Adoption & Fostering
Abstracts
Spring 2003 - Vol 27 (1)
Private fostering: old problems new urgency
Bob Holman
Private fostering has a long history but few studies have been made of it. Bob Holman traces the development of private fostering in the last 50 years and then analyses what is known about it at present. He shows that, contrary to popular conception, far from being confined to West African children in Britain, private fostering now includes a number of different groupings. The evidence suggests that some private foster carers provide satisfactory care, but there is little doubt that numbers of private foster children are vulnerable to abuse. Black children are usually placed with white foster carers and their cultural and racial needs may not be met. Local authorities already possess considerable duties and powers concerning private fostering but few fully apply them. Proposals are made as to how private foster children can be properly safeguarded.
Bob Holman is Visiting Professor at the University of Swansea and the author of The Unknown Fostering: A study of private fostering (Russell House Publishing, 2002)
Parenting skills for adoptive parents
Liz Gilkes and Ivana Klimes
At the suggestion of service users, Oxfordshire Social Services recently commissioned an experimental 'parenting course' for their newly approved adopters. Facilitators Liz Gilkes and Ivana Klimes discuss this project, which was run for Oxfordshire adopters by the Family Nurturing Network, an organisation now well established in Oxfordshire. The course offered a programme for parents to learn how to best support their children's development and learning, how to manage difficult behaviour and promote self-esteem, and how to care for their own needs. It was evaluated by means of a questionnaire completed by all participants. The results were so overwhelmingly positive that Oxfordshire Social Services now plan to offer these courses as a rolling programme to all their new adopters.
Liz Gilkes works for Oxfordshire Social Services Department as Senior Practitioner for Adoption
Ivana Klimes is Director of the Family Nurturing Network and also works as a consultant clinical psychologist for the Oxfordshire Mental Health Care Trust
Communicating with disabled children
Kirsten Stalker and Clare Connors
In this paper about communicating with disabled children, Kirsten Stalker and Clare Connors discuss a study seeking disabled children's accounts of their everyday lives. The research is set in the context of policy and practice initiatives promoting communication with disabled children and other recent research, which suggests that not all practitioners and policy makers are meeting their responsibilities in this area. In this study of 26 disabled children's lives, different interview schedules were used with younger and older children, along with a number of visual aids and activities. The design and effectiveness of these is discussed in detail. Various methods were used to obtain the views of children with communication impairments. The authors conclude that communicating with most disabled children is little different from communicating with any child. Some basic skills are not hard to learn, and attitudes are all-important. The methods described here could well be adapted and expanded for use in the field of adoption and fostering.
Kirsten Stalker is Senior Research Fellow, Social Work Research Centre, University of Stirling
Clare Connors is Research Fellow, Centre for Applied Social Studies, University of Durham
Committed to caring: family-based short-break carers' views of their role
Beth Tarleton
Short-break carers are short-term foster carers who provide regular care, often one weekend a month, for disabled children. Beth Tarleton reports on a study of 53 short-break carers provided short breaks for children with high support needs. The research found that short-break carers provided short breaks because they enjoyed it and developed real relationships with the children, but that the way in which they were recruited, assessed, trained, paid and supported were often influenced by a lack of staff time and resources, and a lack of clarity regarding their role.
Beth Tarleton (formerly Prewett) is a Research Associate at the Norah Fry Research Centre, University of Bristol
Training foster carers in a preventive approach to children who challenge: mixed messages from research
Jan Hill-Tout, Andrew Pithouse and Kathy Lowe
Jan Hill-Tout and colleagues set out key features of a two-year semi-experimental investigation completed in April 2001 into the impact of training foster carers in techniques to manage challenging behaviour. The results suggested that training, as designed and delivered in this study, had limited impact on child conduct and carer capacity. However, the training was perceived very positively by foster carers who claimed they put into practice what they had learned and that the training had been useful.
Jan Hill-Tout is a Clinical Psychologist and Independent Consultant
Andrew Pithouse is Director of Social Work Studies, School of Social Sciences,
University of Cardiff
Kathy Lowe is a Behavioural Psychologist, Centre for Research in Learning Disabilities, Welsh School of Medicine, University of Wales, Cardiff
Contact in adoption: the experience of adoptive families in the USA
Gretchen Miller Wrobel, Harold D Grotevant, Jerica Berge, Tai Mendenhall and Ruth McRoy
Contact in adoption is a complex issue that adoption professionals frequently negotiate. Today most adoption placements include an initial plan for contact that in many instances changes over time. By understanding contact as an issue that presents itself over the course of an adopted person's lifetime, the complexities it brings to the adoption experience can be seen. Miller Wrobel et al discuss contact from a US perspective using findings from the Minnesota/Texas Adoption Project, a longitudinal study of openness in adoption. They examine how curiosity, satisfaction with adoptive contact, family communication and searching influence decision-making about the extent of contact. Implications for adoption professionals in the USA and the UK are also presented.
Gretchen Miller Wrobel is Professor of Psychology, Bethel College, St Paul, Minnesota, USA
Harold D Grotevant is University Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Minnesota, St Paul, Minnesota, USA
Jerica Berge and Tai Mendenhall are doctoral candidates in the Department of Family Social Science in the same university
Ruth McRoy is Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Professor in Services to Children and Families, School of Social Work, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA
Legal notes: England and Wales
Deborah Cullen
Legal notes: Scotland
Alexandra Plumtree
Legal notes: Northern Ireland
Kerry O‘Halloran
Legal notes: USA
James Marsh and Daniel Pollack
Medical notes: objective assessment of vascular disease risk in prospective adoptive parents
Dr Peter Lindsay with Dr Catherine Hill
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