Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Looking After Children System'

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2009.
A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, Social Justice and Social Change Research Centre, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographical references.

This research explores working mothers’ decisions on combining paid work with looking after children and the implications these have for their pensions, and whether they have changed over time. Two cohorts of mothers are interviewed. The first cohort are working mothers aged between 30-40 years with the aim to explore their decisions’ to combine paid work with looking after children and their current situation of financial planning for retirement. The second cohort are mothers who are in receipt of state and/or non-state pensions and are aged between 60-70 years with the aim to explore how they combined paid work with looking after children and how they had planned financially for their retirement. Empirically, this research compares an earlier cohort of mothers who started to receive state and/or non-state pensions with working mothers whose retirement is expected to be around 2050. This research analyses pension provision for women in the United Kingdom through a critical review of Conservative and Labour Governments’ policies between 1979 and 2010 in addressing gender inequalities in pension provision for women. The period 1979 to 2010 covers the beginnings of the gradual and long term shift from state to non-state pension provision by 2050. Welfare state/regimes and sociological theories are used in this research study in order to explore working mothers’ decisions on paid work with looking after children and the implications these have for their pensions, given the policy shift from state to non-state pension provision. Working mothers’ experiences in combining paid work with looking after children show that mothers can hold different gendered moral rationalities and shift between the ideal types of social policy over time. This is shaped by whether they have a choice to decide how to combine paid work with looking after children. This in turn shapes working mothers’ orientations towards paid work and opportunities to contribute towards state and occupational pensions. Combining paid work with looking after children by members of both cohorts varied and was not a straightforward to fit one type of the ideal types of social policy, and the gendered moral rationalities held are subject to change in the lives of working mothers over time.

Whilst outcomes for Children Looked After have extensively been discussed (Millward, Kennedy, Towlson, & Minnis, 2006; Rees, 2012), and the importance of school in the lives of these children acknowledged (Greig et al., 2008), less attention has been paid to the views and experiences of teachers of Children Looked After (Goddard, 2000). It is accepted that Emotional Labour (Hochschild, 1983) is commonplace in the teaching profession (Isenbarger & Zembylas, 2006) but no research has investigated how, and to what extent, teachers experience Emotional Labour during interactions with Children Looked After. The literature review explores research relating to outcomes for Children Looked After and the role of adults in supporting this group of children. The concept of emotion in the teaching profession, teachers’ experiences of emotional management and conceptualisations of Emotional Labour theory are also explored. Fourteen Key Stage Two teachers of Children Looked After participated in the current study by completing semi-structured interviews with a researcher. Results indicate that participants experience Emotional Labour during interactions with Children Looked After and that this may be mediated, to a degree, by factors including role constructions, perceptions of support and self-perceived role facilitators such as perceptions of a professional duty. Findings are discussed in relation to the need for Educational Psychologists to understand better the impact of Emotional Labour on teachers of Children Looked After. Correspondingly, the provision of supervision and systems level support for teachers of this group of children are explored.

Background: Children with congenital heart disease (CHD) often face barriers unique to their diagnoses, making participation in community physical activity programs difficult. This pilot, feasibility study evaluated the appropriateness (i.e. feasibility and enjoyment ) of the Sportball program among a group of children with CHD. This study also sought to observe any changes in physical literacy outcomes and to explore physical activity perceptions of participants, in order to better inform the future use of community-based interventions for this population. Methods: This study employed a mixed-methods evaluation of a 10-week community-based intervention. Data from two focus groups (baseline and post-intervention) and field notes after each intervention session were collected. Physical literacy outcomes were determined using the Canadian Assessment of Physical Literacy. Results: Participants with CHD (n=9) successfully participated in Sportball, as demonstrated by the ability of all participants to complete program activities, participants’ overall enjoyment of the program and fair attendance (approximately 80% of intervention sessions). Improvements in motor skill and torso strength were observed, with a statistically significant difference (p < 0.01) in motor skill classification. Participation in Sportball facilitated positive social interactions during sport and was influenced by personal, social and environmental factors. Conclusion: Overall, participation in Sportball is appropriate for children with CHD who may have motor development delays and/or activity restrictions.

