Suchergebnisse

This article describes the development of the 'Family Life Stories' practice workbook. The initiative emerged from a pilot social work strategy in Northern Ireland to utilise the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) research in frontline practice. ACEs research is currently having a significant impact on health and social care policy and practice across the UK. This article proposes that ACEs-awareness has potential benefits for child welfare social work, encouraging consideration of parent/caregivers' and children's lives beyond presenting referral concerns, with many parents involved with child welfare services known to have experienced multiple adversities themselves. However, when applied in a reductionist manner, ACEs-informed practice risks amplifying parental powerlessness, exacerbating feelings of shame and blame, and rendering structural inequalities invisible to assessment. Based on systemic and narrative therapeutic principles, the Family Life Stories workbook and guidance seeks to address concerns by using participative mapping activities. These assist practitioners to have purposeful conversations with parents in ways that promote engagement. The workbook aims to provide opportunities to consider with parents how previous experiences have influenced their life stories, the impact on their current situation, and their wishes for their children – maximising the benefit for parental wellbeing and engagement, while maintaining a focus on child safety. Although lacking a rigorous independent evaluation, feedback from social workers involved in the pilot demonstrates provisional acceptability to practitioners and parents. This novel practice approach provides one example of how to use the ACEs research to promote sensitive relationship-based practice within a social justice framework.

This article reports on a study conducted in two counties in the Republic of Ireland designed to elicit the views of fostering and adoption stakeholder groups on the mental health needs of the children, young people and families for whom they are responsible. Included in these groups are young people, adoptive parents, foster carers and professionals who manage and deliver mental health services or refer cases to them. Focus group methodology was employed to ascertain participants' views. The emerging data was analysed thematically and the key findings include: the need for a universal and integrated system offering mental health services; the importance of an attachment- and trauma-informed approach, incorporating a 'whole-family' perspective; the difficulties many families face in accessing timely and appropriate services with the associated risk of destabilising placements; the tension created by the balance between crisis responses and longer-term therapeutic support; poor levels of communication and collaboration between services; and a general aspiration to fashion a dedicated therapeutically focused service open to all foster and adoptive children and their families. Findings and recommendations are discussed in light of the existing models of good practice for providing integrated mental health services.

Children adopted from care, either internationally or locally, can have diverse, and often more complex, needs to their non-adopted peers. Many children adopted internationally from institutional care, or domestically from foster care, will have experienced significant early adversity, which can cause emotional, behavioural, developmental and attachment related difficulties. However, research also suggests that adopted children can and do thrive because of the high commitment of adoptive parents, their responsive parenting (Koss et al.,2020), and the availability of post-adoption support services aimed at supporting adoptive family relationships (Misca, 2014). Reinforcing the child's network of caring adults is a crucial component of care for children who have experienced early adversity or childhood trauma, and systemic approaches are recommended to support children who experience trauma-related difficulties (Bath, 2008), meaning that support for adoptive families should be targeted at both individual and interpersonal levels. For services to be effective it is crucial that they are readily available to families in a timely manner. However, in a range of studies in different countries, adoptive families have experienced difficulties in accessing and availing of the services they need, when they are needed. In Ireland, the arrangements for the provision of adoption services have changed considerably over time, and with recent legislative reform, adoption is moving to a more central position within the child welfare system (O'Brien & Mitra, 2018). Thus, the quality and effectiveness of post-adoption services in meeting adopted children's needs should be examined. In 2020 Barnardos commissioned the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work in Queens University Belfast in 2020 to evaluate the Post-Adoption Service to extend and deepen understanding of the value of the Post-Adoption Service model of work with participating children and parents, and to inform ongoing service development.

Abstract
Social work practice has an essential, yet ambiguous, relationship with theory. This state of affairs is currently evident in the range of contemporary relationship-based practice (RBP) models being applied within Child and Family Social Work. This article argues that there is an urgent need for a theoretically coherent conceptualisation of these models to enable social work practitioners to embrace their common precepts and so enable more effective interventions. In contrast to attempts to show the distinctiveness of current models for reasons of fidelity, model identity and marketing, this unifying approach advocates for recognition of the commonality and complementarity of contemporary RBP models. The article argues that systemic theory which applies a social constructionist orientation can provide this coherence, helping social workers develop their practice in an informed way. In making this case, the emergent evidence base is noted and recommendations are made about how greater convergence and complementarity can be promoted. This article contributes to the debate about how practice and policy should be guided by theoretical ideas of coherence, alongside more utilitarian ideas advocating the importance of evidence and effectiveness.