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NEWS, EVENTS, RESEARCH, AND OTHER RESOURCES ON CARE
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"
[If my kinship carer hadn’t stepped in to raise me] I would definitely have ended up in care. I don’t think I’d have a relationship with my sister, which scares me, scared me. And I think that would have had quite . . . quite a big effect on me emotionally actually."
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Young person in kinship care, from
Growing up in Kinship Care: Experiences as Adolescents and Outcomes in Young Adulthood
"There’s a lot of grandparents still out there who don’t know where the help and support is."
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Grandparent kinship carer, from
Growing up in Kinship Care: Experiences as Adolescents and Outcomes in Young Adulthood
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The Focus Section brings together research and other documentation published over the past year or two on a particular theme or region. Its aim is to draw attention to the growing body of knowledge developing on the issue and help busy practitioners keep abreast of learning and changes.
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This report from Grandparents Plus is based on a survey of members of the Grandparents Plus Kinship Care Support Network, which includes almost 4,000 kinship carers in the
UK
. The report explores the experiences of kinship carers, especially the support they receive, identifies significant unmet support needs, and provides recommendations based on the findings of the survey.
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The aims of this study from Grandparents Plus were to examine the experiences and outcomes of young adults, aged 16-26, who had lived, or continued to live, in kinship care in the
UK
.
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This study from the journal of
Qualitative Social Work
addresses the needs of
Scottish
kinship carers of teenage children who have been identified as being in need of extra support.
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This study from the journal of
Social Policy and Society
provides
UK
evidence for the relationship between kinship care and deprivation and examines how the welfare state frames kinship care in policy and practice.
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This policy brief from the
Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies at the University of Bristol
provides the most current estimates of the number and characteristics of the children growing up with relatives in the
UK
, which were established through analyses of secure microdata from the 2011 Census, highlighting analysis and policy implications of those findings.
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This book from CoramBAAF is designed to help social workers in the
UK
to manage and complete a comprehensive and evidence-based assessment of connected people / family and friends who wish to foster or be special guardians to a known child or children.
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This research by Dr Meredith Kiraly seeks to address the gap in attention paid to the care of children by family friends (non-familial kinship care) in
Australia
.
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This opinion piece by Meredith Kiraly and Cathy Humphreys traces the rise of statutory kinship care in
Australia
from the progressive reduction of residential care and the struggle to recruit sufficient foster carers to meet demand for protective care.
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The aim of this study from the
Child Abuse Review
was to evaluate the social and cultural acceptability of the Winangay Aboriginal Kinship Carer Assessment Tool to practitioners responsible for assessing kinship carers in
Australia
.
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This paper from
Children Australia
presents findings from research with 101 kinship carers to gain a better understanding of how family violence was impacting on children and families in kinship care in Victoria,
Australia
.
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This qualitative
Australian
study from the
British Journal of Social Work
explored how contact between grandparents as kinship carers and their grandchildren could be optimised after child-safety concerns.
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The current study from the
Children and Youth Services Review
examined placement, carer, and child characteristics related to perceived foster parent stress in a sample of 158 foster and kin carers in Queensland,
Australia
.
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This article from
Child & Family Social Work
reports findings from a recent partnership research project in
Australia
focused on optimizing grandparent contact and ongoing relationships with grandchildren after child safety concerns.
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This two-part special issue of the
Child Welfare Journal
focuses on children in kinship care in the
US
—those who are being raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles, older siblings, and non-related extended family members—to bring attention to this less visible area of public child welfare, featuring policy-based and empirical research on kinship families.
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This report from
Generations United
provides data on the opioid crisis in the
US
, and its impact on grandfamilies, and offers policy and program recommendations related to recently passed legislation - the Family First Prevention Services Act and the Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Act.
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This bulletin from the
US
Children's Bureau highlights supports and services for kinship caregivers, training for caseworkers and caregivers, and examples of successful kinship care programs.
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This study from the
Journal of Women & Aging
utilizes self-report data from one kinship navigator federal demonstration project in the
US
, which used a randomized control trial to examine demographic characteristics for grandmothers under and over 55 years of age, whether grandmother caregivers improve family resilience, social support, and caregiver self-efficacy, and which interventions improved outcomes for grandmothers.