Public libraries are evolving from their traditional role as promoters of literacy to a new role as providers of community resources, including after-school activities for teenagers. A policy mandate for such activities appears to be lacking though, which might impact negatively their effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to get a better understanding of the existing policy and implementation mechanisms of after-school activities offered by the Atlanta Fulton Library System in Georgia to at-risk teenaged patrons. Moore's theory of innovation and public value provided the theoretical framework for the study. An embedded case study research design was used to explore the perceived role of the public library, guiding policy framework, and factors constraining the implementation of after-school activities in 3 of the system 20 branches serving at-risk youth; semi-structured interviews with 21 participants comprising teenagers engaged in after-school activities, parents, librarians, library managers, and members of the Friends of the library; observations of teenagers' behaviors in the library setting; and publicly available document on the subject. The data were inductively coded and then subjected to a content analytical procedure, which revealed 5 after-school themes: bridging a digital divide, teen and community needs, public policy, and public service. The key finding of this study indicates an absence of a system-wide formal policy in how after-school services are provided across library branches for at-risk teenagers. The study concludes with recommendations to reexamine the existing after-school programs in a way that better incorporates the unique needs of library patrons and to align policies with these needs in order to better serve at-risk youth within the context of their communities.

The focus of this study is Looked After Children and their experiences and perceptions of school. Its focus is the views of the Looked After Child, their perceptions, their experiences as well as those key adults around the children such as carers and teachers. It investigates the views of Looked After Children and the views or labels that the adults around these children use to describe them. The focus of the study emerged following a review of the literature around Looked After Children and their experiences in education. It was felt that there was a gap in the literature whereby the views of Looked After Children were rarely sought with researchers preferring to work with retrospective accounts of being in care or through working with adults around the child in care. The empirical stance of the study is interpretivist in nature while Grounded Theory was chosen as both process and analytical tool to interpret the thoughts and beliefs of the children and adult. The data is presented through a case study format. Therefore, an interpretative stance was taken using Grounded Theory to guide my work and semistructured interviews were used to gather information from ten participants (four children in care, three carers and three teachers). Key findings emerged as identity; the way the child viewed himself or herself and the identity that others 'gave' them due to their 'vulnerable' status. Other areas of importance emerged as friendships, behaviour and feelings, outside professional involvement, and relationships and avoidance techniques. The study concludes with emerging theory from the data which states that there is a tension between government and individual needs and wants, therefore highlighting the importance of the voice of the individual i.e. the child in care in this instance. The study opens with a definition of being a Looked After Child and moves onto an examination of social policy, the governmental context and historical aspects of care. Relevant literature is presented which provides a rich variety of ideas related to being a Looked After Child. In particular the literature review highlights the fact that there has been much research into the care of Looked After Children and the importance of their achievement within education (albeit within a quantitative context). The notion of the importance of social networks is also examined. Based on the conclusions of the research, a number of areas that may have implications for Educational Psychologists are discussed as suggestions for future research.

The study sought to establish whether the Quality Protects (QP) initiatives were successful in one of their aims, which was to raise the educational attainment of Looked After Children. The method employed was a mixed triangulation method; incorporating, a pilot questionnaire, the statistics of Looked After Children GCSE cohorts for the period from 1999 to 2002, followed by interviews and focus groups with the stakeholders. The source of the study was a small local authority In the south of England.

