When will Immersive Virtual Reality have its day? Challenges to IVR adoption in the home as exposed in studies with teenagers, parents and experts

In response to the pandemic, many countries have had multiple lockdowns punctuated by partial freedoms limiting physically being together. In 2020-21, during the COVID-19 pandemic parents were stressed and exhausted by the challenges of work, home schooling and barriers to typical childcare arrangements. Children were missing one another, their social lives and the variety of experiences that the world beyond the home brings. Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) offers tried and tested ways to enable children to maintain beyond-household family activities and dynamics. However, it is not viewed as a solution. Instead, as demonstrated through a multiple method study involving a Rapid Evidence Assessment; workshops with 91 teenagers; interviews with 15 experts; a Delphi study with 21 experts; 402 parent questionnaires pre-pandemic; 232 parent questionnaires during the pandemic; and longitudinal interviews with 13 parents during the first UK lockdown in 2020, IVR is not viewed as having value in the home beyond gaming. Results highlight limited consideration of IVR as a way to enhance family life or the home, with a lack of evidence and direction from current research, innovation and policy. The paper empirically demonstrates that experts, teenagers and parents have limited expectations for VR. Further, with parental resistance to adoption and a lack of ideas or innovations in how Immersive Virtual Reality could be used, the likelihood of VR-headset adoption remains low as does its potential as a means of educating, entertaining and socially engaging children and teenagers.

Disguised compliance or undisguised nonsense? A critical discourse analysis of compliance and resistance in social work practice

This article examines how the term ‘disguised compliance’ first emerged and developed into the popular catchphrase that is used in practice today. Using critical discourse analysis, we explore how language affects practice and how social workers draw on a predetermined concept to rationalise concerns relating to parental resistance. We contend that concepts such as disguised compliance are misleading as they do not improve social workers’ abilities in detecting resistance or compliance. Instead, we argue that social workers should be cautious when using popular mantras which, on the surface, appear effective in describing parents’ behaviours but, in reality, conceal concerns relating to risk, accountability and blame. This study differs from the current literature that advocates social workers should be aware of disguised compliance by shifting the emphasis away from the behaviours of parents and towards acknowledging the power such discursive activities can have on practice.

Teaching a Strengths Perspective in Child Protection Work

This article describes a pedagogical strategy that provides an opportunity for BSW students to think critically about their interpretations of child protection clients and begin to engage with a strengths perspective. This teaching strategy uses reactance theory to introduce a nonpathologizing approach to client resistance. By reframing client resistance and reconsidering assumptions, this approach lays the groundwork for the use of a strengths perspective with involuntary clients and the development of collaborative relationships. Students' written feedback before and after the class (N=56) describes their experiences with this teaching strategy. The feedback suggests that while a deficits-based approach seems deeply rooted in some students' assumptions about clients, perhaps especially in child protection where the consequences of parental resistance are significant, many students found this teaching strategy facilitated their consideration of alternative explanations of the client's behavior and empathy toward the client. Implications of this are discussed.

Interrupting Coercion

The Oregon Model of Parent Management Training (PMTO) is an intervention based on the social interaction learning model, which posits coercion as a disruptor for family processes and outcomes. This chapter examines the role that coercion plays in the context of theory-based intervention, reviewing two randomized, controlled trials that evaluated coercive and positive parenting practices as mediators of outcomes. The studies examined the differential effects of changes on coercive and positive parenting as well as the orderly sequence of these changes and their mediating effects in short-term and longer term follow-up data. The chapter considers family contextual factors and their impact on change processes during intervention and includes a discussion of factors such as parental adjustment (depression, antisocial qualities) and stressful circumstances and their relationship to parental resistance during intervention. Practitioner variables and practices are examined as contributors to the change process. Some findings of resistance observed during therapy are discussed.