Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Getting Over The Magical Hump: Placement Decisions And Emotional Survival For Child Welfare Workers, Nancy Colleen Freymond

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

This paper explores the crown wardship process from the perspective of the child welfare worker. It is based on a qualitative analysis of interviews with child welfare workers who have been involved in the process of identifying children for crown wardship, in giving chances to mothers to demonstrate parenting ability, and finally, in negotiating and formalizing crown wardship agreements. The paper also explores how workers construct identities which allow them to cope with the emotional strains of this work.

Service Participant Voices In Child Welfare, Children's Mental Health, And Psychotherapy, Marshall Fine, Sally Palmer, Nick Coady

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

Service providers are becoming increasingly interested in hearing the views of service participants regarding issues of service delivery. This trend is viewed as progressive and sensitive to the many complex issues facing a diverse service participant population. In order to understand what is known related to this trend, the paper reviews the literature in child welfare, children’s mental health, and psychotherapy where service participant feedback regarding aspects of service delivery has been studied. The findings from the three areas of service delivery are organized into a number of tangible themes. Suggestions for future research in the area of participant voice …

Using Intermediary Structures To Support Families: An International Comparison Of Practice In Child Protection, Nancy Colleen Freymond

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

Responses to child maltreatment can be conceptualized as a continuum, ranging from a welfare-oriented approach on one end, to a legalistic emphasis at the other end. By shifting attention to structures existing at the welfare end of the continuum, this paper endeavours to look beyond the approaches of investigation and legal processing, currently emphasized in Ontario’s approach to child welfare. This paper examines how intermediary structures and roles in various international settings are constructed to offer support to families and children. Intermediary judicial and professional roles found in European child welfare systems will be discussed. In addition, the paper will …

Positive Possibilities For Child And Family Welfare: Options For Expanding The Anglo-American Child Protection Paradigm, Gary Cameron, Nancy Colleen Freymond, Denise Cornfield, Sally Palmer

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

The creation of the ‘problem of child maltreatment’ and how we deal with it are best understood as particular discourses which grow out of specific histories and social configurations. The Anglo-American child protection paradigm can be viewed as a particular configuration rooted in our vision for children, families, community, and society. However, other settings have constructed quite different responses reflecting their own priorities and desired outcomes. This paper is an effort to understand the choices made in Ontario’s child protection system by examining its history and the underlying beliefs and values which have fostered its development. In addition, the paper …

Treatment Of Choice Or A Last Resort? A Review Of Residential Mental Health Placements For Children And Adolescents, Karen Frensch, Gary Cameron, Gerald R. Adams

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

Residential treatment is often regarded as a treatment of ‘last resort’ and, increasingly, residential treatment programs are being asked to address the needs of very troubled children and adolescents. This paper is an effort to summarize what is currently known about the effects of residential treatment for children and adolescents. The review is organized into two sections: studies of the effectiveness of group home residential treatment and studies of the effectiveness of residential treatment delivered in residential treatment centres. In both areas, we attempt to identify trends within treatment, as well as patterns found in the literature that characterize post …

No. 04: Gender Concerns In South African Migration Policy, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

This paper draws attention to the need for a gender analysis of the South African government’s proposed new policy on international migration, by identifying a number of areas of implicit gender discrimination. Such “discrimination by default” is of more than academic relevance, having important implications for national and regional development. Research undertaken by the Southern African Migration Project indicates a growing “feminization” of migration to South Africa from the Southern African region, as well as gender-specific motives and patterns of migration. If migration is to be effectively managed, such realities must be taken into account. The paper concludes by advocating …

No. 02: The New South African Immigration Bill: A Legal Analysis, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

The Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) notes the promulgation of an Immigration Bill in Government Gazette Vol. 416 (No. 20889) on 15 February 2000 and the invitation to submit comments. SAMP supports the Department’s contention, implicit in the gazetting of a new Bill, that the Aliens Control Act is an unacceptable instrument for the sound and effective management of migration. The rescinding of the Aliens Control Act and its replacement by a new Immigration Act is therefore a matter of highest priority. However, it is equally important that such legislation is not rushed; that it is constitutionally-sound, implementable and cost-effective. …

No. 03: Making Up The Numbers: Measuring “Illegal Immigration” To South Africa, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

The extent of South Africa’s “illegal immigrant” problem continues to confound. Numbers in the millions continue to be casually thrown around by officials, politicians, and the local and foreign press. The study on which these millionaire estimates are based has been widely discredited. But those who are critical of the study and skeptical of the inflated numbers are unable to come up with alternative numbers. Their response is usually that the extent of undocumented migration is, by definition, unknowable. True as it might be, this response unfortunately does not help very much. In this paper, the author attempts to break …

No. 01: The South African White Paper On International Migration: An Analysis And Critique, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

SAMP commends the South African government and the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) for their ongoing commitment to developing a new immigration and migration policy framework, exemplified most recently by the passage of a new Refugee Act and the gazetting of a Draft White Paper on International Migration (WP).

SAMP notes with encouragement the steps taken in the Draft White Paper to move to a more holistic view of the benefits of sound, effective and transparent immigration management. SAMP is supportive of continued immigration policy transformation and any initiatives that advance this aim.