Resiliency has become common in child welfare parlance in recent decades and producing resilient youth is touted as the panacea to improving notoriously poor outcomes for youth in care, when compared to youth not in the care of the state. The Looking After Children (LAC) system emerged in the U.K out of neoliberal and managerial policies of the 1990s. The LAC system, and its corresponding Assessment and Action Record (AAR), was subsequently imported to Canada and has been heralded to foster resilience in youth in care. The AAR is composed of hundreds of tick box questions posed to young people in care, child welfare workers, and foster parents; these questions are pedagogical and the mined data from the AAR is aggregated to inform child welfare policy. The Looking After Children: A Practitioner’s Guide (Lemay & Ghazal, 2007) instructs workers how to administer the AAR, Second Canadian adaptation (AAR- C2), and it informs workers how to do their job. The notion of resilience in the Practitioner's Guide and the AAR-C2 are based in normative development and day to day experiences (Lemay & Ghazal, 2007). My interest in the LAC system emerges out of my experiences as a child welfare worker and my experience of being a youth in care. I wondered how it was, given the oppressive track record of child welfare in Canada, that the state could initiate a system to produce normal youth. This was a particularly salient question given the massive over- representation of Indigenous youth in foster care. With this critical curiosity as a point of departure I employed a Foucauldian inspired discourse analysis of the Looking After Children: A Practitioner’s Guide (2007, University of Ottawa Press), and three versions of its corresponding Assessment and Action Record, Second Canadian adaptation (AAR- C2) (2006, 2010, 2016, University of Ottawa). My analysis asked the question: How have we come to this ideal of resiliency? What were the contingencies and complex set of practices that enabled this specific notion of resilience to emerge in child welfare? What are the material outcomes of this notion of resilience? My findings suggest that: Youth in care are produced as deviant and outside of normal development, versus the desired resilient youth; youth in care and foster parents are responsibilized to produce resilient outcomes, which can never actually be achieved; the AAR-C2 acts as a surveillance system to enable to production of neoliberal subjects; the LAC system and the AAR-C2 are a method of colonization of Indigenous youth in care.
Graduate

Master of Social Work
This research is about evidence based practice, which is an area of increasing interest and emphasis in social work today. Initially apparent in medical and health care settings, evidence based practice now has widened applicability to a broad range of contexts and professional disciplines. The ways in which research evidence is translated into policy and practice is itself a topic area for social work research. The study investigates evidence based practice in child welfare, specifically the out-of-home care system. Out-of-home care provides alternative placements for children and young people who cannot live with their families because of abuse and neglect, and generally consists of placement with foster carers or in a residential/group care setting. This research is an exploratory study which investigates through individual interview how nineteen out-of-home care Senior Managers and Team Leaders in the states of New South Wales, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory interpret and understand evidence based practice, and the degree and depth of knowledge they transfer from research awareness into out-of-home care practice and policy development. The research has three main objectives. Firstly to investigate the understanding of out-of-home care managers of evidence based practice, secondly to determine the influence of relevant research on practice and policy in out-ofhome care, and thirdly to explore potential barriers to evidence based practice. Looking After Children, a social work case management system for children and young people in out-of-home care, provides the context for this research, in which evidence based practice is critically examined. A thematic analysis of the interview data identified five major themes. These included: the benefit of broadening definitions of evidence based practice to include a wide range of influences on practice; the value and importance of 2 considering a broad range of research approaches in connecting research with policy and practice AND the potential for influencing outcomes of social work intervention via research based and influenced guided practice systems and techniques; factors which constitute barriers and also those that enhance the implementation of evidence based practice; the potential for instigating and supporting new research via the use of evidence based practice for purposes such as data aggregation, in addition to practice development and enhancement of client outcomes. Implications and conclusions are drawn from this study in relation to out-ofhome care policy and practice, with particular reference to use of the Looking After Children case management system in the Australian context. These include the potential of a consistent system such as LAC to provide common language and assessment tools and procedures in a welfare sector that is fragmented by lack of national legislation, and the potential for development of national out-of-home care research projects as a result of cross agency LAC implementation resulting in data aggregation opportunities.

