¿A quién le importa? Perspectivas del niño y la familia sobre el cuidado efectivo, quién lo brinda y por qué es importante

Gillian Mann y Emma de Vise-Lewis - Family for Every Child

Pese a que hay un consenso sobre la importancia del cuidado efectivo en las familias para los niños, existe una falta de discusión y acuerdo sobre los componentes precisos de este cuidado. Este informe contribuye a debatir sobre este importante tema al proporcionar perspectivas de los grupos focales con 198 niños y 81 adultos de Brasil, Colombia, Egipto, México, Rusia, Ruanda y Zimbabue.

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Who Cares? Child and family perspectives on effective care, who provides it and why it matters

Gillian Mann and Emma de Vise-Lewis - Family for Every Child

There is extensive research demonstrating clearly the importance of a safe and caring family for child wellbeing and development. While there is consensus on the importance of effective care in families for children, there is a lack of discussion and agreement about the precise components of this care. This report contributes to debates on the components of family care by providing perspectives from nearly 200 children and over 80 adults from Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. The report demonstrates that there are many commonalities in perspectives on and experiences of care across contexts.

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The needs of carers: applying a hierarchy of needs to a foster and kinship care context

Josh Fergeus, Cathy Humphreys, Carol Harvey, Helen Herrman - Adoption & Fostering

As foster and kinship carers are central to the lives of looked after children, it is important to recognise their unmet needs and the impact of these on the caring task. This article explores these issues by applying a hierarchy of needs to the foster and kinship care context, drawing on the perspectives of those involved, a group of Australian foster and kinship carers.

‘My children are my world’: Raising the voices of birth mothers with substantial experience of counselling following the loss of their children to adoption or foster care

Hannah CM Morgan, Lizette Nolte, Barbara Rishworth, Clarissa Stevens - Adoption & Fostering

The aim of this article is to raise the voices of a group of birth mothers, a historically stigmatised, powerless and neglected group, with substantial experience of counselling following the loss of a child.

‘They don’t meet the stereotypes in the boxes…’: Foster carers’ and clinicians’ views on the utility of psychometric tools in the mental health assessment of looked after children

Catherine Frogley, Mary John, Ruth Denton, Dawn Querstret - Adoption & Fostering

The current study is the first to explore the perspectives of foster carers and clinicians working in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in relation to the use of two brief screening tools: the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Brief Assessment Checklists (BACs).

Early Deprivation and Children’s Emotional Development: A Developmental Perspective

Nicole B. Perry & Megan R. Gunnar - Handbook of Emotional Development

In this chapter of the Handbook of Emotional Development, the authors discuss animal models that support developmental theories underscoring the importance of the caregiver–infant relationship for emotional development, explore how varying degrees of neglect may be differentially associated with subsequent emotional outcome, and review empirical work in this area from a developmental perspective by addressing how early neglect may impact the development of biological and behavioral mechanisms that underlie emotional functioning across multiple developmental periods.

School satisfaction among youth in residential care: A multi-source analysis

Marta Garcia-Molsosa, Jordi Collet-Sabé, Joan Carles Martori, Carme Montserrat - Children and Youth Services Review

The aim of this article is to analyse the evaluations made by the main stakeholders involved in the school situation of young people in residential care and propose an explanatory model of their level of school satisfaction (SS) based on variables related to the youngsters' subjective well-being. The sample was composed of 219 subjects from five European countries (Germany, Austria, Croatia, Spain and France), including 75 young people, 75 caregivers, and 69 teachers.

Remaining in Foster Care After Age 18 and Youth Outcomes at the Transition to Adulthood: A Review

Loring Jones - Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services

This review examines the legislative history leading up to extended care, the research on youth leaving foster care, youth preferences for extended care, the competition of extended care with permanency options, and the effects of extended foster care on transition-age youth.

Decision making for children

Helen Whincup, Maggie Grant, Cheryl Burgess, Nina Biehal - Universities of Stirling, York, and Lancaster in collaboration with Adoption and Fostering Alliance (AFA) Scotland

The Decision making for children report is one strand of the Permanently Progressing? study. In this strand, during 2015-17, 160 decision makers were interviewed across Scotland mainly in groups, but some individually.

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Children looked after away from home aged five and under in Scotland: experiences, pathways and outcomes

Linda Cusworth, Nina Biehal, Helen Whincup, Margaret Grant, Alison Hennessy - Universities of Stirling, York, and Lancaster in collaboration with Adoption and Fostering Alliance (AFA) Scotland

The aim of this particular strand of the Permanently Progressing? study was to investigate the experiences, pathways, and outcomes of children who became looked after away from home, together with the factors associated with achieving permanence.

