Displaying 81 - 90 of 97
This issue of A Closer Look examines:
- Definitions of family involvement;
- Families in child welfare, yesterday and today;
- How grant communities respond to challenges in strengthening family involvement;
- Operationalizing family involvement in system change; and
- What leaders can do to support family-agency partnerships for system transformation.
Abstract
Despite growing use of evidence‐based parenting interventions (EBPIs) in child welfare settings, few qualitative studies have obtained parents' direct views and feedback on these programs. Further, engagement in EBPIs continues to present challenges in a child welfare context, particularly for parents affected by substances. We sought to understand parents' experiences of the supports and barriers to engagement in an EBPI. Semistructured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 10 parents who were involved in child welfare and a family drug treatment court, affected by…
Abstract
This qualitative study examined caregivers' experiences with SafeCare®, an evidence‐based programme that focuses on child neglect through modules on health, safety, and parenting. Shortly after completing SafeCare, 30 caregivers participated in a semi‐structured interview about their experiences with the programme. Overall, caregivers indicated that the programme helped with improvements in their parenting skills. Among the factors that contributed to a positive experience were the simplicity of language, the skills‐based approach, and the quality of the relationship with the…
Family Group Decision-Making (FGDM) is a widely used term referring to the engagement of a family (broadly defined) to participate in the planning, actions, and assessment of decisions that impact child safety, permanency, and well-being. Many different approaches and models to FGDM have been developed and implemented within child welfare agencies and organizations.
This podcast gives listeners an overview of how Arizona Kinship Support Services implements the Family Group Conference (FGC) model, developed by the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse…
Participants’ Satisfaction With Family Involvement Meetings: Implications for Child Welfare Practice
Abstract
Purpose:
Bivariate and logistics regression analyses were conducted to examine the effectiveness of child welfare agencies’ Family Group Decision-Making (FGDM) practices focused on strengthening families and positive outcomes for children. This study evaluates one mid-Atlantic state’s implementation of a FGDM called family involvement meetings (FIMs) to improve family strengths and their active engagement in the service planning process.
Methods:
Through use of a FIM Feedback Survey, participants provided satisfaction feedback on the…
Caseworkers advocate for services for individual families and help families learn to advocate for themselves and negotiate with service systems to obtain needed help. Caseworkers can also play a prominent role in empowering and advocating for families to become interdependent members of the community. Family advocacy focuses on the principles of family development, communication skills for workers, and promoting the participation of community residents and families in the design of services. The resources on this page address ways to advocate for families in the U.S. and include …
Abstract
In 1995 New York City had one of the worst child welfare systems in the United States. The city’s system struggled under 20 class-action lawsuits and 11 court orders or stipulations resulting from these suits. Elisa Izquierdo, a 6-year old girl involved in the child welfare system, was killed by her mother while other families struggled without help until their situation exploded. The city’s response was to place children into foster care at an unprecedented rate, reaching 50,000 children in care in the early 1990s. Less traumatic and less expensive interventions could…
Following increased international attention and criticism since 2000 of the dramatic escalation in the numbers of Guatemalan children being unethically placed into intercountry adoptions, the country passed a new adoption law in 2007 and imposed an intercountry adoption moratorium until a stronger child protection system could be operationalized to ensure the safety and rights of children and their families. Despite some efforts at gatekeeping, children, however, continued to be admitted into child-care institutions without a systematic determination of their best…
This webinar presentation by Professor Marie Connolly of the University of Melbourne was given at a UNICEF Seminar on the 1 April 2014. Professor Connolly began by introducing the history and background of Family Group Conference (FGC) in New Zealand, which was developed initially in the late 1980s as a culturally responsive way of diverting children and their families from the court system. It has since become a key decision-making mechanism for both care and protection and youth justice systems. FGC was later…
Helping families and their kin develop care plans for orphaned and vulnerable children was the objective of the family group conferencing (FGC) training that took place in Guatemala City from July 10-12, 2012. This family preservation approach for developing strategies to prevent the institutionalization of children emphasizes the strengths of families and their capacity to solve their own problems and develop their own care plans.
The training was a collaborative initiative by the Social Welfare Secretariat (Secretaría de Bienestar Social-referred to by the Spanish acronym SBS),…