No
This paper explores different orientations to child-centered social work as conveyed in the training materials and guidelines of Looking After Children and Assessment Framework in Australia. Canada and Sweden. 'Child centered' is shaped by contextual factors and influences social work practices. We found differences in these approaches as needs based and/or rights based and in relation to how each emphasizes the three P's Provision, Protection and Participation. Substantial differences were identified both in how references to a child-centered approach appear in theoretical frameworks, values, motives and use of concepts in training materials and guidelines, and in the instructions given as to how to apply these approaches. It appears that Australia balances needs and rights, while Canada is more needs-oriented and Sweden more rights-oriented. Swedish materials show a more explicit emphasis on participation than Australian and Canadian materials. Differences between the three countries indicate the importance of structural, contextual factors shaping orientations to child-centered practice.

碩士
東海大學
社會工作學系
100
The main goal of this study was to explore the cooperating experiences of social workers and the school educators in the “Children's After School Program” proposed by “Community Care System for Disadvantaged Children” of the Children's Welfare Bureau, Ministry of the Interior. The research focuses are to explore, 1) how the social workers and the school activate the children's after-school care program; 2) how they consolidates and exploits the resources in the after-school care programs; and 3) the cooperative model of social welfare organizations and schools in the development of after-school care program. This study adopts a qualitative research method, through purposefully sampling out 7 respondents for semi-structured in-depth interviews, all of whom are either social workers or administrative staffs serving at least 2 years from 6 institutions that have been working and is working with schools, all of which are from 17 social welfare institutions which take charges of the “Community care counseling support system for children and teenagers” of Children welfare Bureau in central Taiwan. The study, which is divided into four parts, is mainly from the viewpoints of social worker, exploring the cooperating experiences with schools in after-school care program. The first section introduces the basic backgrounds of the undertaking social welfare institutions and the motivations of executions of after-school care program with schools; Section II is to explore the interactions with school personnel in the program; Section III is to explore the resources integration and utilization in the after-school care program; Section IV is to explore the cooperative model of social welfare organizations and schools in the development of after-school care program. The study shows that in process of cooperation of social welfare institutions and schools for children's after-school care program, the original workloads of social welfare institutions can be consolidated with the projects of the Children's Welfare Bureau. Additionally, with the cooperation of neighborhood magistrate, key figures, the head of the institution and schools, three forms of the social institutions cooperating with schools for after-school care classes have been developed, with counseling director being the main contact window for social workers. As for the resource consolidation and utilization parts, firstly, the resources are the institutions resources, school resources and community resources, of which differences exists in large organizations and small organizations in the resource linking. Secondly, the schools are responsible for the information of disadvantaged families and provide classroom resources. Thirdly, community resources are put into promoting community care for disadvantaged family children. Additionally, the social workers creating a platform for communicating with instructors and parents of disadvantaged family identification for the services are driving force for the cooperation of both sides. On the other hands, the resistances of schools for the community-based organizations, the frequent changes in guidance officers, the disagreements between heads of social welfare institutions on the program and the lack of after-school consulting volunteers are the obstacles of cooperation between the two sides; Social welfare institutions and schools have developed three cooperation models: resource-dependence, power-dependence and partnership. The cooperation model is dynamic and will be affected by different contact window, the resources put into and excreta. The study concludes with the limitations of the research and advices for three stakeholders including policy makers, practitioners and future researchers based on research results and experience of the respondents.

STEM education is a top priority in the educational development of youth across the United States as the country tries to address the need of having a more well equipped, prepared, and educated workforce. Agriculture, food, and natural resources (AFNR) has the ability to provide a relevant context for engaging students in STEM education through experiential learning. Tragically, both STEM and AFNR struggle to reach and engage more diversified audiences, especially students of color. AFNR education provides an authentic avenue to center STEM engagement around addressing societal grand challenges like food and nutritional security, childhood-obesity, and climate change; issues faced by all communities. The approaches and steps taken to address these AFNR related grand challenges can all be explored through the lens of food systems. Food systems is a concept within AFNR that encompasses the interdisciplinary components of AFNR, STEM, and social sciences that provides a breakdown for the process and system involved in getting food from farm to fork. In an era where youth are more disconnected from understanding where their food comes from, food systems education has the ability to reconnect youth to the root of this issue and the potential to lead them to explore finding solutions to the grand challenges facing their generation. Furthermore, food systems education provides a context to engage youth in authentic learning experiences in nonformal and formal classroom settings around relevant issues with the potential to enhance their interests and concerns around these topics.

