Melissa Van Wert

Differentiating between child protection and family support in the Canadian child welfare system's response to intimate partner violence, corporal punishment, and child neglect

Rates of reported child maltreatment nearly doubled in Canada over the period 1998-2003, an increase that reflects growing awareness of the harmful effects of an expanding array of parental behaviors, including corporal punishment, lack of supervision, and exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV). Some of these situations may benefit from voluntary family support programs outside of the child welfare system. Analyzing a sample of 11,807 investigations, this paper compares cases where the sole concern is exposure to IPV, or hitting a child, or neglect, or other forms of investigated maltreatment. Situations where exposure to IPV or potentially abusive hitting were the sole reason for investigation presented with fewer risk factors and were less likely to lead to ongoing child welfare interventions compared to other maltreatment investigations. While situations involving alleged neglect presented a higher risk profile and elicited a more intensive child welfare response than did exposure to IPV or hitting, opportunities for alternative services were nevertheless identified. The study also found that visible minority families were overrepresented in cases involving hitting and that Aboriginal families were overrepresented in cases involving neglect. Overall the findings support the development of alternative response programs in Canada.

Social Media and Social Work Education: Understanding and Dealing with the New Digital World

Accompanying the multiple benefits and innovations of social media are the complex ethical and pedagogical issues that challenge social work educators. Without a clear understanding of the blurred boundaries between public and private, the potentially limitless and unintended audiences, as well as the permanency of the information shared online, social work students who use social media can find themselves in difficult situations in their personal and professional lives. In this article, we present three scenarios that illustrate issues and complexities involving social media use by social work students, followed by a discussion and recommendations for social work educators.

The Best Kept Secret in Social Work: Empirical Support for Contemporary Psychodynamic Social Work Practice

Psychoanalysis is a theoretical and practice discipline that has produced an extensive body of literature over the past 100 years. Psychodynamic psychotherapy developed from psychoanalytic thought and has been studied using both qualitative and quantitative methods including experimental studies, content analyses and case studies. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relevance of psychodynamic theories to social work and to review evidence that supports psychodynamic social work practice. We first provide a brief introduction to several relevant psychodynamic theories, including self psychology, intersubjectivity theory and relational theory. Next, we discuss the debates and controversies surrounding the study of psychodynamic psychotherapy. A review of existing evidence for psychodynamic practice with adults, children and adolescents is presented, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses, literature reviews and other research. We conclude with a discussion of the importance of further research on psychodynamic and other forms of social work practice and the benefit of promoting psychodynamic theories in social work education.

Cyber Counselling: An Innovative Field Education Pilot Project

With the ascendancy of the cyber world, client demand for online counselling has increased and is expected to continue to increase dramatically in the coming years. The purpose of this article is to describe an innovative pilot practicum project in which social work graduate interns offered cyber counselling within a university to undergraduate students. In this paper, we describe the key elements of this project, including those that are unique and those that follow typical practicum processes, along with the challenges identified. Implications for practice and social work education are offered.

Responding to child maltreatment in Canada: Context for international comparisons

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to both describe the major fi ndings from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect, 2008 (CIS-2008), and to compare these fi ndings to data reported by Gilbert et al. (2011), who derived their estimates from the US National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System. The CIS-2008 tracked 15,980 maltreatment-related investigations of children under the age of 16 conducted in a representative sample of 112 child welfare organizations across Canada in the fall of 2008. Bivariate analyses were used to explore the differences in service dispositions, age, and referral sources by primary maltreatment category and risk. The Canadian/US comparison reveals that rates of investigated maltreatment are nearly identical. Rates of substantiated maltreatment are also comparable, although slightly higher in Canada when substantiated risk of maltreatment is included in the substantiation category. The variation in substantiation and service response rates across types of investigated maltreatment requires closer analysis and highlights the need for a detailed understanding of each type of maltreatment. The rapid expansion of reports over the last decade in Canada invites discussion of the extent to which a response focused exclusively on child protection is appropriate for all cases and optimal for addressing a broad array of needs. The complexity of comparing rates between Canada and the United States requires an understanding of both substantiation rates and thresholds.

