•Foster children’s view of the concept family is pragmatic and open-minded.•Foster children believe they fare better in their foster than in their birth family.•The relationship of foster children ...with their birth family is complex.•Parental visits are frequently overshadowed by conflicts and problems.•Siblings have a prominent place for foster children.
This qualitative research describes how 27 foster children, aged 12–18 years placed in long-term family foster care, experience the concept ‘family’. Foster children had a pragmatic and open-minded view of the concept ‘family’, transcending the conventional definition of kinship. In general, they were remarkably satisfied with the foster family and considered them as real family. They often believed that they fared better in their foster family than in their family of origin. The presence of other children in the foster family was usually perceived as positive. The relationship with their birth family was complex. Although sometimes considered as no longer belonging to their family, foster children in general spoke about their parents with loyalty and eagerness to forgive. But they were also concerned, sad, and angry. During visits often fun activities were done, although frequently overshadowed by conflicts and problems. Siblings had a prominent place, although the foster care placement sometimes troubled contacts between siblings. Creating a context in which foster family and family of origin can contribute to a positive development of the foster child is an important task for foster care workers.
Unaccompanied minor refugees are regularly placed with foster families, and this residential context is sometimes assessed as especially appropriate to the needs of these young persons. The ...transition into a foster family is often accompanied by various changes as well as questions concerning feelings of belonging. These questions are the focus of this study, which considers the perspectives of young refugees and their foster parents. The analysis shows that ‘belonging’ and ‘being at home’ are thought of as dimensions of ‘doing family’ that change situationally and are negotiated with others.
Research Framework: The article questions the construction, protection and reinforcement of intimacy frontiers in Russian foster families according to the type of placement. Objectives: It aims at ...analysing these processes as resulting from communication between three functional systems: foster family, institutional actors and biological family. In the heart of this communication lies the meaning given to fostering by different actors as well as recent injunctions of the child welfare social policies promoting professionalization of family placement and a bigger responsabilisation of the biological family. Methodology: The analysis is based on the stories told by four foster mothers which were collected during the fieldwork conducted during the first year of the author’s PhD. Results: The article demonstrates that the tendencies to protect, reinforce and outline the intimacy frontiers vary in accordance with the type of placement which, in its turn, tend to depend on the foster parents’ socialisation milieu, their expectations about this activity as well as the profiles of available/desirable children. Conclusions: The studied cases give us an insight into the analysis of electivity of kinship ties and illustrate the concept of the relational family by de Singly as chosen and not statutory defined ties. Contribution: The article contributes to the childhood and kinship studies.
The expression of externalizing behaviors of children in-care can be influenced by a multitude of factors. The current study examined the simultaneous levels of influence of workers and foster ...families on children's externalizing behaviors in those receiving out-of-home care. A cross-classified multilevel model was used to partition variance in children in-care's externalizing scores into worker, foster family and child-specific levels of influence. The extent to which processes are explained by worker and foster-family level predictors was examined. Assessment and Action Record (AAR) data from the Ontario Looking after Children (OnLAC) project were analyzed. The sample included data from 1063 children between 10 and 17
years of age (
M age
=
13
years, 6
months,
SD
=
2.08
years). While individual differences in children's externalizing behaviors were primarily attributable to child-specific effects (72%), 10% and 18% of the variance can be explained by worker and foster family influences respectively. Worker education accounted for substantial differences seen between workers where more difficult children were monitored by workers with less educational attainment. Furthermore, foster-family level predictors also explained variance in children's externalizing behaviors. Relative to children in foster care, those in kinship care displayed significantly lower levels of problem behaviors while children in group care displayed significantly higher levels. Higher levels of parental negativity within the foster family and the experience of more differential parental negativity relative to siblings were significantly associated with more externalizing behaviors. Lastly, children who were more satisfied with their placement displayed significantly lower levels of problematic behaviors. These results suggest that children in-care can be conceptualized within a multilevel framework.
