scholarly journals Supporting foster carers to meet the needs of looked after children: A feasibility and pilot evaluation of the Reflective Fostering Programme

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Midgley ◽  
Antonella Cirasola ◽  
Chloe Austerberry ◽  
Erica Ranzato ◽  
Grace West ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reflective Functioning ◽  
Clinical Excellence ◽  
Post Evaluation ◽  
Looked After Children ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Reflective Capacity ◽  
Strengths And Difficulties ◽  
Outcomes For Children ◽  
Reflective Parenting ◽  
Children In Care

This study presents the feasibility and pilot evaluation of the Reflective Fostering Programme (RFP), a recently developed, group-based program to support foster carers, based on the concept of “reflective parenting.” This innovative development follows calls by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and other organizations to help improve outcomes for children in care by providing better support to their carers. This study aimed to establish whether it is possible to implement the RFP and to gather preliminary data on the acceptability and effectiveness of the program. Twenty-eight foster carers took part in the study. Results indicate that training and delivery of the RFP were feasible; the program was felt to be relevant and meaningful to both foster carers and social care professionals delivering it. Preliminary pre-post evaluation showed a statistically significant improvement in foster carers’ stress, their achievement of self-defined goals and child’s emotion lability and overall strengths and difficulties. There were no statistically significant changes in carers’ reflective functioning, although some foster carers reported on changes in reflective capacity during focus groups. Preliminary findings about the feasibility of training and delivery of the RFP, as well as the acceptability and effectiveness of the program, are encouraging, but further impact evaluation is needed.

scholarly journals The Reflective Fostering Programme: background and development of a new approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 234-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila Redfern ◽  
Sally Wood ◽  
Dana Lassri ◽  
Antonella Cirasola ◽  
Grace West ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reflective Functioning ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Disruptive Behaviour ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Looked After Children ◽  
Relational Trauma ◽  
Outcomes For Children ◽  
Challenging Behaviours ◽  
Children In Care

Looked after children represent a vulnerable group in society, many of whom are exposed to maltreatment, particularly in the form of relational trauma, prior to placement with a foster family. Challenging behaviours can place foster placements at risk and looked after children often confront the possibility of placement breakdown. A carer’s capacity to retain a robust understanding of the children in their care as autonomous individuals with needs, feelings and thoughts can be important in enabling them to respond more effectively to the worrying or disruptive behaviour they may encounter. The Reflective Fostering Programme (RFP) is a new group-based programme aiming to support foster carers of children aged 4–11. This innovative development follows calls by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and other organisations to help improve outcomes for children in care by improving resources for their carers. The RFP is rooted in evidence drawn from the field of contemporary attachment and mentalizing research, which indicates that children who have a carer high in reflective functioning tend to have more favourable outcomes in terms of social-emotional well-being. It also draws on the evidence that looking after a child who has impaired capacity to mentalize as a result of early relational trauma affects the carer’s capacity to mentalize and respond sensitively to the child (Ensink, et al., 2015). This article sets out the rationale for the RFP, outlines its key elements and concludes by indicating future service implementation and a planned feasibility study examining this approach.

scholarly journals Mental health services for children in care: investigation to elicit outcomes of direct and indirect interventions

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Samuel Deuchar ◽  
Pallab Majumder
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Work Outcomes ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Retrospective Evaluation ◽  
Retrospective Design ◽  
Looked After Children ◽  
Younger Age ◽  
Mental Health Difficulties ◽  
Strengths And Difficulties ◽  
Children In Care

Aims and method The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of direct therapy and indirect consultation for treating mental health difficulties among looked after children (LAC), and also to identify any demographic or clinical predictor variables for outcomes in this cohort. A retrospective evaluation of mental health outcomes for 104 LAC was conducted. All children received network consultation in combination with or without direct therapeutic work. Outcomes were compared between the groups with and without direct therapeutic intervention. Results Those receiving both treatments displayed significantly greater Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)-rated improvements than those receiving just consultation. Nonetheless, improvements in scores for the latter group were significant relative to baseline. Treatment duration, younger age at referral and start SDQ were all correlated with positive outcomes, while number of address changes predicted higher start SDQ scores. Clinical implications Despite the retrospective design of this study, its results can be considered as preliminary findings to guide treatment decisions in LAC.

