Suchergebnisse

• Summary: This article reports findings from a longitudinal study of outcomes for a sample of children who had become, or who were considered at risk of becoming looked after. Using a multi-case study design, two stages of the project are reported here. In Stage One, information was gathered from and relating to 21 young people. In Stage Two, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 32 social workers, and 31 parents and carers regarding 52 children. Eleven of these young people also volunteered to be interviewed. Standardized measures were utilized including the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, Adolescent Well-Being Scale, and Rosenberg Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy scale. • Findings: The study highlights the need for preventive multi-agency work with families with multiple risk factors and the importance of education and children's social care working co-operatively together on behalf of children in need. The study demonstrates the ongoing challenges in providing low level emotional therapeutic work, building on young people's prosocial relationships with peers, and finding effective ways of improving children's self esteem and self efficacy. In this local authority children did not feel routinely involved in decision-making. Placement stability, meeting the short and longer-term needs of all placed children, and addressing the needs of foster carers and residential children's home staff, also presented challenges. • Application: The study highlights the importance of the organizational context when meeting young people's needs, including strong leadership, quality assurance, ongoing assessment and focused interventions.

ABSTRACTThere is a driving force within current UK child welfare policies which promotes a strengths led approach to both assessment and care planning for children in need. Social policy emphasizes the importance of tangible outcomes such as education achievement, which have been enshrined in statute. However, other developmental outcomes, such as identity, are subordinated. Notwithstanding the relevance of these more concrete indicators, this paper suggests that this focus has left a gap at theoretical, strategic and operational levels relating to more psychosocial aspects of human growth and development, such as identity. This paper seeks to redress that gap by considering identity as both a process and an outcome. Following a review of the literature on identity development, it presents an analysis of semi‐structured interviews with 13 young people and their social workers. The findings show how young people's identity is shaped by their relationships, can be a protective mechanism, and deferred or put on standby. In the concluding discussion the implications for social work practice are highlighted.