Jane Boylan

Paid, Professionalised and Proceduralised: Can Legal and Policy Frameworks for Child Advocacy Give Voice to Children and Young People?

Significant developments have taken place over recent years in the legal and policy framework for childrens participation in decision‐making and the role of advocacy within this context. Whilst there is much here to be welcomed, there are also emerging concerns about the nature and direction of advocacy for children and young people in public care. This paper draws on evidence from an empirical study of childrens participation in statutory reviews—one of the key arenas for decision‐making relating to looked after children—in order to consider critical themes identifiable within the developing field of child advocacy.

Life's a Gas? The Training Needs of Practitioners and Carers Working with Young People Misusing Volatile Substances

Volatile substance abuse (the deliberate inhalation of substances such as gas fuels, glues, aerosols or other solvent‐based products) by young people does not attract high level attention within the broader arena of drugs education and prevention programmes. Given the prevalence of volatile substances in the lives of vulnerable groups of young people, however, and the risks associated with their misuse, social work education and training might justifiably give a higher profile to the associated needs of young people in need and/or in public care. This paper reports on the findings from a study in England of the training needs of social workers, residential and foster carers in relation to volatile substance abuse by young people, and identifies the implications for further development of training materials and resources.

Contact, welfare and children in care: revisiting the significance of birth family relationships after finding significant harm

Abstract The focus of this paper is the issue of continuing birth family involvement in the child’s life once the child is living in care. Drawing on a psychosocial study and free association narrative interviews with care leavers it focuses on the harm to a young woman called Frances, caused by direct contact with her birth family and the cessation of such contact. The paper addresses the tension between these two types of harm, in particular the role of contact in safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in care. It presents an argument for the child’s care plan to emphasise the need for ongoing review of the role and impact of the child’s close relationships and contact with their birth family once the child is in care. This includes ongoing consideration of the child’s changing relationship with the birth mother and siblings with a view to reconciliation in young adulthood.

Time for justice, time for change! The place of academic and community partnerships in promoting local and global rights and challenging injustice

ABSTRACT This paper reflects on a three-year research project involving academics and public, private and third sector partners in the UK and India. The team engaged with innovative international outreach research methods to question how listening to ‘voices of experience’ can inform and ‘outrage’ academic and community perspectives on human rights to create and promote local to international access to justice strategies. During the project Keele University, UK, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and Hyderabad, India, hosted field visits and reflective workshops involving academic, legal and third sector colleagues, to consider the comparative engagement and response to contemporary social welfare and social justice issues. The paper reflects on the learning experience, from which the contrasting India and UK perspectives on sexual violence asserts that academic and community partnerships have a significant role to play in understanding and engaging with contemporary issues; to spark outrage, challenge mainstream responses and promote alternative community legal outreach approaches.