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Abstract: This paper from the Special Issue on Kinship Care of the Child Welfare Journal discusses a three-phased service model assessed using Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) conferences with informal kinship caregivers and their families. Gain scores were compared between Phase 2 (case management only) and Phase 3 families (case management with conference). Phase 3 families had higher gain scores than the Phase 2 families on measures of parenting stress, social support, family needs and child well-being…
Abstract
Collaborative partnerships are a major factor in achieving positive outcomes for children, youth, and families. They can lead to a common and unified understanding of the needs of children, youth, and families; identification of gaps in services and supports; and coordinated efforts to address those gaps across child welfare and other human and social services. While it is recognized that progress has been made in developing policy and defining standards of practice related to supporting kinship families, there remains a need for continuous assessment of current policy and…
The purpose of this introduction of the Special Issue on Kinship Care of the Child Welfare Journal is to offer a conceptual framework for addressing the challenges involved in developing a coherent set of policies and practices with respect to kinship care. The challenges span two key tensions in the public protection and care of vulnerable children. The first concerns the appropriate scope of public interest in the welfare of other people's children: Should child welfare policy be constrained to a narrow set of functions that ensure children are adequately fed,…
Twenty years ago, when this journal first published a special issue on kinship care (Wilson & Chipungu, 1996), the focus was on the formal placement of children with kin after the children were taken into public custody. This special issue of the Child Welfare Journal focuses on the much larger number of kinship caregivers, who either intervene on their own or accept the assistance of child protective authorities that facilitate informal arrangements without taking legal custody. It is the larger combined population of formal and informal kinship placements, to…
Abstract
An estimated 1–3 million children live on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh relying on each other for survival in an environment characterized by illness, violence, and poverty. Research has rarely examined the everyday caregiving environment of street children in Bangladesh or how they survive the illness and injury so common to their experience. To understand street children's caregiving practices, this paper draws in part from the informal caregiving and social support literatures. The qualitative project purposively selected 75 street children and asked three primary questions…
Introduction
The European Commission Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO) commissioned SOS Children’s Villages International to undertake case studies of arrangements for ‘alternative child care’ in six non-European countries across three continents to help inform the EU’s future strategy for provision of support for children in countries outside Europe. This report is a case study of one of the six countries, Ecuador. A companion report provides a summary of alternative child care across Central and South America. The results of the regional reports…
Abstract Many children are cared for on a full-time basis by relatives or adult friends, rather than their biological parents, and often in response to family crises. These kinship care arrangements have received increasing attention from the social science academy and social care professions. However, more information is needed on informal kinship care that is undertaken without official ratification by welfare agencies and often unsupported by the state. This article presents a comprehensive, narrative review of international, research literature on informal, kinship care to address this…
Abstract
The present study evaluates the Youth Initiated Mentoring (YIM) approach in which families and youth care professionals collaborate with an informal mentor, who is someone adolescents (aged twelve to twenty-three) nominate from their own social network. The informal mentor can be a relative, neighbour or friend, who is a confidant and spokesman for the youth and a co-operation partner for parents and professionals. This approach fits with the international tendency in social work to make use of the strengths of families’ social networks and to stimulate client…
The 21-22 June 2017 Africa Expert Consultation on Violence against Children (VAC) in All Care Settings was the second in a series of regional consultations focused on engaging experts within the region to collaborate, share learning, and formulate a set of regional recommendations for key actors to effectively address violence against children within all care settings,…
Introduction
The following case study outlines the process undertaken by officials, para-social workers (PSWs) and community leaders in several sub-counties in Kasese District in Western Uganda to a) identify and address instances of child abuse in their communities, b) track cases of abuse and encourage reporting by victims, and c) support a para-social workforce in the communities to act as a deterrent and reduce the incidence of abuse. With guidance and training in child protection provided by SUNRISE-OVC, a USAID-funded social welfare systems — strengthening…