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This study investigated social orphans through narratives of young people with experiences of growing up in institutional care in Latvia. The study uses the life histories of participants to explore the phenomenon of social orphans. To date, narratives about the lived experiences of social orphans in Latvia have been told in the third person, as most studies have used methodologies that kept participants passive rather than active.
The research process in this study recorded 19 care leavers’ life experiences in detail and covered three main life phases: 1) Prior to living in care; 2)…
The number of missing child reports exceed police investigative capacity, yet some incidents are linked with harm, making effective risk assessment essential for safeguarding. Police data likely underrepresents harm to missing children due to harm being undisclosed, and missing incidents going unreported. A better understanding of harm associated with missing children could help to develop appropriate interventions to reduce missing incidents and prevent harm.
This study examined 18 months of published Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews across England – a previously overlooked resource…
Background
Children being left behind (LBC) in their home countries due to parental emigration is a global issue. Research shows that parents’ emigration negatively affects children’s mental health and well-being. Despite a high number of LBC, there is a dearth of data from Eastern European countries. The present study aims to collect and analyse self-reported data on LBC emotional and behavioural problems and compare children’s reports with those of parents/caregivers.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was conducted in 24 Lithuanian schools, involving parents/…
This study reports results concerning close embodied practices, involving touch, in early childhood care settings in Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data—video recordings of everyday practices in contexts of childcare—were collected during various phases of the pandemic.
The study demonstrates a broad range of uses of touch, by adults and children themselves in various age groups and for various social purposes. Touch as embodied intimacy was initiated by educators, and by children, both within their peer group and towards educators.
Touch served the purposes of embodied…
Caring for a young child exposed to early trauma, along with caregiving stress and heightened by the impact of lockdowns as a result of the COVID-19 response, may compromise the development of the parent-child relationship. Understanding a foster carer's attachment history and considering relational dynamics through an attachment lens may shed light on areas they need support in, to enhance their parenting capacity for vulnerable children.
The feasibility of collecting and coding observational data and attachment interviews of foster carers and their children, when conducted remotely…
When teaching in or around the subject of care-experienced young people, it is important for information to be presented in a way that not only creates an understanding of the prevalence of care experience but also emphasises the myriad of life challenges associated with experiences of being involved in the care system.
It is known that out of the 12 million children living in England, just under 400,000 (3%) are known to the social care system at any one time and just over 82,000 of these children are ‘looked after’, under the legal guardianship of local authorities in England.
It will…
Young people who age out of state care are at risk of a range of negative outcomes. In England, national data provides only five indicators of care leavers’ lives and there are no measures of how young people themselves feel about their transition to adulthood. To fill this gap a new survey to measure subjective wellbeing was coproduced with 31 care leavers. The survey was then distributed by 21 local authorities and completed by 1804 care leavers.
The responses revealed a steep decline in wellbeing after leaving care, a wide variation in care leavers’ wellbeing depending on the local…
This Children’s Services Reform Research study is a Scotland-based research study which was undertaken by CELCIS, the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection.
CELCIS was asked by the Scottish Government in to carry out a research study to improve the understanding of current Children’s Services structures and delivery models in Scotland and how services can best support the needs of children, young people and their families. The research looked at how services are provided and configured in Scotland and drew on a range of international evidence too.
Taking a wide focus…
Context:
There has been increasing concern about the historic abuse of children in residential and foster care in countries around the world. Inquiries have taken place in a number of countries and measures have been put in place to address the needs of survivors of abuse in care. The focus of such inquiries and responses to historic abuse have varied significantly from country to country (Sköld and Swain, 2015; Wright, Swain and Sköld, 2020). In Scotland, there has – over the years – been a range of policy and practice developments aimed at safeguarding and protecting children in…
The objective of this paper is to further the understanding of young people’s experiences of out-of-home care (OHC) in Sweden. The focus will be on the tension between negative and positive experiences of OHC, refracted through the concept of liminality. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with 10 young people aged 15–22 (7 women, 3 men) with long-term contact with social services and psychiatric care. OHC can be experienced as a liminal space in both a negative and a positive sense.
It is negative when perceived as containment rather than meaningful treatment. It can also be…