Examining the Relationship between Economic Hardship and Child Maltreatment Using Data from the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect-2013 (OIS-2013)

There is strong evidence that poverty and economic disadvantage are associated with child maltreatment; however, research in this area is underdeveloped in Canada. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between economic hardship and maltreatment for families and children identified to the Ontario child protection system for a maltreatment concern. Secondary analyses of the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect-2013 (OIS-2013) were conducted. The OIS-2013 examines the incidence of reported maltreatment and the characteristics of children and families investigated by child welfare authorities in Ontario in 2013. Descriptive and bivariate chi-square analyses were conducted in addition to a logistic regression predicting the substantiation of maltreatment. In 9% of investigations, the household had run out of money for food, housing, and/or utilities in the past 6 months. Children in these households were more likely to have developmental concerns, academic difficulties, and caregivers with mental health concerns and substance use issues. Controlling for key clinical and case characteristics, children living in families facing economic hardship were almost 2 times more likely to be involved in a substantiated maltreatment investigation (OR = 1.91, p < 0.001). The implications in regard to future research and promoting resilience are discussed.

Prevalence, motivations, and social, mental health and health consequences of cyberbullying among school-aged children and youth: protocol of a longitudinal and multi-perspective mixed method study

Background While the online environment may promote important developmental and social benefits, it also enables the serious and rapidly growing issue of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying constitutes an increasing public health problem – victimized children and youth experience a range of health and mental health concerns, including emotional and psychosomatic problems, maladaptive behaviors, and increased suicidality. Perpetrators demonstrate a lack of empathy, and may also struggle with health and mental health issues. Objective This paper describes the protocols applied in a longitudinal and multi-perspective mixed-methods study with five objectives: (1) to explore children/youth’s experiences, and children/youth’s, parents’, and teachers’ conceptions, definitions, and understanding of cyberbullying; (2) to explore how children/youth view the underlying motivations for cyberbullying; (3) to document the shifting prevalence rates of cyberbullying victimization, witnessing, and perpetration; (4) to identify risk and protective factors for cyberbullying involvement; and (5) to explore social, mental health, and health consequences of cyberbullying. Methods Quantitative survey data were collected over three years (2012-2014) from a stratified random baseline sample of fourth (n=160), seventh (n=243), and tenth (n=267) grade children/youth, their parents (n=246), and their teachers (n=103). Quantitative data were collected from students and teachers during in-person school visits, and from parents via mail-in surveys. Student, parent, and teacher surveys included questions regarding: student experiences with bullying/cyberbullying; student health, mental health, and social and behavioral issues; socio-demographics; and information and communication technology use. In-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted twice with a sub-sample of students (n=57), purposively selected based on socio-demographics and cyberbullying experience, twice with their parents (n=50), and once with their teachers (n=30). Results Data collection for this study is complete. Planned analyses include transition probabilities and repeated measures analyses to determine involvement in cyberbullying. Repeated measures analyses, including between-subject factors (eg, socio-demographics), will be utilized to determine factors that protect or increase risk of involvement in cyberbullying. Qualitative analysis utilizing grounded theory is planned, to permit rich understanding of participant experiences and perspectives. Results will be reported in 2016 and 2017. Conclusions This study will offer insight into the contemporary phenomenon of cyberbullying while also informing interventions to curb cyberbullying and address its pervasive social, mental health, and health consequences. Knowledge mobilization strategies and implications for research and practice are discussed.

Increasing Research Capacity in Ontario Child Welfare Organizations: A Unique University-Child Welfare Agency Partnership.

The objective of this article is to describe the successes and challenges of a unique knowledge mobilization initiative that was funded through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This initiative focused on promoting knowledge mobilization by increasing the capacity of child welfare organizations in Ontario to conduct and use research. Building on existing knowledge mobilization models in Ontario, this initiative brought university-based researchers together with child welfare practitioners to use existing data sets from the Ontario Incidence Studies of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect. Overall, this knowledge mobilization initiative resulted in several positive outcomes. Along with the successes, the research team faced several challenges in implementing this initiative, which are described in detail.