Displaying 1 - 10 of 17
Abstract
Multiple obstacles exist to introducing evidence‐based methods in social work practice. The study directly interacts with social work practice and maps the interventions practice prioritizes when supporting children or parents. Specifically, the study examines service users' and practitioners' assessment of the feasibility of systematically evaluated interventions in the everyday life of foster care families. To integrate the different perspectives, we use a three‐step process comprising a systematic review of interventions for children in foster care, a literature review of…
Abstract
Inspired by Merton and Barber’s sociological theory on ambivalence, this article analyses ‘co-parenting’ between foster parents and birth parents as prototypes of ambivalent relationships; that is, relationships based on incompatible role requirements. This incompatibility is rooted in the conflicts between (a) the professional role of foster carers and their emotional involvement in the child in their care, and (b) the status of birth parents as ‘failed parents’ (from the perspective of the authorities) and their continuous aspirations to get their child home again. The article…
Abstract
This descriptive policy analysis examines the position of infants’ rights in the family service orientated child welfare systems of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden when being placed in out-of-home care. Its focus is on the contexts of, and legal procedures for, removing babies from home into public care. Children under the age of one year are taken into public care mainly through voluntary and emergency measures. Analysis of the development over a decade displays big intra-country differences in the prevalence of infant removal, varying from 2 per 1000 to 8 per 1000. The scant…
Abstract
This article explores how children living in foster care create senses of belonging across diverse family relationships. It draws on video diaries made by 11 Danish children living in foster care. For the analysis, we have selected two video diaries, made by two girls, aged 12 and 15 years, who live in foster care and have regular contact with their birth family. The girls differ in their senses of belonging but both reflectively negotiate this across their family relationships creating more or less emotional, physical and functional attachments with their foster care and birth…
Abstract
When children move into a new foster care family, they and the foster carers are initially strangers to one another. Without knowing one another’s history, experiences and practices, foster carers and children are expected to get settled quite quickly in the intimate setting that makes up family life. In these early days of a new placement, bodily intimacy is brought to the forefront; how the foster carers manage bodily care and go about touch without any ‘embodied knowledge’ of the child. This study draws on in-depth interviews with eight foster care couples and explores how…
Abstract
Most countries provide aftercare for foster care alumni either through specific targeted programs or by making foster care or related services available to the youth after they have aged out of foster care. Yet we have limited evidence of the effects of this type of care, especially from non-US contexts. My study tests whether an expansion of the Danish aftercare scheme in 2001 affects later outcomes of foster care alumni. This expansion raised the age limit for eligibility for aftercare from 20 years to 22 years, and created an increased focus on availability of this type of…
Abstract
This article is written as part of the FORUM project (FOR Unaccompanied Minors: transfer of knowledge for professionals to increase foster care), an EU funded project which sought to enhance the capacity of professionals to provide quality foster care for unaccompanied migrant children, primarily through the transfer of knowledge. The article aims to contribute to this transfer of knowledge by bringing together literature which is of relevance to professionals developing or enhancing foster care services for unaccompanied migrant children (such as social workers), other…
Abstract:
This working paper has reviewed cross-national datasets for the general population and available national data and other relevant (grey and academic) literature concerned with young people in care and care leavers in the three study countries. The aim is not evaluative; i.e. not to determine which country does ‘best’. Rather, the paper seeks to provide a situated understanding of the multi-dimensional complexity of transitions out of ‘care’ and of ‘outcomes’ for children and young people with experience of care, and hence to enable a contextualised understanding of the diver-sity…
[Objectives] It is well documented that children placed in out-of-home care in Denmark perform poorly on a wide range of short-term and long-term outcomes compared to other children. This paper describes the core components of an innovative project that will attempt to address some of the major weaknesses of previous interventions and which, if successful, will be rolled out across foster care families nationwide. The paper also discusses a range of issues uncovered in the project’s first phase that are of relevance to child care professionals across the world.
[Method] Designed as a four…
Abstract
Previous studies have reported that children and adolescents who have been placed in out-of-home care for the protection of their safety and welfare face considerably high risks for early school leaving. Our study adds to the literature by comparing the association between children's exposure to placement in care and lack of secondary education (i.e. post-compulsory education after age 16) across three Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. We use data from national registers for children born in 1987, following them until age 23. The datasets for Denmark (N = 55,995, of…