Reading with Angels: Improving Literacy among Children in Foster Care

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Knight
Keyword(s):  
Foster Care ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Literacy Outcomes ◽  
Children In Foster Care ◽  
Love Of Learning ◽  
Outcomes For Children ◽  
Children's Literacy ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Children In Care

The Pyjama Foundation is an Australian charity working to improve the literacy and numeracy outcomes for children in foster care. The foundation delivers the Pyjama Foundation Love of Learning programme, a learning-based mentoring programme in which volunteer ‘Pyjama Angels’ visit children in care each week to read books, play games and engage in other learning-based activities.This study surveyed 121 Love of Learning mentors (‘Pyjama Angels’) to assess their perceptions of the relationships they had developed with the children they mentored and of the children's improvement in their literacy skills, a key aim of the programme.The statistical data analysis based on the structural equation modelling and multiple regression approach showed that several factors had a statistically significant impact on the mentors’ perceptions of the children's improvement in literacy skills: relationship with the child, child's engagement and tenure in the programme, and frequency of meetings. Age and gender of the mentors were not found to have a statistically significant impact on mentors’ perceptions of this improvement, while mentors’ perceptions of their relationship with the children was the most important factor influencing their perceptions of improvement in literacy skills. The study did not include objective measures of the children's literacy outcomes, so its results are limited to the mentors’ perceptions. However, this study offers valuable insights for mentoring programmes working with children living in foster care.

scholarly journals Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire scores and mental health in looked after children

2012 ◽  
Vol 200 (5) ◽  
pp. 426-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Goodman ◽  
Robert Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Child Mental Health ◽  
Strengths And Difficulties Questionnaire ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Looked After Children ◽  
Dimensional Measure ◽  
Strengths And Difficulties ◽  
Nationally Representative

SummaryBritish local authorities are required to monitor the mental health of looked after children using mean Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) scores from parents or carers. This assumes that differences in mean SDQ scores reflect genuine differences in child mental health in this group, something we examined using nationally representative surveys (n = 1391, age 5–16). We found that the SDQ was a genuinely dimensional measure of mental health in these children and provided accurate estimates of disorder prevalence.

scholarly journals A brief history of contact in fostering and adoption: practice and power, and the coming of the mobile phone

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-284
Author(s):  
Jennifer E Simpson ◽  
Gary Clapton
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Family Time ◽  
Critical History ◽  
Looked After Children ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Birth Family ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Children In Care

This article charts the UK history of contact in fostering and adoption as it relates to looked after children and their birth relatives. It builds on a recent publication in this journal by one of the authors based on her research on the use of social media by children in care. Here we look at previous practices relating to the question of whether or not contact ought to be ‘allowed’ in which words such as ‘access’ were used, betokening the child as object. We also come up to date with reference to contemporary efforts to recast contact as ‘family time’ that is significant in the child’s continuation of understanding of self. Other words in the lexicon are problematised, including ‘contact’ itself. Attention is also devoted to the social work profession's conception and management of contact. We argue that a critical history of contact reveals the various ways that formal and informal power operates to both regulate and discipline those involved, most centrally the child and birth family members. Drawing upon emerging research relating to social media and contact, the article concludes with a discussion of how young people’s access to, and use of, social media has altered, how contact is managed and ‘policed’, and how this has shifted the balance of power in contact towards greater egalitarianism.

Abused and Looked After Children as ‘Moral Dirt’: Child Abuse and Institutional Care in Historical Perspective

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
HARRY FERGUSON
Keyword(s):  
Child Abuse ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Institutional Care ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Looked After Children ◽  
Industrial Schools ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Children In Care ◽  
Radical Reconstruction

This article argues that to provide adequate historical explanations for the maltreatment of children in institutional care it is necessary to ground the analysis fully in the context of the concept of child abuse and definition of childhood that existed at the time, something that many studies fail to do. Drawing primarily on the experience of the Irish industrial schools prior to the 1970s, while most commentators suggest that children were removed into care and treated cruelly because they were poor, there were also many children who entered the industrial schools who had been abused by their parents and welcomed being protected, and the community played a key role in supporting such actions. Children were treated harshly in the industrial schools not only due to their poverty but because they were victims of parental cruelty, which was perceived to have ‘contaminated’ their childhood ‘innocence’. They were treated as the moral dirt of a social order determined to prove its purity and subjected to ethnic cleansing. Prevention of such abuse today requires a radical reconstruction of the traditional status of children in care, while justice and healing for survivors necessitates full remembrance of the totality of the abuse they experienced, and that those responsible are made fully accountable.

