Are you listening? Echoing the voices of looked after children about their transition to secondary school

Yvonne J Francis, Laura Rowland, Sarah Humrich, Sally Taylor - Adoption & Fostering

This article seeks to echo the voices of 36 children aged 10 to 12 who participated in a therapeutic primary to secondary transition initiative for looked after children. Informed by a participatory action research approach, its focus was to facilitate the child’s voice.

Primary and Secondary Effects on Long‐Term Educational Outcomes of Individuals with Experience of Child Welfare Interventions

Lars Brännström and Sten‐Åke Stenberg - Child Abuse Review

Through the lens of primary (ability‐driven explanations) and secondary (choice‐based explanations, conditional on educational performance) effects on social background differentials in educational attainment, longitudinal data from more than 14 000 Swedes (of which around 9% have been placed in out‐of‐home care (OHC)) were used to estimate the relative importance of these two basic explanatory processes.

A qualitative analysis of goals set by foster carers seeking support for their child’s emotional well-being

Erica Ranzato, Chloe Austerberry, Sarah Jane Besser, Antonella Cirasola - Adoption & Fostering

The present study seeks to examine the goals that carers who are looking after children with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties set at the start of an intervention, the Reflective Fostering Programme, designed to support them.

Mediational Intervention for Sensitizing Caregivers to Improve Mental Health Outcomes in Orphaned and Vulnerable Children

Carla Sharp, Paulina Kulesz, Lochner Marais, Cilly Shohet, Kholisa Rani, Molefi Lenka, Jan Cloete, Salome Vanwoerden, Deborah Givon & Michael Boivin - Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology

The authors of this study conducted a quasi-experimental feasibility trial in South Africa to adapt and evaluate an established year-long semi-structured, manualized video-feedback caregiver intervention (the Mediational Intervention for Sensitizing Caregivers; MISC) for community-based organizations (CBOs) to equip community-based careworkers with the skills to address the mental health needs of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).

Prevalences of and correlations between childhood trauma and depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and suicidal behavior among institutionalized adolescents in Vietnam

Tien Sy Pham, Haiying Qi, Dingxuan Chen, Huilin Chen, Fang Fan - Child Abuse & Neglect

The authors of this study investigated the prevalence rates of childhood trauma, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and suicidal behaviors among Vietnamese adolescents and compared the differences between institutionalized adolescents (IAs) and noninstitutionalized adolescents (NIAs). In addition, they examined the multidimensional associations between childhood trauma and psychopathology among IAs.

Mental Health Outcomes of Youth In-Care: Investigating the Effect of General Strain and Self-control Theories

Greggory J. Cullen, Carolyn Yule, David Walters & William O’Grady - Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal

This article exploresthe extent to which general strain theory (GST) and self-control theory can explain the mental health outcomes of youth in-care.

Levels of agreement between youth in out‐of‐home care and key adults' ratings of sibling and peer relationships: The impact of respondent characteristics and associations to youth resilience

Armeda Stevenson Wojciak and Jeffrey Waid - Child & Family Social Work

The current study utilized survey data to determine if respondent characteristics and inter‐rater agreement on measures of important relationships were associated with resilience among child welfare‐involved youth.

Relationships, Reviews and Recording: Developing Practice for Children in Care

Rebecca Watts - Practice

This paper reports on a small-scale, qualitative evaluation of an approach to working with children in care launched in Brighton and Hove called Me and My World. Core principles of the model are explained including continuity of relationship between social workers and children in care; a statutory review process which promotes participation of the child and young person and a recording system where social workers, IRO’s and foster carers write reports for review directly to the child.

ДОГОВОРНОЕ РЕГУЛИРОВАНИЕ ОПЕКИ И ПОПЕЧИТЕЛЬСТВА НАД НЕСОВЕРШЕННОЛЕТНИМИ ДЕТЬМИ В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ РОССИИ (Contractual Regulation of Custody and Guardianship of Minor Children in Modern Russia)

Н.А. Иванова - Актуальные проблемы государства и права

Целью является исследование особенностей правового регулирования договорной опеки (попечительства) над несовершеннолетними детьми в современной России.

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Strengthening Inclusion Strategies for Children with Disabilities (CWD) within the Context of Care Reform

Gwendolyn Burchell - UAFA

This paper will address one of the most challenging problems in development work which is commonly referred to as the ‘silo mentality’. In this case, this mentality affects how services for typical children are planned and implemented without including the needs of children with disabilities from the first planning step. Strategies are proposed that can help to bridge this gap.

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Assessing and assisting prospective adoptive parents: Social workers’ communicative strategies in adoption assessment interviews

Madeleine Wirzén, Asta Čekaitė - Qualitative Social Work

In this study, the authors examine the structure and function of professional social workers’ follow-up questions in assessment talk with adoption applicants.

COVID-19: Differences in sentinel injury and child abuse reporting during a pandemic

Supriya Sharma, Daphne Wong, John Schomberg, Chloe Knudsen-Robbins, David Gibbs, Carol Berkowitz, Theodore Heyming - Child Abuse & Neglect

This study was designed to explore whether the incidence of child maltreatment among patients presenting to a pediatric emergency department has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Young, unauthorised and Black: African unaccompanied minors and becoming an adult in Italy

Sarah Walker, Yasmin Gunaratnam - Journal of Sociology

This article is based on ethnographic fieldwork in an Italian reception centre for male ‘unaccompanied minors’. The article examines the political ambivalence of hospitality for young African men as they transition to adulthood and how this is experienced through the intersections of age, gender and race.

Population Prevalence of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Subtype for Young Children in Nationwide Surveys of the British General Population and of Children-In-Care

Caitlin Hitchcock, Benjamin Goodall, Olivia Sharples, Richard Meiser-Stedman, Peter Watson, Tamsin Ford, Tim Dalgleish - Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

This article explores population-level prevalence of Posttraumatic stress disorder for Young Children (PTSD-YC) to test whether application of Alternative Algorithm for PTSD (AA-PTSD) criteria, relative to the DSM-IV PTSD algorithm, increases identification of 5-6 year old children with clinical needs, in both the general population, and among looked-after-children where the risk of mental health issues is greater.

Families Over Facilities: Ending the Use of Harmful and Unnecessary Institutions and Other Group Facilities in Child Welfare Systems

Children's Rights

Families over Facilities is a call to action to end the unnecessary institutionalization of children in child welfare. The report details the physical, mental and emotional harm done to children in group settings, the significant unnecessary taxpayer costs associated with the practice, and violations of children’s civil and human rights.

CYC-Online: August 2020

International Child and Youth Care Network (CYC-Net)

This issue of the e-journal CYC-Online includes articles on the impact of COVID-19 on children in alternative care in South Asia, residential care centers during COVID-19, child welfare experience among child and youth care practitioners, and more.

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