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The purpose of this systematic review from the
Children and Youth Services Review
is to compare the associations of kinship care and non-kinship care with children's mental health and to examine the factors associated with children's mental health in kinship care and non-kinship foster care. This review found that children in kinship care exhibited better mental health outcomes than children in non-kinship care in the univariate and bivariate comparisons.
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Other Regions & Countries
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This chapter from the
South African
Child Gauge 2018
focuses on childcare and children’s caregivers in
South Africa
and aims to address the following questions: Who provides care for children? How does the state support or undermine care choices? Why and how should the state support caregivers? The chapter provides an overview of mothers and fathers as caregivers as well as the use of informal kinship care and foster care in South Africa.
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This study from the
Children and Youth Services Review
investigates the difference in the well-being of children in kinship care when compared to children in other care settings within
Africa
, examining factors that are associated with their well-being outcomes.
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The objective of this study from
Research on Social Work Practice
is to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention programs that aim to enhance the well-being of grandparent caregivers and the developmental outcomes of grandchildren and identify useful program components. Relevant studies reviewed include those from the
US
,
Australia
,
Hong Kong
, and
China
.
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The topic of interest in this paper from the journal of
Qualitative Social Work
is the relationship between children who live in kinship care in
Norway
and their birth parents – through childhood and adulthood.
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This paper from
Child & Family Social Work
presents findings from 15 families receiving services from the Department of Social Welfare in Sekondi,
Ghana
. Through semistructured in‐depth interviews, the families shared their views on the roles played by their kin and informal social networks in contributing to the care of their children.
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Understanding the Situation
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This paper from
Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies
describes the underpinning principles and frameworks of the Multi-Country Study on the Drivers of Violence Affecting Children (VAC), conducted by national research teams comprising government, practitioners and academic researchers in
Italy
,
Peru
,
Viet Nam
and
Zimbabwe
. The corresponding country papers present snapshots of the specific findings in each country, which helped stakeholders further their understanding about the drivers of VAC and what can be done to address them.
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The question addressed in this paper by Charles A. Nelson, et al. from the
Neural Plasticity
journal is what happens to brain and behavior when a young child is deprived of key experiences during critical periods of brain development. The paper summarizes findings from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a randomized controlled trial of foster care for institutionally reared children in
Romania
.
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This study by Mark Wade, et al. from the
PNAS
journal examined longitudinal trajectories of memory and executive functioning (EF) from childhood to adolescence in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project in
Romania
.
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Using data from
Ghana
—a country that has initiated reintegration of children from residential care facilities, therefore providing a natural opportunity for comparative research—the authors of this study from the
Children and Youth Services Review
used hope, whether the child has been reunified with family/caregivers or remained in the care facility, and a statistical interaction of the two, along with controls, to predict the Child Status Index, an internationally-established measure of child wellbeing.
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This National Mapping Exercise covering Child Care Institutions(CCIs)/Homes in
India
sheds light on the functioning of CCIs/Homes across the country, in the context of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. The findings of this report are expected to provide necessary guidance to all stakeholders regarding improvements required in policy formulation and implementation in future.
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This issue of the
ICEB journal
is a special edition on the aftercare concerns of young adults who leave the care of agencies and embark on a journey of their own. This transition, while acknowledged, has not been adequately researched or understood in the
South Asian Region
. The compilation of papers in this issue aim to shed some light on the concerns of this transitional group and generate ideas for further investigation and exploration.
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This article from
Emerging Adulthood
examines the aftercare experiences of young people who have recently left a residential care institution in Lagos State,
Nigeria
.
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This study from
The Lancet
investigated the effect of parental migration on the health of left behind-children and adolescents in
low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs)
.
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Guided by social-ecological theory, this study from
Child Abuse & Neglect
explores responses to violence against children with disabilities, including preventative measures and treatment of victims in the West African countries of
Guinea
,
Niger
,
Sierra Leone
, and
Togo
.
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This 40-country benchmarking index examines how countries are responding to the threat of sexual violence against children. The Out of the Shadows Index examines four categories within which these responses take place: environment, legal framework, government commitment and capacity, and engagement of industry, civil society and media.
