Sarah Blower

The Circumstances and Needs of Separated Children Seeking Asylum in Ireland

The study reported here is the first systematic attempt to examine empirically the needs and characteristics of separated children seeking asylum (SCSA) in Ireland. Case files for a random sample of 100 separated children entering Ireland in 2003–2004 were scrutinised. The findings indicate that SCSA are not a homogeneous group; they face a multitude of different risks, and although some experience significantly poor outcomes, some SCSA actually thrive in their new environment and even excel upon settling in a new country. It was possible to distinguish distinct patterns of need reflecting different types of experience and difficulty, which in turn require different types of service response.

The effectiveness of the Incredible Years pre-school parenting programme in the United Kingdom: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial

ABSTRACT The prognosis for children with early-onset conduct disorder is poor. Conduct disorder also has a social cost for families and communities, and an economic cost for society through the increased use of health, education, social, legal and detention services. In this study, the Incredible Years (IY) BASIC programme was delivered to parents of pre-school children at risk of developing a conduct disorder and evaluated by pragmatic randomised controlled trial. Participants were parents of 161 children (110 intervention, 51 control) aged between 36 and 59 months (mean age 44 months, 63% boys) and scoring over the clinical cut-off on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). At follow-up (six months post-baseline), the intent-to-treat analysis showed a mean between group difference in favour of IY on the SDQ total difficulties score of 2.23 (p < 0.05, effect size: 0.50). IY was also superior to control on the Eyberg Child Behaviour Inventory (p < 0.05, effect size: 0.37) and on the Arnold and O’Leary parenting scale (p < 0.01, effect size: 0.43). This study confirms the effectiveness of IY in a public system delivered with fidelity by regular children’s centre staff, supporting findings from a similar trial in Wales. These results support the wider roll-out of IY to similar children.

Changes in the nature and sequence of placements experienced by children in care, 1980–2010

This article compares the nature and sequence of placements experienced by children entering care in England (and in one case Wales) in 1980 and in 2010. The two samples comprise sequential admissions from a selected date. In each case, results are presented for those who left care early (within six months) and those who were still there 12 months after entry. It was found that residential care was widely used in 1980, both as an initial placement and following foster care disruption, but by 2010 its use had virtually disappeared. The demise of observation and assessment centres is especially significant for reflecting practice changes with regard to the assessment of children’s needs. The results for the amount of children’s movement between placements while in care were varied, showing a slight increase for the short-stay group and only a modest reduction for those who stayed longer. The implications of the findings for policy and practice are discussed.

“They sat and actually listened to what we think about the care system”: the use of participation, consultation, peer research and co-production to raise the voices of young people in and leaving care in England

ABSTRACT There has been increased recognition of the importance of hearing the views of children and young people in and from care about the services and decisions that affect their lives. The emphasis on young peoples voices aims to give weight to, and raise awareness of, their experiences and outcomes, and the need for policy and practice improvements. This paper discusses the development of methodologies for hearing and acting upon the voices of care-experienced children and young people. It charts the journey towards increased levels of active involvement, from research participation and consultation to peer research and co-production. Using examples from our own empirical studies, the paper outlines key features of these different techniques and the opportunities, challenges and impact they engender. It looks at the recent transition towards greater participation through co-production and peer research in which children and young people are active and equal agents in the production of services to address their needs, and in the design and production of research aiming to evaluate those services. Finally, we provide our reflections and those of some of the young people we have worked with on how to achieve meaningful and authentic engagement with care-experienced children and young people.

The parent programme implementation checklist (PPIC): the development and testing of an objective measure of skills and fidelity for the delivery of parent programmes

ABSTRACT Background: Group-based parent programmes demonstrate positive benefits for adult and child mental health, and child behaviour outcomes. Greater fidelity to the programme delivery model equates to better outcomes for families attending, however, fidelity is typically self-monitored using programme specific checklists. Self-completed measures are open to bias, and it is difficult to know if positive outcomes found from research studies will be maintained when delivered in regular services. Currently, ongoing objective monitoring of quality is not conducted during usual service delivery. This is odd given that quality of other services is assessed objectively, for example by the Office for Standards in Education, Childrens Services and Skills (OFSTED). Independent observations of programme delivery are needed to assess fidelity and quality of delivery to ensure positive outcomes, and therefore justify the expense of programme delivery. Methods: This paper outlines the initial development and reliability of a tool, the Parent Programme Implementation Checklist (PPIC), which was originally developed as a simple, brief and generic observational tool for independent assessment of implementation fidelity of group-based parent programmes. PPIC does not require intensive observer training before application/use. This paper presents initial data obtained during delivery of the Incredible Years BASIC programme across nine localities in England and Wales, United Kingdom (UK). Results: Reasonable levels of inter-rater reliability were achieved across each of the three subscales (Adherence, Quality and Participant Responsiveness) and the overall total score when applying percentage agreements (>70%) and intra-class correlations (ICC) (ICC range between 0.404 and 0.730). Intra-rater reliability (n = 6) was acceptable at the subscale level. Conclusions: We conclude that the PPIC has promise, and with further development could be utilised to assess fidelity of parent group delivery during research trials and standard service delivery. Further development would need to include data from other parent programmes, and testing by non-research staff. The objective assessment of quality of delivery would inform services where improvements could be made.

Book Review: Underlining the Need for SupportFoster Carers: Why they stay and why they leaveSinclairIanGibbsIan and WilsonKateJessica Kingsley2004192 pages £17.95

Underlining the need for support stance, with lone carers who have little or no informal support from families or relatives being more likely to withdraw. Following an examination of the characteristics and rationale of carers who cease to foster, the authors are able to outline a series of key recommendations in order to support foster carers better and ultimately improve current levels of recruitment and retention. Firstly, and essentially, the nature of the fostering required should match the capacity and situation of the foster family. Secondly, foster carers should be made to feel part of a ‘social services team’. This necessitates adequate payment, training and support from other carers and family placement social workers. The third recommendation concerns the need for crises or major events to be accompanied by flexible and supportive responses and, where possible, early intervention from social services. Instances when this support is needed include those in which carers experience severe differences with birth parents, family tensions because of a particular placement or strong disagreements with social services. In the final chapter, a more detailed exposition of these implications incorporates practical recommendations of use to policy-makers and managers of local authorities, ranging from the development of carer support groups and relief breaks to the use of experienced foster carers in recruitment and training. The engaging tone and style of this book ensure that it is accessible to the lay reader as well as the professional and academic. This inclusiveness is evidenced in the coupling of clearly written text with statistical research findings and an easy-to-follow logical structure. It is possible to dip in and out of this text according to your particular interests, with each chapter containing concluding thoughts and some discussion of implications for practice. Foster Carers should therefore appeal to policy-makers and senior staff in local authorities as well as foster carers, social work professionals, social scientists and, more generally, anyone with an interest in foster care. Book reviews are edited by Miranda Davies