Challenging child development theory on the understanding of death : learning through the experiences of child life specialists

The purpose of this research was to review the experiences of Child Life Specialists, to determine whether or not children with a terminal illness have a more advanced knowledge of death than traditional child developmental theory suggests. This research was a qualitative design in the form of a questionnaire and examined the experiences of five professional Child Life Specialists in the Greater Toronto Area. The findings revealed that Child Life Specialists have found that there is a difference of understanding of death between a healthy and terminally ill child. This information could lead to better practices for pediatric palliative care by providing those who work with palliative children, a better understanding of their perceptions and understanding of death.

Challenging child development theory on the understanding of death : learning through the experiences of child life specialists

The purpose of this research was to review the experiences of Child Life Specialists, to determine whether or not children with a terminal illness have a more advanced knowledge of death than traditional child developmental theory suggests. This research was a qualitative design in the form of a questionnaire and examined the experiences of five professional Child Life Specialists in the Greater Toronto Area. The findings revealed that Child Life Specialists have found that there is a difference of understanding of death between a healthy and terminally ill child. This information could lead to better practices for pediatric palliative care by providing those who work with palliative children, a better understanding of their perceptions and understanding of death.

Verdier og kommunikasjon i konfliktsituasjoner

Good communication between child protection workers and families is crucial for cooperation and agreement about decisions regarding child care. This chapter focuses on challenges in this communication related to value conflicts – conflicts in which fundamental disagreement is grounded in opposing values. The chapter uses concepts from philosophy of mind and language to understand value conflicts in child protection services. The key theoretical idea is that beliefs and thoughts are different from value preferences. While beliefs and thoughts are mental representations that are true or false depending on how the world is, persons’ values are preferences directly related to activities or objects that are of fundamental importance to them. This means that telling others, explicitly or implicitly, that their values are false involves a categorical mistake and will typically be experienced as a form of value imperialism that undermines cooperation and aims of shared understanding in child protection work. Value preferences related to child care can nevertheless be explored and challenged in various ways, for instance by focusing on tensions between values, or on beliefs that values are grounded in. The chapter uses case studies to clarify these implications in professional child protection.

Professional social work and the defence of children’s and their families’ rights in a period of austerity: A case study

This article explores the implications of austerity for professional child and family social workers. Their ability to offer and provide a range of child and family support services was threatened by proposed clauses in the 2016/17 Children and Social Work Bill, now Act, which would have exempted local authorities from meeting key existing statutory duties. Having established a policy context for progressive social work, the article records the Bill’s passage through Parliament, and details the successful Together for Children campaign against the clauses, in which the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) and the Association of Professors of Social Work participated. The authors conclude by identifying some of the ways in which social workers can apply their progressive and professional values and knowledge to defend the social care rights of children and families.Keywords: children; social work; legislation; children’s rights; campaigning; austerity

Children’s quest for love and professional child protection work: the case of Norway.

Central actors in the child protection field in Norway argue that children in public care should not only receive care and support, but also love. It is hard to disagree that children need love. However, there is reason to question the situation that may arise if children’s need for love is translated into requirements that must be safeguarded and handled by child protection workers in the child protection services. In this article, I analyse this ‘requirement of love’ both with regard to the increased focus on children’s rights in discussions on children’s life conditions and to the history of the professionalisation of social work; having the gendered features of social work and its partial professionalisation in mind. Due to the challenges this requirement represents, there may be good reasons to revisit the debates on care and care work among feminists who have theorised care as work within professional contexts. I try to show how the field of social work and child protection may utilise the critical potential in care feminist thinking by connecting it to their own emphasis on emotional awareness and knowledge of self as a prerequisite for professional child protection work.