Helen Connolly

Food and its meaning for asylum seeking children and young people in foster care

There is little in the existing literature in refugee studies, foster care and the anthropology of food about the ways refugee and asylum seeking children regard food. This piece reports on two initiatives that delineate ways children seeking asylum and their carers understand food. The first is a research study examining unaccompanied asylum seeking childrens perception of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, within which they focus on food and survival after arrival in the UK. The second, based on interviews with foster carers, is a practice orientated enquiry about food and its meaning in foster care. The findings suggest that food is related to many aspects of finding sanctuary, negotiating belonging within the foster family, and can powerfully evoke being at ‘home’ in a new land.

Researching young people’s outcomes in children’s services: Findings from a longitudinal study

• Summary: This article reports findings from a longitudinal study of outcomes for a sample of children who had become, or who were considered at risk of becoming looked after. Using a multi-case study design, two stages of the project are reported here. In Stage One, information was gathered from and relating to 21 young people. In Stage Two, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 32 social workers, and 31 parents and carers regarding 52 children. Eleven of these young people also volunteered to be interviewed. Standardized measures were utilized including the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, Adolescent Well-Being Scale, and Rosenberg Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy scale. • Findings: The study highlights the need for preventive multi-agency work with families with multiple risk factors and the importance of education and children’s social care working co-operatively together on behalf of children in need. The study demonstrates the ongoing challenges in providing low level emotional therapeutic work, building on young people’s prosocial relationships with peers, and finding effective ways of improving children’s self esteem and self efficacy. In this local authority children did not feel routinely involved in decision-making. Placement stability, meeting the short and longer-term needs of all placed children, and addressing the needs of foster carers and residential children’s home staff, also presented challenges. • Application: The study highlights the importance of the organizational context when meeting young people’s needs, including strong leadership, quality assurance, ongoing assessment and focused interventions.

Reflections on Ethical Research in Action: Working at the Practice Edge

This paper draws on the experience of one research project in action to evaluate the usefulness of research ethics frameworks when the environment surrounding project negotiation, data collection and dissemination is seriously disturbed by critical incidents. The paper questions the lack of emphasis in research ethics codes on the competence and capacity of agencies when commissioning and sponsoring research. Using events that surrounded one project, the paper researches the research. It explores what impacted on the creation of the context for ethical and effective research and how the researchers responded to the ethical challenges that emerged. Different theoretical understandings and ethical models are drawn upon to explore how a research team translated ethical research in theory into ethical research in practice within an organization in turmoil.

‘For a while out of orbit’: listening to what unaccompanied asylum-seeking/refugee children in the UK say about their rights and experiences in private foster care

There is little in the existing refugee or child welfare literature on the circumstances and needs of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children living in private foster care in the UK. This article reports on what these young people themselves have to say about their experiences of such placements. Their stories have been extrapolated from the findings of a narrative-based research project with 29 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children that explored the ways in which they perceived and experienced the rights of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989). The findings suggest the existence of a negative relationship between these rights and systems of monitoring and protection in the UK, and the vulnerability of unaccompanied children in private foster care to neglect, material hardship, abuse and exploitation.

Seeing the relationship between the uncrc and the asylum system through the eyes of unaccompanied asylum seeking children and young people

The rights and experiences of unaccompanied asylum seeking children living in industrialised nations are rarely seen from the perspectives of children themselves. This paper takes a narrative based approach to report on the lives 29 unaccompanied asylum seeking young people in the uk. The research from which this paper emerges explored the ways in which they thought the rights of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) were or were not being realised on their behalf. It highlights the significance of making the promises that are held within the uncrc into viable strategies of protection for unaccompanied asylum seeking children as they search for a new place to belong to and a new place that belongs in them.

Transforming Collaborative Practices for Curriculum and Teaching Innovations with the Sustainability Forum (University of Bedfordshire)

Evolving higher education policy, and the production of guidelines and frameworks by higher education authorities, aim to support universities embed education for sustainability and reflect recognition of the need to prepare graduates for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st Century. Yet, advances have been limited. This chapter examines developments underway at the University of Bedfordshire, offering insights for ways forward which are distinct from prevailing institutional management processes. It presents the work of a community of practice, created by a group of academics from a spectrum of disciplines. Here, core players from this ‘Sustainability Forum’ describe their community, activities and synergies with the wider University. The authors highlight the learning opportunities they generated by their collective actions resulting in curriculum developments and enhancements. These served their own undergraduate and postgraduate students, other groups within the university community and beyond. As such the chapter serves as a case study of what can be achieved by an informal group of highly motivated academics in a new university. The authors conclude by considering the value of this model to other institutional contexts, especially in the context of the constraints imposed by expanding external performative initiatives and quality processes.