Displaying 51 - 60 of 115
This study on legal guardianship and adoption practices in Uganda was designed to explore and get insight into current care practices. The study includes both a desk review and a research component, consisting of interviews with key informants (including law firms, birth parents and family members, probation and social welfare officers, child care institutions, adoptive parents, judges, and local council chairs at the village level).
The study found that, while laws on adoption are clear, there are few legal procedures and protocols to govern the use of legal guardianship, in particular…
Abstract
This paper calls for creative pathways of engagement that delineate places of belonging for and with Indigenous youth in care. It draws on two community-based research studies conducted in British Columbia, with urban and off-reserve Indigenous youth to contextualize and extend understanding of permanency for Indigenous youth in care. Our discussion explores permanency in relation to both Western understandings of government care, guardianship, and adoptions, and Indigenous customary caregiving and cultural planning for cultural permanency, such as naming and coming home…
Abstract
Across the English-speaking world, child protection authorities are increasingly placing children with extended family rather than in foster care or residential care. Many more children are in such arrangements informally. A number of surveys of kinship carers have been conducted in recent years in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. This paper systematically reviews these surveys to identify messages for policy and practice about the characteristics and support needs of kinship care families. Some comparisons are made with population studies of kinship…
Abstract
Although grandfamilies are consumers of a variety of mental health services, less is known about what these families, particularly the grandchildren, want from practitioners. To gain insight into how practitioners can best meet the needs of grandfamilies, 40 custodial grandmothers and their adolescent grandchildren were interviewed. Results of a qualitative analysis indicated that grandmothers and grandchildren did not make clear distinctions between various types of services and service providers. Grandchildren, in particular, emphasized the need for mental…
This issue of GrandFamilies: The Contemporary Journal of Research, Practice and Policy includes several articles related to kinship care in the United States, including:
Executive Summary
The initial goal of the development of these guidelines was to seek to regulate Guardianship and Foster care of children in the country. The two processes are critical in as far as care and protection of children are concerned.
Later a need arose for the development of guidelines on other alternative care options so as to come up with a document that addresses alternative care in a comprehensive manner so as to guide the Children Act amendments, policy and practice. The scope was widened to include; kinship, places of safety and temporary shelter,…
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…
Leverhulme International Network on New Families, New Governance 3rd Workshop, University of Notre Dame, USA 27-28 March 2014
In this presentation Professor Connolly reviews recent trends in the use of kinship care in Australia, and highlights that although kinship care has always been a major part of children’s care systems, there has been an important shift over the past twenty years toward the use of extended family systems to support and care for vulnerable children. In 2010, statutory kinship care…
This report - produced by SOS Children’s Villages, Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland, and the University of Malawi - is based on a synthesis of eight assessments of the implementation of the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children (“the Guidelines”) in Benin, Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
It considers common challenges to implementing the Guidelines identified in the eight countries and provides a platform for effective advocacy to promote every child’s right to quality care. At the end of each chapter, the report provides…
This position statement by Save the Children recognises that the word 'family' has different meanings to people around the world, encompassing diverse family structures, relationships, and power dynamics, across countries and cultures, and that it is also a dynamic concept with new variants on traditional family structures have emerged in response to social change, conflict, urbanization, HIV/AIDS and other crisis. The statement highlights that the family is central to numerous international legal instruments, including the UN…