of children in care.

Background: While child welfare scholarship has paid much attention to workforce well-being such as burnout, secondary traumatic stress (STS), and compassion satisfaction, few studies have investigated how these outcomes influence utilization of casework skills., Objectives: This study aimed to understand the relationship between child welfare workforce well-being and use of casework skills. Specifically, we examined associations between burnout, STS, and compassion satisfaction and casework skills including parent/youth engagement, safety and risk assessment/case planning, and relative/kin connections., Participants and Setting: Participants comprised 786 child welfare direct service workers and supervisors in a Midwestern state., Method: Using a repeated cross-sectional design, data were collected via online surveys. Multivariate regression tested relationships between measures of well-being and casework skills., Results: First, higher compassion satisfaction was positively associated (p = 0.000, f 2  = 0.14) while higher burnout (p = 0.000, f 2  = 0.04) and STS (p = 0.002, f 2  = 0.01) were negatively associated with use of engagement skills. Similarly, higher compassion satisfaction was positively associated (p = 0.000, f 2  = 0.18) and higher burnout (p = 0.000, f 2  = 0.06) and STS (p = 0.001, f 2  = 0.02) were negatively associated with use of assessment/case planning skills. Lastly, compassion satisfaction (p = 0.000, f 2  = 0.06) was positively associated and burnout was negatively associated (p = 0.000, f 2  = 0.02) with relative/kin connections., Conclusion: Child welfare workforce well-being may influence use of casework skills. More research is needed to understand how positive workforce well-being impacts service delivery and, ultimately, child and family outcomes., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. This study was part of a grant funded by the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under grant number 90-CO-1139. The paper's contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Children's Bureau., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

This paper examines multidimensional poverty among children in Afghanistan using the Alkire-Foster method. Several previous studies have underlined the need to separate children from their adult nexus when studying poverty and treat them according to their own specificities. From the capability approach, child poverty is understood to be the lack of freedom to do and to be what children themselves value and have reason to value. The case of Afghanistan is particularly relevant as years of conflict aggravated by several severe droughts, political insecurity, bad governance and ongoing violence have significantly increased poverty in the country. The paper discusses the relevant dimensions when analysing child poverty and uses data from a survey carried out by Handicap International which contains information on dimensions of children's wellbeing that is typically missing in standard surveys. Ten dimension are considered in this paper: health, care and love, material deprivation, food security, social inclusion, education, freedom from economic and non-economic exploitation, shelter and environment, autonomy, and mobility. Our results show that younger children, those living in rural areas, girls and disabled children are the most deprived.