Strengthening Tanzania’s social welfare workforce to provide ongoing paraprofessional support services to vulnerable children and families

2016 ◽  
pp. 384-398
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Support Services ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Vulnerable Children

The contamination of trauma. Traumatized minds, broken families and dysfunctional work groups: Organizational and interpersonal dynamics in complex child welfare court proceedings

2021 ◽  
pp. 053331642110150
Author(s):  
Stuart Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Work Groups ◽  
Work Group ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Organizational Dynamics ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
History Of ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Court Proceedings

Professional work groups engaging with traumatized and dysfunctional families are presented with a disproportionate challenge to an already inevitably painful process that can be an obstacle to balanced decision-making in the children’s best interests. Trauma, abuse and neglect can influence the professional culture that condenses around these families. This occurs more often with the most challenging families with a possible history of professional failure resulting in professional conflict, impulsive and poor decision-making due to the occasions that these destructive dynamics have become unmanageable. Serious case reviews into the deaths of children regularly outline professional failures relating to a breakdown in communication within the professional system and essential and potential lifesaving information having been lost or failing to have been acted upon. The ability to understand complex group and organizational dynamics and the ability to manage relationships with traumatized adults and children, as well as within traumatized work groups is, therefore, an essential skill set for professionals working with the most vulnerable children and families. This article explores trauma and its impact on a work group and why this process was disturbed by uncontained anxiety resulting in professional conflict.

Research to Consider While Effectively Re-Designing Child Welfare Services

2021 ◽  
pp. 104973152110500
Author(s):  
Richard P. Barth ◽  
Jill Duerr Berrick ◽  
Antonio R. Garcia ◽  
Brett Drake ◽  
Melissa Jonson-Reid ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
The United States ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
New Policies

An intense appetite for reforming and transforming child welfare services in the United States is yielding many new initiatives. Vulnerable children and families who become involved with child welfare clearly deserve higher quality and more effective services. New policies, programs, and practices should be built on sound evidence. Reforms based on misunderstandings about what the current data show may ultimately harm families. This review highlights 10 commonly held misconceptions which we assert are inconsistent with the best available contemporary evidence. Implications for better alignment of evidence and reform are discussed.

Social Welfare Issues in Childhood

2019 ◽  
pp. 1524-1540
Author(s):  
Tapologo Maundeni ◽  
Odireleng Mildred Jankey ◽  
Lisa Lopez Levers
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Substance Abuse ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Hiv And Aids ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Ideological Differences

Children around the globe are confronted with numerous social welfare issues that adversely affect their wellbeing. These issues differ across countries and regions. This chapter explores childhood social welfare issues in Botswana, illuminating the ideological differences between traditional and more contemporary conceptualizations of childhood. Because children's issues are currently so complex, this chapter focuses primarily on HIV and AIDS-related orphanhood, alcohol and substance abuse, and traumatic events in the lives of the children. Problems in the lives of children in Botswana are identified, related opportunities are discussed, and recommendations made. The chapter demonstrates, among other things, that a number of commendable efforts (at practice, policy, and research levels) have been undertaken by stakeholders to address social welfare issues in childhood: however, a lot more still needs to be done to improve the quality of life among Botswana's most vulnerable children. Therefore, the chapter concludes by highlighting recommendations for research, practice, and policy.

Co-Constructing a Learning Community

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Learning Community ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Occupational Therapists ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Common Understanding ◽  
Country Specific

This paper explores the development of professional understanding across a large group of professionals and academics from eight different countries engaged in an international project. The focus of the project was to develop a suite of appropriate electronic tools to support the wide range of professionals (doctors, teachers, care and family workers, psychologists and medical and occupational therapists) who may be involved in working with and providing support for vulnerable children and families, which would be relevant across European countries. This case study explores how effective communication developed between the members of the research group to enable greater common understanding of both cultural and country specific provision, needs, and the underpinning philosophy and principles behind current provision in different countries represented. It explores the role of a ‘learning community’ and a ‘community of practice’ (Lave & Wenger, 1998) in this process as a tool for developing understanding. It provides insights into related issues, and possible future lessons to be learnt.

Children's Advocacy in Wales: Organisational Challenges for Those Who Commission and Deliver Advocacy for Looked after Children

2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Pithouse ◽  
Odette Parry
Keyword(s):  
Local Authority ◽  
Step Change ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Direct Benefit ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
Looked After Children ◽  
Authority Area ◽  
The Way

Andrew Pithouse and Odette Parry set out results from a Welsh Assembly Government-funded study of all children's advocacy services commissioned by local authorities in Wales. The results are presented in relation to key organisational themes that include the characteristics of children's advocacy services in Wales and the views of advocacy services held by local authority staff. Particular prominence is given to matters concerning looked after children where it will be seen that (a) advocacy providers tend to deliver case- or issue-based services and do relatively less in the way of cause-based advocacy, (b) most advocacy providers see themselves as both insufficiently funded by and independent of those commissioning their services, (c) local authority staff typically view advocacy as a service of benefit to children and families rather than of any direct benefit to authorities and (d) there remain significant difficulties in providing advocacy for ‘hard-to-reach’ children such as fostered children, children in respite care and children placed out of the local authority area. The paper concludes that there is a strong case for national government in Wales to promote a step-change in the way children's advocacy is organised so that a more strategically coherent and regional approach is taken that can deliver an independent, equitable, accessible and more uniform quality of advocacy provision for vulnerable children and young people.

Connecting Vulnerable Children and Families to Community-Based Programs Strengthens Parentsʼ Perceptions of Protective Factors

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia Hughes ◽  
Allison Joslyn ◽  
Morella Wojton ◽  
Mairead OʼReilly ◽  
Paul H. Dworkin
Keyword(s):  
Protective Factors ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Community Based Programs

‘This word volunteer is killing us’: Making sense of volunteering in social welfare provision for orphans and vulnerable children in rural Zimbabwe

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 1126-1140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathrine Madziva ◽  
Martha Chinouya
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Value System ◽  
Orphans And Vulnerable Children ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Social ◽  
Community Initiative ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Normative Value

This qualitative study explored how volunteers delivering social welfare to orphans and vulnerable children through a community initiative supported by donors made sense of volunteering during a period of hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. Findings confirm that volunteering in Africa is influenced by a normative value system embedded in Ubuntu. Volunteering emerged as contradictory given the contextual prevalence of the social obligation discourse rather than individual choice as embedded in the European sense of voluntarism. Volunteering masked the cost of participation, thereby potentially making poverty worse for the poor in a context without a formal welfare system.

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