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Policies, Standards, and Guidelines
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This short human rights in action article from the
Journal of Human Rights and Social Work
takes a critical approach to the translation of policy to practice in
Cambodia
and highlights risks involved with haste, outcomes measured in numbers and unrealistic timeframes, and rapidly transforming practice with nascent investment in a country’s capacity to assess and respond to the real needs of children and families within their communities.
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This guidance was produced by Changing the Way We Care with the
Kenya
Society of Care Leavers to address how to best engage care leavers - who have suffered personal trauma in their past and may not have an existing safety net to protect them, yet have a very important voice - in care reform.
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Drawing on international and European law and guidance and the Barnahus model, this document from the PROMISE Project series funded by the European Union introduces ten good practice standards, the “European Barnahus Standards”, for multidisciplinary and interagency services for child victims and witnesses of violence in
Europe
adapted to the child.
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This online training from the Faith to Action Initiative provides an overview of the key concepts and steps that are important to a successful transition to family care process. The training utilizes short videos of presentations and interviews with transition experts and practitioners, as well as downloadable activities, guidance, and resources.
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At a
US
House of Representatives Hearing on Migrant Family Separation Policy, Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D. (Director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University) gave testimony on the impacts of family separation on children, highlighting the "strong scientific consensus supported by decades of peer-reviewed research" that "sudden, forcible separation of children from their parents is deeply traumatic for both the child and the parent."
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The Families First Programme, an adaptation of the Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting Programme to the West Java,
Indonesia
context, is a parenting support programme anchored on children’s rights that gives parents guidance on child development, parenting and positive discipline practices. This trial will evaluate the effectiveness of the Families First Programme compared with a waitlist control group.
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This qualitative study from the
International Journal of Social Welfare
sought to explore the perspectives of a group of
South African
caregivers, all of whom were in receipt of a Child Support Grant (CSG), in relation to their own caregiving and family functioning.
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This study from
Developmental Child Welfare
presents the feasibility and pilot evaluation of the Reflective Fostering Programme (RFP), a recently developed, group-based program to support foster carers in the
UK
, based on the concept of “reflective parenting.”
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The present study from
Developmental Child Welfare
describes a community implementation of treatment foster care (TFC) for children and youth involved with child welfare in Ontario,
Canada
.
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This animated video shared by the Guardian tells the story of the separation of a young boy from his mother at the
US
border with Mexico upon their entry into the US from
Guatemala
.
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This webinar was organized by the Child Protection Minimum Standards Working Group of the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action. The purpose of this webinar was to summarize the key findings and highlight the recommendations of the recently published report:
Child Neglect in Humanitarian Settings: Literature Review and Recommendations for Strengthening Prevention and Response
.
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The New Times, 31 January 2019
BBC News, 29 January 2019
The Conversation, 27 January 2019
Associated Press, 23 January 2019
The Globe and Mail, 20 January 2019
The New Indian Express, 20 January 2019
BBC News, 17 January 2019
Reuters, 16 January 2019
BBC Radio 4, 15 January 2019
Los Angeles Times, 11 January 2019
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Reveal Center for Investigative Reporting, The Guardian, 10 January 2019
PBS NewsHour, 7 January 2019
The Canadian Press, 7 January 2019
The Guardian, 5 January 2019
SOS Children's Villages Canada, 3 January 2019
Los Angeles Times, 19 December 2018
BBC News, 19 December 2018
United Nations, 17 December 2018
The Tyee, 13 December 2018
Cebu Daily News, 10 December 2018
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12 March 2019
Glasgow, Scotland
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1-5 April 2019
Preston, England
Deadline for booking is 28 February 2019
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10-12 April 2019
Leuven, Belgium
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8-10 May 2019
Louisville, Kentucky, USA
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Newsletter participants, currently 4,189 in total, work on issues related to the care and support of vulnerable children across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. The purpose of the newsletter is to enable members to exchange information on matters of mutual concern. If you would like to share a document, raise a specific issue, request a newsletter subscription, or reach out in any other way to the Network, please send the information to us at
[email protected]
or visit our website at
www.bettercarenetwork.org.
Thank you!
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Better Care Network | 601 West 26th Street Suite 325-19, New York, NY 10001 - USA
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