Adoption & Fostering
Abstracts
Summer 2003 - Vol 27 (2)
Improving outcomes for children in care: giving youth
a voice
Kathleen Kufeldt, Marie Simard and Jacques Vachon
The Looking After Children (LAC) protocols that were developed during the 1990s in the UK represented a ground-breaking move to make services more child centred, with an emphasis on the needs of the child being paramount. Kathleen Kufeldt et al discuss how similar measures were initiated across the Atlantic in the form of a three-year Looking After Children in Canada project. This involved collaborative partnership between service providers, researchers and a major funding agency. The authors discuss how it set about achieving reform, and assess its impact on improving the quality of life for children in foster care. Findings in many ways replicate the UK experience, indicating the benefits of a child-centred approach and the considerable potential of such records to improve practice and thus outcomes for looked after children.
Kathleen Kufeldt is Adjunct Professor at the University of New Brunswick, attached to the Muriel McQueen Centre for Family Violence, Canada
Marie Simard and Jacques Vachon are Professors in the School of Social Work, Laval University, Quebec City, Canada
Learning with care: the education of children looked
after away from home by local authorities in Scotland
Kirstie Maclean and Morag Gunion
This article outlines the findings of a recent inspection in Scotland of the educational experiences of looked after children. It considers assessment, care planning and review; attendance arrangements; progress, attainment and support for learning; personal and social development; carers' support for learning; working in partnership; and policies, management and quality assurance. The methodology of the inspection was influenced by previous research and comparison is made between the inspection's main findings and the broader research evidence. Conclusions are drawn about the need for further development.
Kirstie Maclean is Director of the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care based at Strathclyde University. She is seconded from her post as an inspector in the Social Work Services Inspectorate (SWSI) at the Scottish Executive
Morag Gunion is an inspector for Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) based in Glasgow
Accepting the reality of adoption: birth relatives' experiences of face-to-face contact
Elsbeth Neil/p>
The extent to which birth relatives are able to adjust to the reality of changed roles and relationships following their child's adoption may be crucially linked to the usefulness to the child of ongoing post-adoption contact. In the study described, 19 birth relatives of 15 young adopted children were interviewed about their experiences of having a child adopted and about having face-to-face contact with this child after adoption. In most cases birth relatives related how face-to-face contact had helped them to accept their child's adoption, largely because contact reassured them of the child's welfare and emphasised the position of the adopters as the psychological parents.
Elsbeth Neil is Lecturer in Social Work at the Centre for Research on the Child and Family, University of East Anglia, Norwich
Adoption and looked after children: a comparison of legal initiatives in the UK and the USA
Sarah Sargent
Increasing adoption placements for looked after children is the focus of recent initiatives to reform adoption law in both the UK and the USA. Developments in the law are aimed at providing permanent homes for looked after children by encouraging both increased adoptions and quicker decisions to move a child to adoption when the child cannot return home. New forms of permanent placement, in the form of a new type of guardianship, have also been created. The author compares and contrasts the initiatives in the USA and the UK.
Sarah Sargent is Director of Legal Services for Kansas Children's Service League, a private child-placing agency in Topeka, Kansas, USA
Family group conferences in permanency planning
Helen Gill, Lorna Higginson and Helen Napier
The decision to place a child for permanency is clearly a momentous one for the child and immediate and extended family. The family group conference model offers a way of planning and making decisions which ensures that children, along with parents and families, have their views listened to and are involved in decisions directly affecting their lives. The best interest of the child remains the focus and where appropriate, the family may come up with possible alternatives to adoption or long-term fostering. Even when the decision is made to place the child outside the family, the family's increased involvement through a family group conference may enable them to be more accepting of the longer-term plan for the child.
Helen Gill, Lorna Higginson and Helen Napier are Family Group Conference Co-ordinators with CHILDREN 1ST, a leading childcare charity in Scotland
Helping foster carers, helping children: using
attachment theory to guide practice
Kim Golding
Children with the worst early experiences present a considerable challenge for those helping them. Fostering is a vital resource in the care of these children. However, to be successful, fostering services need to be developed, supported and resourced to provide stable and therapeutic care. The extent of the difficulties experienced by the children needs to be recognised and services developed which can provide turning points in their development. Therapeutic options can be used that emphasise the role of the carer in the intervention, with a particular emphasis on the facilitation of secure attachment. Research and practice developments are urgently needed to explore interventions stemming from attachment theory for foster carers and the children they look after. The usefulness of attachment theory for guiding interventions with foster carers is explored, based on the experience of a specialist project set up to support carers of children 'looked after'.
Kim Golding is Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Wyre Forest Primary Care Trust, Worcester
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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