Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Professional Burnout In Social Service Organizations: A Review Of Theory, Research And Prevention, Carol Stalker, Cheryl Harvey

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

This paper provides an overview of research on burnout in human service workers, with an emphasis on findings relevant to social workers and other professionals in child welfare and children’s mental health and the organizations that employ them. It is intended to inform the reader about the developments in burnout research since the phenomenon was initially described, and to identify some issues and questions that need further study. Part one of the paper begins with a discussion of several definitions of burnout and its components. Part two outlines the variables that have been identified by research as antecedent to burnout, …

Child And Family Welfare In Sweden, Gunvor Andersson

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

Sweden has no special Children’s Act because regulations on children are included in the Social Services Act from 1980, supplemented by an act regulating compulsory care. Child and Family welfare has a family support orientation rather than a child protection orientation. No time limit provided by the law put an end to family support or out-of-home care, but interventions are reviewed every six months. The paper presents some facts about Sweden, gives and overview of the legal framework, family maintenance services and out-of-home care. Further details are given about contact person/family as one of the most frequently used statutory support …

First Nations Child And Family Services And Indigenous Knowledge As A Framework For Research, Policy And Practice, Marlyn Bennett, Cindy Blackstock

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

This paper provides an overview of the exciting national developments in First Nations child and family service delivery in Canada with a focus on progressive research, policy and practice. Examples of how traditional concepts of interdependence and the holistic worldview inform program design and delivery within First Nations communities are reviewed. In addition, the paper introduces the mandate, strategic directions and services of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. This national organization brings together the 105 First Nations Child and Family Service Agencies in Canada to share best practices, develop professional development programs and conduct research. …

The Plight Of Paternalism In French Child Welfare And Protective Policies And Practices, Alain Grevot

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

For 40 years, the French child protection system has been based on a structure set up at the dawn of the Fifth Republic, giving a strong role, and a monopoly to the State to support families in trouble. The role of Children’s Judges has been designed to personify the constitutional duty of the State to control and support the role of parents as defined by the civil code. The evolution of the structure of French society (family models, multicultural communities), the impact of more liberal economic and social policies (in a country strongly characterized by centralization and Jacobinism), the growth …

Promoting Change From ‘Child Protection’ To ‘Child And Family Welfare’: The Problems Of The English System, Rachael Hetherington, Tracey Nurse

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

In England, the system for children and families in need of state intervention has developed in response to a series of political changes and to high profile and highly publicised child welfare ‘cases’. This has led over the past 20 years to a focus on child protection as the most important aspect of the work. For the last 5-8 years, attempts have been made at many levels to redress this imbalance and put more emphasis on family support. However, there are barriers to change, in the existing structures, in the distribution of resources and in anxieties about public responses to …

Learning From Difference: Comparing Child Welfare Systems, Rachael Hetherington

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

Child welfare and child protection are integral aspects of the welfare regimes of all post-industrial societies. However, although the needs of children and the dangers of child abuse are so widely acknowledged, the ways in which these needs and risks are met varies considerably, even between countries with similar structures. By studying the ways in which other countries deal with similar problems, we can learn about new ways of responding and may find ideas that we can adapt for use in our own context. But we can do much more than this. By looking at differences, and using the power …

Maori Perspectives On Collaboration And Colonisation In Contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand Child And Family Welfare Policies And Practices, Catherine Love

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

Colonization involves the appropriation and disfigurement of resources, the most valuable of these being people. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, indigenous Maori experiences of colonization parallel those of indigenous peoples around the world. The British modelled child welfare system in particular has been held responsible for the fragmentation of Maori families/whanau and communities. In 1989, new legislation was heralded as a radical departure from the previous legalistic, coercive and punitive system. The ‘Children, Young Person’s and their Families Act’ (CYP&F, 1989) signalled a partnership approach whereby Western welfare authorities and indigenous Maori communities would collaborate to protect ‘the best interests of the …

Forming And Sustaining Partnerships, Pat Schene

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

This paper will discuss reasons to move in the direction of partnerships for child and family services. As well, strategies for developing less adversarial responses in child protection will be examined. A number of efforts to build partnerships for child protective services have taken place in several US communities, and specific examples of these attempts will be discussed. Given the ideal of partnerships, the paper will attempt to understand the role of the formal child welfare agencies in partnership with families and communities. Finally, lessons learned from these partnerships will be addressed and challenges to sustaining broader-based approaches to child …