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Linking two administrative data sets about looked after children: testing feasibility and enhancing understanding

Jade Hooper, Linda Cusworth, Helen Whincup - Universities of Stirling, York, and Lancaster in collaboration with Adoption and Fostering Alliance (AFA) Scotland

This report on the linkage of Children Looked After Statistics (CLAS) with data from Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) is one strand of the Permanently Progressing? study. The study is the first in Scotland to investigate decision making, permanence, progress, outcomes and belonging for children who became ‘looked after’ at home, or away from home (with kinship carers, foster carers or prospective adopters) when they were aged five and under.

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Pathways to Permanence for children who become looked after in Scotland

Nina Biehal, Linda Cusworth, Jade Hooper, Helen Whincup, Marina Shapira

This report presents the findings from strand one of the Permanently Progressing? study, Pathways to Permanence for children who become looked after in Scotland. This strand analysed data from the Children Looked After Statistics (CLAS) provided to the Scottish Government by all 32 local authorities on the total cohort of children who became looked after during the year 1 August 2012 - 31 July 2013 when they were aged five and under

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Perspectives on kinship care, foster care and adoption: the voices of children, carers and adoptive parents

Maggie Grant, Helen Whincup, Cheryl Burgess - Universities of Stirling, York, and Lancaster in collaboration with Adoption and Fostering Alliance (AFA) Scotland

This report has been completed as one part of the study Permanently Progressing? Building secure futures for children in Scotland which heard directly from children about their experiences.

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Permanently Progressing: Building Secure Futures for Children in Scotland

Universities of Stirling, York, and Lancaster in collaboration with Adoption and Fostering Alliance (AFA) Scotland

After almost five years of detailed research and analysis, the reports of the Permanently Progressing study (phase one) were published on 20 June 2019. The study investigated decision making, permanence, progress, outcomes and belonging for a large cohort (1,836 children) of all children in Scotland who became looked after in 2012-13, when they were aged five or under.

Educational outcomes of children in contact with social care in England: a systematic review

Matthew A. Jay and Louise McGrath-Lone - Systematic Reviews

This open access systematic review aimed to appraise the extant research evidence from longitudinal studies and answer the question: how do educational outcomes differ between children in contact with Children’s Social Care (CSC) and the general population in the UK?

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Aid Groups Seek to Reduce Orphanages, Expand Family-Based Care Globally

Shannon Senefeld, Philip Goldman and Anne Smith - Health Progress

In this piece for Health Progress, the Journal of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, Shannon Senefeld, Philip Goldman and Anne Smith explain why many aid groups are working to end the use of orphanages in favor of family-based care and describe the work of the Changing the Way We Care initiative which seeks to "mobilize other likeminded organizations, raise awareness, promote new policies and encourage well-meaning donors to shift their support away from orphanages and toward families."

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Who Am I and Where Am I From? Substitute Residential Home Children’s Insights into Their Lives and Individual Identities

Ingrid Sindi & Judit Strömpl - Child & Youth Services

In this article, the authors provide children’s insights into their own life experiences and individual identities. The data was collected during an ethnographic research in one of Estonia’s SOS Children’s Villages (SOS CV).

Forecasting Future Outcomes: Stronger Communities Investment Unit — 2018 Insights Report

Taylor Fry - Government of NSW, Their Futures Matter

This report, which was authored by Taylor Fry with support from Their Futures Matter (TFM) - a landmark reform of the Government of New South Wales (NSW), Australia to deliver improved outcomes for vulnerable children, young people and their families - and stakeholder agencies, presents key results and insights from the TFM Investment Model, an actuarial model of future outcomes and costs of providing key government services to children and young people in NSW.

Misguided altruism: the risks of orphanage volunteering

Charles H Zeanah, Nicole G Wilke, Carole Shauffer, Tamsen Rochat, Amanda H Howard, Mary Dozier - The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health

While much of the published research on orphanage volunteering has focused on the effects of the practice on volunteers, the authors of this comment paper from the Lancet argue that there is also substantial reason for concern about the harm this practice might have on the children—especially in young children (ie, ≤5 years)—being raised in these settings.

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Care of Abandoned Children in Sunni Islamic Law: Early Modern Egypt in Theory and Practice

Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim - Filiation and the Protection of Parentless Children

In this chapter of Filiation and the Protection of Parentless Children, the author shows the ways in which premodern Muslim jurists and judges (with focus on early modern Egypt) were able to circumvent the prohibition of adoption through discursive moves and practices, which helped create a family life for many parentless and non-biological children.

Peer relationships at residential care institutions for unaccompanied refugee minors: An under-utilised resource?

Guro B Omland & Agnes Andenas - Qualitative Social Work

Without access to their own families, how do young, unaccompanied refugee minors re-establish their social lives in ways that facilitate a sense of togetherness in their everyday lives during resettlement? This question was approached by exploring young persons’ creation of relational practices and the kinds of sociomaterial conditions that seemed to facilitate the evolvement of these practices in Norway, including the professional caregivers’ contributions.