s ocial j ustice & s ocial c hange r esearch c entre kinship care as a challenge to child...
DESCRIPTION
3 PROJECT General aim: to contribute to the development of policies on kinship care which will benefit children and their carers in NSW and more generally. Specific aims: To examine the issues, assumptions & values, relevant to policymaking about supervision & support of kinship carers. To compare formal kinship carers, informal kinship carers & foster carers in NSW, in terms of background, demographic characteristics, & experiences of caring for children, particularly in relation to support &supervision. Implementing Aims to this point: Resulted in an emphasis in this project on reflection. Reflections are the focus of this paper.TRANSCRIPT
SocialJustice &SocialChangeResearchCentre
Kinship Care as a Challenge to Child Welfare Constructs
Leonie Gibbons Elizabeth Watson
Jan Mason
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AN EXAMINATION OF ISSUES AROUND THE SUPPORT AND SUPERVISION OF KINSHIP CARERS, WITH A PARTICULAR FOCUS ON NSW
ARC Linkage UWS-ACWA . Commenced 2005
Jan Mason CI - SJSC, UWS Liz Watson CI - SJSC, UWSAndrew McCallum PI - CEO, ACWALeonie Gibbons, PhD student - 2005 - 2007 Ainslie Yardley, Researcher - commenced Feb 2007
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PROJECTGeneral aim: to contribute to the development of policies
on kinship care which will benefit children and their carers in NSW and more generally.
Specific aims:• To examine the issues, assumptions & values, relevant
to policymaking about supervision & support of kinship carers.
• To compare formal kinship carers, informal kinship carers & foster carers in NSW, in terms of background, demographic characteristics, & experiences of caring for children, particularly in relation to support &supervision.
Implementing Aims to this point:• Resulted in an emphasis in this project on reflection.• Reflections are the focus of this paper.
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SUMMARY OF METHODS•SURVEY - KINSHIP AND FOSTER CARERS
•FOCUS GROUPS - KINSHIP CARERS
•REFLECTION - EMBEDDED IN PROJECT
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Influences on design of study -
• Industry partner, ACWA, wanted a survey with a focus similar to UK study (Sykes et al 2002)
• Limited research on carers in 2004 - some change since then.
• Our earlier research with ACWA (Mason, Falloon, Gibbons, Spence, Scott, 2002) showed the centrality of support and supervision issues.
• ABSEC researching on indigenous kin carers.• Children’s perspectives not a focus.
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Child Welfare
FosterCare
Kinship Care
Overlap between the child welfare system and
kinship care
From, Gibbons, L. Watson, E and Mason, J. Kinship Care as a Challenge to Child Welfare Constructs. Paper to be submitted for publication.
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Child Welfare
FosterCare
Kinship Care
Provisions for grandparent carers— these are often also made available
to other relative carers
Ageing
Carers & caring
From, Gibbons, L. Watson, E and Mason, J. Kinship Care as a Challenge to Child Welfare Constructs. Paper to be submitted for publication.
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2 Value Positions influence kinship concepts:
• 'Kinship defenders' position• 'Society as parents' position
derived from Lorraine Fox Harding, In Morgan, S and Righton, P. Child Care: Concerns and Conflicts (1989)
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'Kinship defenders' position Support
Characterised by:• 'unique value' of biological family as best
place for children;• families targeted by child welfare
frequently socio-economically disadvantaged, requiring supports to strengthen.
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Characterised by:• emphasis on 'good' care;• advocating that mistreated children should be
placed with 'good’ substitute carers - ‘strangers’;• ‘mistreating’ families labelled 'dysfunctional‘;• severing of biological bonds through promoting
certainty and permanency for children.
'Society as parents' position - limited support
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Examples of contrasting contexts and provision of support
• Situation 1: mother’s death from cancer = g’parent care ‘valid’. Social and agency support
• Situation 2:drug addicted mother abandoned childen to g’parent. Lacked social supports except g’parents group. Had to fight for financial support from agency.
Based of findings from Sandy Chan, Honours (2007) thesis: The Existing Formal and Informal Supports of Grandparents who are the Guardians of their Grandchildren.
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AGED CARE POLICY
SUPERVISION
CHILD PROTECTION POLICY
CARERS POLICY RISK
ACCOUNTABILITY
SUPPORT
Questions at this stage of our project.
•Does kinship care policy need to be separate from other child welfare
policy?•What approaches to support and/or supervision might be appropriate to
kinship care?•Might our solutions for kinship care
have relevance for broader child welfare issues?