SAMP possesses the experience and capacity to …

No. 06: The Point Of No Return: Evaluating The Amnesty For Mozambican Refugees In South Africa, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

In the 1980s, civil war in Mozambique forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes and seek refuge in neighbouring countries, including South Africa. Formal refugee status was granted only after the civil war ended, with the signing in October 1992 of a Tripartite Agreement between Mozambique, South Africa and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The majority of these former Mozambican refugees clearly wish to remain in South Africa, as few took advantage of a UNHCR offer of free repatriation to Mozambique in the early 1990s. In 2000, an estimated 200-220 000 former Mozambican refugees …

No. 05: Counting Brains: Measuring Emigration From South Africa, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

Official South African statistics on the magnitude of emigration from the country seriously undercount. In this paper, the authors have devised an innovative methodology which reveals the extent of the undercount but also provides important insights into the volume and sectoral distribution of emigrants. One of the common strategies suggested for countering some of the negative consequences of “brain drain” is the mobilization of diaspora networks. The paper provides an introduction to one such network, the SANSA project. The paper was written by Mercy Brown, David Kaplan and Jean-Baptiste Meyer of the Development Policy Research Unit of the University of …

No. 22: Immigration, Xenophobia And Human Rights In South Africa, Jonathan Crush

Southern African Migration Programme

In 2000, the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) entered into a partnership with the Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign of the South African Human Rights Commission. The two cooperated in offering a series of country-wide training workshops for media and journalists at which the results of SAMP research into media xenophobia was presented and discussed. This publication is the second product of that partnership. The paper sets out to critically review and examine the evidence for the argument that xenophobia is widespread and growing in South Africa. While it is important to document the scale of the problem and the enormity …

No. 21: Cross-Border Raiding And Community Conflict In The Lesotho-South African Border Zone, Gary Kynoch, Theresa Ulicki, Tsepang Cekwane, Booi Mohapi, Mampolokeng Mohapi, Ntsoaki Phakisi, Palesa Seithleko

Southern African Migration Programme

Movement backwards and forwards across borders for work is often considered to be the primary form of unauthorized movement in Southern Africa. In southern Lesotho, a new and particularly dangerous form of two-way cross-border movement has become entrenched. This situation warrants the label “crisis”; a crisis which is devastating parts of the countryside in both Lesotho and the northern Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.

Media and official attention has focused on the extreme violence which accompanies cross-border stock raiding. This paper seeks to understand the social and economic roots and impacts of cross-border stock theft. Such an analysis is …

No Easy Walk: Advancing Refugee Protection In South Africa, Jeff Handmaker

Southern African Migration Programme

South Africa only began accepting individual applications for political asylum in 1994. A policy designed to recognize former Mozambican refugees for the purposes of a repatriation program became the (awkward) basis of the asylum procedure up until April 2000. Criticized by some, a lively discussion raising often-contradictory views began in 1996, leading to a policy reform process culminating in the Refugees Act in December 1998. The Act only came into force at the beginning of April 2000. This article analyzes the process of policy development in South Africa, focusing on practical and theoretical challenges facing the government in the implementation …

Gay Rights And The Right To A Family: Conflicts Between Liberal And Illiberal Belief Systems, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann

Political Science Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Adolescent Development In The Context Of Canadian-Chinese Immigrant Families, Ching Man Lam

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study investigates the developmental processes and outcomes of Canadian-Chinese adolescents in families who had immigrated from Hong Kong to the Toronto, Canada area between seven and fifteen years previously. In-depth qualitative interviews with nineteen adolescents, between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one, and ten parents were conducted between February and August 1997. The study's results describe the dynamic interplay of culture and migration that shapes the developmental processes and outcomes of adolescence in Canadian-Chinese Hong Kong immigrant families. The results also address the meanings constructed by the parents and the adolescents as a result of their experiences. Studies show …

Recreational Birdwatching, Empire, And Gender In Southern Ontario, 1791-1886, Kirsten Aletta Greer

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis addresses the historical and cultural development of the recreational birdwatching in southern Ontario, 1791-1886, and the efforts of empire and gender on birdwatchers’ identities and ideas about birds. By deconstructing recreational ornithological discourse, I suggest that recreational birdwatching reproduced the imposition of British colonial rule in Canada, together with condescension towards aboriginal peoples and non-British immigrants; and the reinforcement of British, middle-class, gendered identities in southern Ontario. This research therefore shows that recreational ornithological texts provide a medium to deconstruct the impact of birdwatching on people’s lives in their gendered approach to the activity.

Emerging Strong From A Difficult Adolescence: A Qualitative Study Of Resilience, Vivian Horovitch

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight, second and third year university students who self-identified as having emerged intact from a difficult adolescence. Questions were asked with regard to stress, protective factors, resources, and coping strategies during adolescence, as well as about how they achieved a sense of well-being. Themes derived from qualitative analysis are highlighted in a chronological life story for each participant. Common themes for participants’ coping during adolescence included distraction and avoidance strategies, such as keeping active with sports, extracurricular activities, religion, or arts. More “mature” coping strategies emerged as participants neared early adulthood. These included strategies …

Gender, Income And Managerial Status Among Graduate Social Workers, Gail Louise Kenyon

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Two historical changes have impacted on women's relationship with work in the last century. The influx of young single women into the paid work force and the participation of married women in the paid work force have changed the world of work for men and women. Middle and upper class women gained access into the public sphere through the caring work of teaching, nursing and social work. Although the roles of women have expanded and in many ways changed, the struggle for equity is far from over. Women still earn, on average, significantly less than males in Canada. Female Social …