► Differences in externalizing behaviors are explained by child-specific, foster family, and worker effects. ► Workers with more formal education were more likely to monitor less difficult children. ► Children in group care had the highest level of problem behaviors when compared to those in foster care and kinship care. ► Higher levels of parental negativity and differential negativity were associated with more problem behaviors in children. ► Children who were more satisfied with their placement displayed significantly lower levels of externalizing behaviors.
Research Framework: Foster-to-adopt families foster children intending to adopt them. Children placed in this type of resource are generally between the ages of 0-2 years and considered at high risk ...of abandonment, but they are not adoptable at the beginning of placement and most continue to see their birth parents through supervised visits. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to shed light on the challenges that the child's dual family affiliation poses for foster-to-adopt parents during placement. It aims to better understand how foster-to-adopt parents negotiate the child's dual family connection during placement and throughout the adoption process. Methodology: To meet these objectives, 31 semi-structured interviews were conducted with foster-to-adopt parents in three regions of Quebec. Parents were interviewed twice, once within a year of the start of the placement and again 18 months later. Results: The results are based on four main themes: 1) foster-to-adopt parents' perception of the child’s birth parents; 2) fears and apprehensions experienced about the child’s custody; 3) issues of naming and designating parents; and 4) the role of child welfare workers in the contact between the two families. Conclusions: Family affiliation and relationships of children in foster-to-adopt placements are based on a fragile balance that can be explained in part by the distinct and sometimes opposing intentions of the foster-to-adopt parents and birth parents, but also by other factors such as the vulnerability of the birth parents, the profile of the children in care and variability of the child welfare workers’ practices. Contribution: Foster-to-adopt placements remain little studied in Quebec. This study provides a better understanding of various issues underlying this type of placement in terms of family dynamics and relationships.
The objective of this study has been to investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic has had impact on self-efficacy scores and intensity of depressive severity in people aged over 60 who provide ...kinship foster care to their grandchildren.
The study subjects were selected from among individuals aged over 60 years providing kinship foster care to their grand-children. The participants were asked to complete the Generalised Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE) and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) before and during the pandemic. The questionnaire was com-pleted in whole twice by 40 participants.
There are no statistically significant differences between the GSE and GDS scores obtained before and during the pandemic. In study subjects with the oldest child in foster care aged 10 years or less, the GDS score decreased in a statistically sig-nificant way (p = 0.03). The correlation coefficient of the GSE and GDS scores before the pandemic was - 0.46 (p = 0.003), while that of scores during the pandemic was - 0.43 (p = 0.006).
Neither the sense of self-efficacy nor the intensity of depressiveness of the study subjects changed significantly during the pandemic. Both before and during the pandemic, the increase in depressiveness was associated with a decrease in self-efficacy.
KORUYUCU AİLE VE ÇOCUK ARASINDA KİŞİSEL İLİŞKİ KURULMASI Hayrunnisa Altın Şahin
Ankara Sosyal Bilimler Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi dergisi/Ankara Sosyal Bilimler Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi dergisi,
12/2022, Volume:
4, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Koruyucu aile, korunmaya ihtiyacı olan çocuğun bakımını üstlenen aile veya kişidir. Koruyucu aile, çocuğun gelişimi için sorumluluk almakta ve çocuk ile yakın bir bağ kurmaktadır. Türk Medeni ...Kanunu’nun 325. maddesinde üçüncü kişilerin çocukla kişisel ilişki kurma hakkı düzenlenmektedir. Koruyucu aile, bu hükme göre çocukla kişisel ilişki kurulmasını talep edebilir. Koruyucu aile ve çocuk arasında kişisel ilişki kurulabilmesi için olağanüstü hâllerin bulunması ve kişisel ilişkinin çocuğun menfaatine olması gerekir. Koruyucu aile ve çocuk arasında olumlu ve güçlü bir bağ olmasına rağmen koruyucu ailenin çocukla iletişim kuramaması olağanüstü bir hâlin varlığını gösterir. Bu durumda, koruyucu aileyle kişisel ilişki kurması çocuğun bedensel, ruhsal ve sosyal yönden gelişimine katkı sağlıyorsa, koruyucu aile ve çocuk arasında kişisel ilişki kurulmalıdır. Kişisel ilişki kurulması kararı verilirken çocuğun görüşleri göz önünde bulundurulmalıdır. Kişisel ilişkinin çocuğun menfaatini tehlikeye düşürdüğü hâllerde, kişisel ilişki sınırlandırılmalı veya sona erdirilmelidir. Koruyucu aile ve çocuk arasındaki kişisel ilişkinin sınırları, Türk Medeni Kanunu’nun 324. maddesine kıyasen belirlenir. Bu çalışmada, koruyucu aile kavramı ve koruyucu ailenin çocukla kişisel ilişki kurma hakkı incelenmektedir. Bu çerçevede, koruyucu ailenin çocukla kişisel ilişki kurmasının şartları ve kişisel ilişkinin sınırlandırılması ele alınmaktadır.