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe elementary school students’ interests and concerns about the food system, and their overall engagement in the learning experience after participating in an authentic learning based Virtual Agri+STEM Camp focused on food systems education, AFNR, and STEM activities. The convenience sample for this study was made up of elementary school students between grades 3^rd and 8^th grade (N = 99) who were either in the classroom or participating in an at-home Agri+STEM session. The majority of these students were from rural communities and most of them were African Americans. Quantitative data was collected before and after participation in the Virtual Agri+STEM Camp experience that using the research developed Food System Interest and Food System Concern instrument. Previous AFNR related experiences were also reported by students. The researcher also used an adapted version of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) and STEM Semantics survey to measure student engagement and attitudes after participating in the experience. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data, which included means, standard deviations, frequencies, and percentages. To explore the relationships between each of the variables, correlations were also computed.

There were four conclusions for this study. First, students that participated in the Virtual Agri+STEM Camp were motivated and engaged in the learning process while doing the Agri+STEM Camp activities. Second, students that participated in the Virtual Agri+STEM Camp were interested and concerned about the food system before and after participating in the Virtual Agri+STEM Camp. Third, African American student participants reported less previous AFNR experiences, yet they reported more interests and concerns in the food system than Caucasian American participants before and after completing the Virtual Agri+STEM Camp. Lastly, Students that felt more competent, saw the value, and were interested/enjoyed the Agri+STEM experience were more likely to be interested and concerned about the food system. Recommendations for future research and implications for practice and policy were discussed.

