Adoption & Fostering
Abstracts

Autumn 2006 - Vol 30 (3)

Editorial
Roger Bullock

Newspoints

Foster carer training: resources, payment and support
Kate Ogilvie, Derek Kirton and Jennifer Beecham

Key words: foster carers, training, National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ), children’s workforce, payment for skills

This article examines key aspects of training for foster carers, using quantitative and qualitative data from a study of remuneration and performance in foster care. Three main issues are discussed: the training undertaken by foster carers and whether it is thought adequate; foster carer and supervising social worker views on NVQ level 3 training and payment for skills schemes; and how foster carers can be encouraged to attend training regularly. The study found fairly high levels of participation in training among foster carers who generally expressed satisfaction with its quality. However, very few agencies had clear training strategies. NVQ training was broadly welcomed but concern was expressed regarding its suitability for all foster carers and its relationship to high quality foster care. There was scope for improving attendance through attention to organisational issues such as venues, timing of the courses and the availability of child care. Finally, the relevance of training to debates on professionalisation and the place of foster carers within the children’s workforce are considered.

Kate Ogilvie is Project Manager, Bath and North East Somerset Council, Social and Housing Services

Derek Kirton is Lecturer in Social Policy and Social Work, University of Kent

Jennifer Beecham is Reader in Social Policy, University of Kent

Learning from each other: process and outcomes in the Fostering Changes training programme
Andrea Warman, Clare Pallett and Stephen Scott

Key words: foster care training, Fostering Changes programme, powerful learning, effectiveness

Most looked after children are now in some kind of foster care and carers are expected to cope with many children who have complex needs and challenging behaviour. If foster carers are to take on these increasing responsibilities they clearly require good preparation, comprehensive support and the right kind of training. Yet currently, the structure and quality of training vary significantly, and there is little evidence about the impact of training on foster carers or the children they look after. This article uses evaluation material from a new post-approval training programme for foster carers in Southwark, south London, and draws upon education research to argue that there must be more debate about how we train and therole that foster carers could play in training their peers.  

Andrea Warman is Fostering Development Consultant, BAAF

Clare Pallett is Co-ordinator, Fostering Changes programme, and works for the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust

Stephen Scott is Consultant Psychiatrist with the National Specialist Adoption and Fostering Team, Maudsley Hospital, London

Selecting foster carers: Could personnel psychology improve outcomes?
Barbara Kennedy and Rosamund Thorpe

Key words: foster carers, selection, personality, work psychology, Hogan Personality Inventory, Australia

Foster care services are struggling in a context of decreasing community interest in providing care and increases in the demand for placements, the proportion of children with special needs requiring care and placement breakdowns. As Sinclair’s recent (2005) overview emphasises, improving carer selection could reduce pressure on services by selecting those applicants best suited to the demands of the task.

Research and practice from personnel psychology have long been used by employers seeking to identify the most suitable employees for a particular job, but this approach appears not to have been applied to selecting foster carers. In recent years, in personnel psychology, there has been increased recognition of the impact of personal characteristics on work performance satisfaction and retention. The authors explore the utility of one such test, the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), in predicting foster carer suitability and subsequent retention among Australian carers. Both group and case-study analysis suggests potential worthy of further investigation.

Barbara Kennedy is Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology, James Cook University, Australia

Rosamund Thorpe is Professor, School of Social Work and Community Welfare, at the same university

Covenants of wholeness: adoption and land tenure in Georgian England and the Hawaian Kingdom
Michael Giffin

Key words: adoption and fostering (hanai), extended family (ohana), social contract theory, anthropology of families, sociology of families, international family issues

Giffin suggests that throughout history adoption has reflected the social covenant of the society it existed to serve. For example, adoption served semi-feudal agrarian society in different ways from adoption in modern industrialised society. Adoption was once an agreement among extended families and allies, which did not mandate divorce from birth families and sought to advantage birth and adoptive families alike. While it often led to unexpected outcomes, if successful, adoption became a principal means of accruing the social and economic benefits on which sovereignty and commonwealth once depended. Through those benefits, adoption became a way of promoting wholeness, soteria in biblical Greek, a word from which the term salvation has evolved.
After describing the ideas of covenant and wholeness, and the practices of land tenure and adoption, this article compares case studies of adoption in the Austen and Kamehameha families during a period in which Britain and Hawaii made their extraordinarily rapid transitions from semi-feudalism to constitutional monarchy. One conclusion drawn is that societies once thought conservative and exclusive are actually adaptive and inclusive. Another is that the imperative of wholeness, like the idea of salvation, is a chameleon: it changes its colour to fit in with its surroundings.

Michael Giffin is a lecturer at Broken Bay Institute, Sydney College of Divinity, Australia

Improving access to services for black and minority ethnic disabled children
Shameem Nawaz

Key words: services for black and minority ethnic (BME) disabled children, short-break care

This article describes a ‘research into practice’ development project and drawing on this, explores a number of key messages and practical steps that can be taken to improve access to services for black and minority ethnic children and families. The messages and process described are based on a study addressing institutional and other barriers within schemes that prevent equal access by black and minority ethnic disabled children and their families to short breaks. However, they can be applied to any service and help it to become more inclusive

Shameem Nawaz is a researcher in the School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol

Addressing the mental health needs of looked after children who move placement frequently
Alison Beck

Key words: mental health, looked after children, frequent placement moves

Research has revealed high levels of mental health need among children who are looked after. The aim of this study was to compare the mental health needs of looked after children who move placement frequently with the mental health needs of those who do not and to consider how these differences may be addressed in terms of mental health service planning. Two questionnaires (including the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire – SDQ) were sent to the carers of 747 young people (aged over three years) looked after by one inner-London local authority, to the young people themselves if they were aged over 11 years and to a selected sample of teachers. A third (30 per cent) of young people had a ‘probable’ psychiatric diagnosis using the SDQ. Eleven per cent had moved placement three or more times in the last year and they were three times more likely to have a ‘probable’ psychiatric diagnosis. They were also significantly more likely to report deliberate self-harm in the last six months compared to those who had moved placement less frequently.
Although young people who move placement frequently are far more likely to develop psychiatric disturbance than other looked after children, they are much less likely to access mental health services. The barriers to service access and practice implications of these findings are discussed.

Alison Beck is Consultant Clinical Psychologist, South West London and St Georges NHS Trust, London

Legal notes: England and Wales
Deborah Cullen

Legal notes: Scotland
Alexandra Plumtree

Legal notes: Northern Ireland
Kerry O’Halloran

Health notes: Understanding social development disorders
Mindroom

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