‘When One Door Shuts, Another Opens’: Turning Disadvantages Into Opportunities, A.W.M. Veldkamp

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

For many years, the child and family welfare and the child protection systems in the Netherlands have been under heavy criticism. Numerous experts in these fields have been advocating more intensive co-operation and a better coherence between both systems. The relationship between both fields seems to be a never ending issue for political and public discussion that has filled many bookshelves during the last decades. In spite of this, until now, the criticized relationship between the two has not fundamentally changed. In this paper, the characteristic differences between child and family welfare systems and child protection systems will be considered. …

Problems And Potential For Canadian Child Welfare, K. Swift, M. Callahan

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

Canadian child welfare is not one single system, but more than 13 systems overseen by provincial and territorial governments and First Nations jurisdictions. However, there are many similarities among systems and general trends and directions common to them. One of these is a tendency for child welfare to become isolated from communities and related services because of its increasingly complex legislation and investigative mandates (Swift, 2001). Another is the challenge of serving peoples of diverse cultural and racial backgrounds, including First Nations peoples. Of course, each jurisdiction also responds to its particular social and political context in unique ways. In …

No. 07: Evaluating Refugee Protection In South Africa, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

South Africa’s policy on refugees has its origins in the country’s much-criticized Aliens Control Act (96 of 1991) (ACA), which in numerous respects has failed to provide adequate guarantees to applicants (de la Hunt 1998,2002: 123; Human Rights Watch 1998:170; Handmaker 1999a, 1999b). Until the recent implementation of its first ever Refugees Act (Act 130 of 1998) in April 2000, South Africa’s policy on refugees depended on the ACA, with the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) responsible for enforcement.

This paper evaluates the process of refugee policy reform that began in 1996. This process led to the Refugees Act in …

No. 08: Thinking About The Brain Drain In Southern Africa, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

The movement of skilled people from one country to another is one of the most hotly contested public policy questions today. Debates amongst politicians, academics and bureaucrats about the scale and character of skilled migration, and the policies required to address these movements, are taking place in countries throughout the world (Zweig and Changgui 1995; Odunsi 1996; Phillips 1996; Carrington and Detragiache 1998; Iredale 1998; Iqbal 1999). As the opportunities for skilled personnel to move increases with globalization and the shift to a service economy (Sassen 1988, 1998), as the costs of international travel decrease, and as the ability to …

No. 09: Transnationalism And African Immigration To South Africa, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

The demise of formal apartheid has created new and as yet only partially understood opportunities for migration to South Africa. Legal migration from other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, for example, has increased almost ten-fold since 1990 to over four million visitors per year. South Africa’s (re)insertion into the global economy has brought new streams of legal and undocumented migrants from outside the SADC region and new ethnic constellations within. The easing of legal and unauthorized entry to South Africa has made the country a new destination for African asylum-seekers, long-distance traders, entrepreneurs, students and professionals (Bouillon 1996; Saasa …

No. 10: Criminal Tendencies: Immigrants And Illegality In South Africa, Jonathan Crush, Vincent Williams

Southern African Migration Programme

South Africans believe that immigrants are largely responsible for the post-1994 crime wave in the country. In a national survey of South African citizens conducted recently by the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP), for example, respondents were asked what, if anything, they had to fear about people from neighbouring countries (McDonald 2000: 209). Almost half the population (48%) felt that migrants were a “criminal threat” (compared to 37% who thought they were a threat to jobs and the economy, and 29% who thought they were a health threat). The simplistic, and largely unsubstantiated, association of foreignness with criminality, job-stealing and …

No. 23: Gender And The Brain Drain From South Africa, Belinda Dodson

Southern African Migration Programme

South Africa is experiencing a substantial “brain drain”, underestimated in official emigration statistics. Yet there is uncertainty over issues such as why some leave and others stay, whether people who leave do so for good, and whether the brain drain will accelerate in the future. The surveys upon which this paper is based aimed to add some substance to the debate on the loss of core skills to the South African economy. They present a profile of the skilled population of South Africa and provide some insight into the factors determining emigration potential. Two distinct surveys were conducted: one of …