Les familles d’accueil sont une composante essentielle du système de protection de l’enfance. Or, le réseau québécois est confronté à certaines difficultés de recrutement et de rétention. De plus, deux importants chantiers modifieront la pratique entourant l’accueil familial : le déploiement de l’approche S’occuper des Enfants (SOCEN) et la mise en application de la Loi sur la représentation des ressources (LRR), qui engendre une professionnalisation du rôle de famille d’accueil. Il importe donc de s’intéresser à l’expérience des parents d’accueil, afin d’identifier certaines pistes pour mieux faire face à ces défis et transformations. L’objectif de ce mémoire est de mieux comprendre les facteurs qui influencent la satisfaction des parents d’accueil dans leur rôle. Un sous-objectif est de comprendre si l’approche SOCEN a une influence sur cette satisfaction. Pour ce faire, des entrevues individuelles semi-directives ont été effectuées auprès de treize parents d’accueil d’une région du Québec qui implante l’approche SOCEN depuis 2003. Une analyse de contenu thématique concernant leur satisfaction, leur motivation et les défis qu’ils rencontrent a été effectuée. Les résultats montrent que selon les parents d’accueil, la satisfaction dans leur rôle s’incarne dans trois dimensions distinctes: la dimension parentale, la dimension professionnelle et la dimension personnelle. Les facteurs qui influencent leur satisfaction sont : les enjeux de parentalité en contexte de placement à long terme, l’impact du placement sur la famille du parent d’accueil et les enjeux de reconnaissance. Il ressort également que les principes et les outils proposés par l’approche SOCEN pourraient agir sur les facteurs évoqués et ainsi augmenter la satisfaction des parents d’accueil dans leur rôle.
Foster families are an essential part of the youth protection system. However, in the province of Québec the youth protection network faces certain difficulties in recruiting and retaining candidates. Furthermore, two major changes may have an important impact on the practice of fostering children and youth: the implementation of the Looking After Children approach (LAC) and the application of the Act on the representation of family-type resources and certain intermediate resources, which implies the professionalization of the role of foster families. It is therefore imperative to take a closer look at foster parents’ experiences in order to identify better ways to cope with these transformations and challenges. The objective of the present thesis is to better understand the influential factors that affect the level of satisfaction foster parents attain through their role as caregivers. An underlying objective is to determine if the LAC approach affects the level of satisfaction. In order to achieve these objectives, thirteen foster parents from a region of the province of Quebec where the LAC approach has been implemented since 2003 were interviewed using individual, semi-directive interview techniques. An analysis of the thematic content pertaining to their level of satisfaction, their motivation and the challenges that they meet regularly was then conducted. According to the results found, the foster parents identify their level of satisfaction as pertaining to three distinct dimensions: parental, professional and personal. The factors which influence their level of satisfaction are: the parenting issues surrounding long-term foster care, the impacts that fostering has on a foster parent’s own family, and issues surrounding recognition/gratitude. The results also found that the principles and means suggested by the LAC approach may affect the factors evoked, therefore increasing the level of satisfaction of foster parents in their role as caregivers.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Despite warnings about the dangers of drinking during pregnancy, little progress has been made in reducing alcohol drinking among women of childbearing age. Even after the recognition of pregnancy, 15% of women continue to drink, 3% of which admit to binge drinking. Because we cannot stop women from drinking during pregnancy, and many children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) are adopted, there is a significant need to develop postnatal interventions that can improve the long-term outcome of children adversely affected by prenatal alcohol exposure. This thesis aims to evaluate one promising new treatment in the rehabilitation or rescue of specific learning deficits long after the damage has occurred. The treatment evaluated herein (40µg D-NAP + 40µg D-SAL) has long been used in the prevention of the detrimental effects of long-term and binge-like alcohol exposures in rodent models of fetal alcohol syndrome and FASD. Until recently this peptide treatment had only been shown to be effective in preventing some of the consequences of alcohol exposure when administered concurrently with the prenatal alcohol exposure. A recent report by Incerti and colleagues (2010c), however, reported that these peptides could completely reverse a profound spatial learning deficit induced by one episode of a heavy binge-like alcohol exposure (5.9g.kg in a single intraperitoneal injection) on gestational day 8 (G8) in C57BL/6 mice. In that report, the peptide treatment was administered starting in late adolescence, beginning three days prior to and throughout water maze training, and the profound deficits in their alcohol-placebo group were completely eliminated in the alcohol-peptide group. There are currently no FDA-approved treatments for FASD. An effective treatment for the cognitive and behavioral dysfunctions suffered by the 1% of people born today could potentially improve the lives of millions of children and adults. The first aim of this thesis was to determine whether the peptide treatment could reverse the significant spatial learning deficits we have demonstrated in adult C57BL/6 mice given high-dose binge-like alcohol exposure (2.5 g/kg in each of two intraperitoneal injections separated by two hours) on postnatal day (P)7. When administered three days prior to and throughout water maze testing (P67-76), the peptide treatment had no effect on spatial learning. The second aim sought to determine whether the same peptide treatment could reverse water maze spatial learning deficits in G8 binge-like exposure models, as reported by Incerti et al. (2010c). For this analysis, the first study used a different binge-like alcohol exposure model that is more commonly used than that employed by the Incerti et al. (2010c) study, namely administration of 2.8g/kg in each of two intraperitoneal injections separated by four hours (Sulik et al., 1981). This model has been shown to produce high peak blood alcohol concentrations and neuroanatomical aberrations in the hippocampal formation and septal regions (Parnell et al., 2009), which have been implicated in learning and memory. Surprisingly, this G8 binge-like alcohol exposure failed to produce a spatial learning deficit, undermining the usefulness of this model in evaluating the peptide effects. In direct contrast to the outcomes of Incerti et al. (2010c), the G8 Webster alcohol exposure was also unable to produce any deficits in acquisition of spatial learning in the Morris water maze. Surprisingly, neither of the heavy binge-like alcohol exposures on G8 were able to produce spatial learning deficits in the Morris water maze. The binge-like alcohol exposure on P7 did yield the expected spatial learning deficit, but the peptide treatment was unsuccessful in recovering water maze learning. These findings fail to support oral administration of 40µg D-NAP and 40 µg D-SAL as a potential therapy for postnatal alcohol-induced spatial learning deficits in adult mice.