Suchergebnisse

Cover -- HALF-TITLE -- Title -- Copyright -- CONTENTS -- FOREWORD -- PREFACE (Kathleen Kufeldt Brad McKenzie) -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- Setting the Context: Child Welfare Lawin Canada -- PART I - Insights from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect -- Introduction -- 1 - Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect: Changing Patterns of Reported Maltreatment, 1998 and 2003 (Nico Trocmé Barbara Fallon Bruce MacLaurin) -- CIS Methodology -- Sampling -- Measurement -- Weighting and Analysis -- Limitations -- Major Findings -- Increase in Substantiated Maltreatment -- More Children Investigated in Each Family -- Variations by Category of Maltreatment -- Lower Proportion of Cases Involving Harm -- Child Welfare Interventions -- More Reports from Professionals -- Implications for Policy and Practice -- Acknowledgements -- 2 - The Response of the Ontario Child Welfare System to Neglect: 1993 to 2003 (Kate Schumaker Barbara Fallon Nico Trocmé) -- Previous Research -- Methods -- Data Collection -- Analytic Strategy -- Results: Child Neglect in Ontario: 1993 to 2003 -- Investigations -- Substantiation -- Neglect Subtypes: Substantiated Primary Neglect -- Service Response to Primary Neglect: 1993 to 2003 -- Results: Child Neglect versus Other Maltreatment in the OIS-2003 -- Household Characteristics -- Child Functioning Concerns -- Maltreatment and Case Characteristics -- Caregiver Risk Factors -- Service Response -- Discussion and Conclusion -- 3 - Factors Associated with the Decision to Provide Ongoing Services: Are Worker Characteristics and Organizational Location Important? (Barbara Fallon Nico Trocmé) -- Literature Review -- Methodology -- Data Collection -- Study Sample -- Analytic Strategy -- Results -- Bivariate Analyses -- Multivariate Analysis -- Agency Location and Provision of Ongoing Services

"Children who receive child welfare services are a vulnerable group, and their numbers are growing. All who care about them need to be fully informed about current outcomes, indicators of success and failure, and best practices. This second edition of Child Welfare: Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice has a special focus on Canadian child welfare and contains entirely new material on these important themes.

Front Cover -- Half-title Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Contributors -- Acknowledgements -- Prologue -- Part I: Key Concepts for Consideration -- Introduction to Part I -- Chapter 1: Child Development and Attachment: Theories and Application -- Chapter 2: Analyzing Social Policy and Its Impact on Child Welfare -- Chapter 3: The Law on Parenting after Separation and Child Protection -- Chapter 4: Family Law in Canada -- Chapter 5: Social Work Ethics and Child Welfare -- Chapter 6: Lessons Learned from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect -- Chapter 7: An Examination of Resilience Theory and Its Relevance for Child Welfare Practice -- Conclusion to Part I -- Part II: Indigenous Child Welfare -- Introduction to Part II -- Chapter 8: The First Nations Component of the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect, 2008: Lessons for the Current Context -- Chapter 9: Lived Experiences of Australian Indigenous Care Leavers: Narratives of Trauma, Resilience, and Survival -- Chapter 10: In the Spirit of Wahkootowin: Kinship Affiliation as an Antidote to Divisive Identity Politics for Metis Children in Care -- Chapter 11: Understanding Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder through the Stories of Nyoongar Families: Helping to Inform Policy and Service Delivery -- Chapter 12: How Well Do We Practise Culturally Sensitive Care? Voices from Aotearoa/New Zealand -- Chapter 13: Worlds Colliding or Merging? Sharing Relational Knowledge That Transformed My Practice in Working with Indigenous Children, Youth, Parents, Families, Communities, and Nations -- Conclusion to Part II -- Part III: Current Services and Outcomes -- Introduction to Part III -- Chapter 14: Designing a Health Care Record for Children in Care: A Research Study.

The Looking After Children (LAC) protocols that were developed during the 1990s in the UK represented a ground-breaking move to make services more child centred, with an emphasis on the needs of the child being paramount. Kathleen Kufeldt, Marie Simard and Jacques Vachon discuss how similar measures were initiated across the Atlantic in the form of a three-year Looking After Children in Canada project. This involved collaborative partnership between service providers, researchers and a major funding agency. The authors discuss how it set about achieving reform, and assess its impact on improving the quality of life for children in foster care. Findings in many ways replicate the UK experience, indicating the benefits of a child-centred approach and the considerable potential of such records to improve practice and thus outcomes for looked after children.

Based on interviews with children, birth parents, foster carers and social workers in the province of Ontario, Kathleen Kufeldt, James Armstrong and Marshall Dorosh explore some of the benefits and pitfalls of fostering as an effective response to children 'in need' of substitute care. Among the more surprising findings of their study is the high percentage of respondents who assert that, in retrospect, coming into care was the best solution to their particular situation. At the same time, the majority among all four sets of participants are in favour of maintaining ties and involvement in the form of continuity, connection and contact with birth families. Other positive findings show that children, especially pre-adolescents, often have quite a realistic understanding of the situation leading up to their placement in care with less of a tendency to blame themselves or idealise their birth families than has previously been suggested.

The Looking After Children (LAC) system is currently used in a number of countries world wide, providing increasing opportunities for international research collaboration. This paper describes early results of one such collaborative effort between Canada and Australia. The LAC system is a child-centred case management approach aimed at enhancing the developmental needs of children and young people in out-of-home care placements. LAC has the capacity to connect research, policy and practice. For research and practice LAC measures and enhances outcomes of care. Aggregation of data collected via the use of LAC allows policy makers to assess current practices in order to monitor and measure the extent to which intended program goals are achieved. LAC promotes and encourages collaboration in the care system, enhancing participation opportunities and partnerships between social workers, direct carers (foster parents and residential workers), parents, children and young people.

This paper describes the experiences of one child welfare unit that participated in Canada's first national pilot of the Looking After Children Assessment and Action Records (Kufeldt, Simard, Vachon, Baker, & Andrews, 2000). A review three years after the end of the project found that the method was well-entrenched in practice. Its use promoted resilience and improved outcomes for the young people in foster care. It also enhanced social workers' commitment to their work and to their own resilience, despite the sometimes overwhelming demands of protection work.

ABSTRACTThis paper provides a brief review of child welfare issues identified by a Canadian Task Force convened for the 1979 Year of the Child. Project experience with the use of Looking After Children is linked to the issues identified in 1979. A fairly extensive discussion of legal considerations is presented to provide a context for the challenge of influencing policy. Finally, the possibility of influencing policy from a grass roots approach that can transcend jurisdictional boundaries is presented as offering hope for change in a child‐centred direction.