Social workers use interventions in the expectation that they will make a positive difference for their clients. However, research about the effectiveness of interventions is typically presented at ...the group level, which places great demands on social workers’ ability to apply such results to the needs of individual clients. Further, the content and effects of “service as usual” (SAU) interventions that social workers typically offer are often not known, making it difficult for social workers to identify what aspects of the intervention any client change can be attributed to. Using indicators of clinically meaningful change (CMC) strengthens social workers’ ability to identify what, if anything, works in any given intervention for their individual clients, and also motivates their curiosity to identify the efficacious components of SAU. CMC refers to changes in an individual’s outcome measures that are reliable or are large enough to be considered “important.” We present five indicators to analyze CMC in a child’s psychological well-being measured with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and illustrate their use with two empirical examples from the project Me and My Foster Family. The examples demonstrated that conclusions regarding CMC can vary depending on the indicator used, the baseline assessment, and the magnitude of raw-score change on the measured outcome. To assess change at the individual level it is important to address questions of measurement reliability and the yardstick for judging when a change is large enough to be considered “important.” Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Children living with foster families in a resource-limited setting such as Ethiopia are at risk of developmental problems. It is not yet clear whether intensive home-based developmental stimulation ...assisted by play can reduce these problems. The main objective of this study was to examine the effects of play-assisted intervention integrated into basic services on the developmental performance of children living with foster families in extreme poverty.
A randomized single-blind (investigator) controlled trial design was used. The study was conducted in Jimma, South West Ethiopia. Using computer-generated codes, eligible children of 3-59 months in age were randomly allocated to intervention (n = 39) and control (n = 39) groups at a 1:1 ratio. Children in the intervention group received home-based play-assisted stimulation in addition to the basic services provided to children in both groups. The intervention consisted of an hour of play stimulation conducted during a weekly home visit over the course of six months. Personal-social, language, fine and gross motor outcomes were assessed using Denver II-Jimma, and social-emotional outcome was obtained using an adapted Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Social-Emotional (ASQ: SE). Information about sociodemographic characteristics was collected using a structured questionnaire. Anthropometric methods were used to determine nutritional status. The effects of the intervention on the abovementioned outcomes over the study period and group differences in change over time were examined using Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE).
Statistically significant intervention effects were found for language (P = 0.0014), personal-social (P = 0.0087) and social-emotional (P < 0.0001) performances. At the midline of the study, language (effect size = 0.34) and social-emotional (effect size = - 0.603) benefits from the play-assisted stimulation had already been observed for the children in the intervention group. For language, the intervention effect depended on the child's sex (P = 0.0100) and for personal-social performance, on family income (P = 0.0300).
Intensive home-based play-assisted stimulation reduced the developmental problems of children in foster families in the context of extreme poverty. Longer follow-up may reveal further improvements in the developmental performance of the children.
The study was retrospectively registered on ClinicalTrials.gov on 17 November 2016, Study Identifier: NCT02988180 .
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