scholarly journals What is the Impact of Public Care on Children's Welfare? A Review of Research Findings from England and Wales and their Policy Implications

2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
DONALD FORRESTER ◽  
KEITH GOODMAN ◽  
CHRISTINE COCKER ◽  
CHARLOTTE BINNIE ◽  
GRAHAM JENSCH
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Public Care ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Number Of Children ◽  
Outcomes For Children ◽  
Children In Care ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Specific Impact

AbstractThe outcomes for children in public care are generally considered to be poor. This has contributed to a focus on reducing the number of children in care: a goal that is made explicit in the provisions of the current Children and Young Persons Bill. Yet while children in care do less well than most children on a range of measures, such comparisons do not disentangle the extent to which these difficulties pre-dated care and the specific impact of care on child welfare. This article explores the specific impact of care through a review of British research since 1991 that provides data on changes in child welfare over time for children in care. Only 12 studies were identified, indicating a lack of research in this important area. The studies consistently found that children entering care tended to have serious problems but that in general their welfare improved over time. This finding is consistent with the international literature. It has important policy implications. Most significantly it suggests that attempts to reduce the use of public care are misguided, and may place more children at risk of serious harm. Instead, it is argued that England and Wales should move toward a Scandinavian system of public care, in which care is seen as a form of family support and is provided for more rather than fewer children and families.

scholarly journals Model Driven Causal Factors of Panic Buying and Their Implications for Prevention: A Systematic Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-343
Author(s):  
Ravi Philip Rajkumar ◽  
S M Yasir Arafat
Keyword(s):  
Reflective Functioning ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Buying Behavior ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Model Driven ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Group A ◽  
Group B ◽  
Literature Group ◽  
And Control

Panic buying is a commonly observed response to disasters, and has been widely observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known about the variables influencing this behavior. This review summarizes the existing research in this field and examines its implications for the prevention and control of panic buying. Methodology: All papers published prior to or during the pandemic, providing an empirically tested model of panic buying behavior (Group A) or a theoretical model supported by literature (Group B), were retrieved through a literature search. For papers in Group A, specific risk or protective factors were extracted and tabulated. Overlaps between Group A and Group B models were identified. Study results were analyzed to identify potential strategies which could limit panic buying behavior. Results: It was found that a wide variety of primary (crisis/disease-related), secondary (psychological, informational and sociopolitical), and tertiary (supply chain-related) factors were significantly associated with panic buying, while a single variable–reflective functioning was identified as protective. Conclusions: These results provide valuable leads for strategies aimed at preventing or reducing panic buying, particularly in countries still affected by the pandemic. It is hoped that these findings will be useful from both health administration and academic perspectives.

scholarly journals A Review of Studies on Outcomes of Psychosocial Support Interventions: Nurturing Resilience in Looked-After Children

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-38
Author(s):  
Amos Magut
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Psychosocial Support ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Looked After Children ◽  
External Conditions ◽  
Children In Care

Resilience is the quality of life in which a person is able to thrive against adverse internal and external conditions of life. This paper provides a framework for measuring resilience competency as a product of psychosocial support interventions. Resilience competency is one of the aims of psychological and social support given to persons who have undergone traumatic events or experiences. The researcher was biased towards the outcomes of psychosocial support given to looked-after children in care institutions. The paper is based on a review of literature on psychosocial support and resilience competency. The review focused on studies that have been published since the 1990s to date. The keywords used in the search for literature included psychosocial support, psychological support, social support, resiliency, resilience among children, looked-after children, psychosocial support and resilience. Based on the review of literature, the study found that researchers have identified many indicators of resiliency among looked-after children. Among these signs are: having a sense of purpose in life, exhibiting optimism, emotional hardiness or emotional intelligence and active coping with life’s challenges

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