No. 24: Spaces Of Vulnerability: Migration And Hiv/Aids In South Africa, Brian Williams, Eleanor Gouws, Mark Lurie, Jonathan Crush

Southern African Migration Programme

Seventy per cent of the 36 million people infected worldwide with HIV live in Sub-Saharan Africa and within this region the countries of Southern Africa are the worst affected. The eight countries with the highest rates of infection are in Southern Africa, followed by six countries in East Africa, and then five other countries, only one outside Africa. The reasons why the highest rates of infection in the world occur in Southern Africa are unclear. Although the countries of the region have much in common, their histories over the last twenty years have been very different.

A number of different …

No. 25: Zimbabweans Who Move: Perspectives On International Migration In Zimbabwe, Daniel Tevara, Lovemore Zinyama

Southern African Migration Programme

The movement of people across political boundaries has generated considerable debate in Southern Africa. There is a compelling need for Southern African countries to harmonise regional migration policies and to ensure the freer movement of people across the region. However, it must be noted that disparities in levels of development are still evident in the economies of the region. There are fears in countries such as South Africa and Botswana that the freer movement of people will flood them with migrants from the less developed countries. There are also concerns in all the countries of SADC that freer movement will …

Transracial Adoption (Tra) And The Development Of Ethnoracial Identity, Mairi Mckenna

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Research on the experience of transracial adoption and the development of identity has indicated that supports for this process are required. Research that has not named transracial adoption as negatively impacting on identity has also recommended these kinds of family supports. There has, however, been a disquieting absence of such support programs. It is for these reasons that I have set out to start the process of identifying the best practices for such supports and begin the process of creating such a program. The methodology is influenced by a number of different theories: participatory action research (PAR), needs assessment, capacity …

Dynamical Systems Theory As Applied To War-Ravaged Bosnia And Its People: Stage One Of A Multistrategy Research, Kristin T. Trotter

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Using the theoretical underpinnings of dynamical systems theory and the construct of self-organization, this study uses a multistrategy research design to explore coping and adaptive mechanisms in a group of 26 Bosnian refugees. Qualitative findings indicated that in spite of tremendous losses this group of Eastern European refugees restructured their lives in Canada in creative, unexpected, and novel ways. This study specifically focused on issues of post traumatic growth and explored exactly how refugees manage to rebuilt their lives and self-organize. Quantitative measures looked at symptoms of trauma over a 200-day period. Using the Impact of Events Scale - Revised, …

A Relational Self Model Of Gender Role Identity Of Young Taiwanese Women Within Their Cultural Context (China), Chu-Li Julie Liu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research aims both to investigate the gender role identity characteristics of young Taiwanese women who grew up in the post-Martial Law era and to develop a gender role identity model of young Taiwanese women. A grounded theory approach and in-depth interviews were employed. Open sampling, variational sampling, and discriminate sampling, along with open coding, axial coding, and selective coding were employed. Twenty-three young Taiwanese undergraduate women, aged nineteen to twenty one, were interviewed. Self-in-relation theory, female moral reasoning, women's ways of knowing, characteristics of collectivist cultures, Chinese/Taiwanese cultural assumptions about women, and the impact of Taiwanese women's participation in …

Chaotic Patterns Of Restraining Power: The Dynamics Of Personal Decision Making In A Long-Term Care Facility, Sandra Loucks Campbell

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This is a study of personal decision-making dynamics at multiple levels in an Ontario Home for the Aged, including managers, staff leaders, direct care workers, non-direct care workers and residents. Personnel dyadic units of differential decision-making power were postulated: managers/staff leaders, staff leaders/direct care workers and direct care workers/residents. Weber's bureaucracy, other organizational power literature and chaos theory provide the theoretical frame. Staff completed a self administered questionnaire package which included variants of the Staff Involvement in Decision Making scale (Kruzich, 1989), open-ended and demographic questions. Residents were assisted in completing a similar, but shorter, questionnaire. Cognitively impaired residents' decision …

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 …