Susan Tregeagle

A pathway from long-term care to adoption: findings from an Australian permanency programme

Children who hope to be adopted from the care system frequently experience delays, unproductive disruption in attachments and difficulties locating new families. This article seeks to contribute to the search for effective adoption practice by exploring an approach developed in Australia, whereby restoration and ‘long-term foster care with the view to adoption’ are undertaken intensively but sequentially. When the child cannot return home, adoption is one of the options considered but no decision is made until a long-term foster family is well established. While planning happens concurrently, placements never have dual purposes and are therefore different from what is known as concurrent planning. This study is based on an internal agency examination of adoption records over a 10-year period. Open adoptions were ultimately achieved for one-third of those who entered long-term care, and the children had a wide range of ages and included sibling groups and those with behavioural difficulties. Adoption took, on average, 4.4 years to finalise but there was wide variation in timeframes, with younger children being adopted more quickly. Perhaps most significantly, a permanent placement was found relatively soon for children of all ages, as they did not have to wait for a family willing to commit to adoption or endure lengthy legal proceedings. The adoption was most timely when both restoration and long-term care teams were managed within one agency (albeit in separate programmes). Furthermore, permanent families were located for children for whom adoption ultimately proved to be inappropriate.

Heads in the Cloud: An Example of Practice-Based Information and Communication Technology in Child Welfare

ABSTRACT Changes in information and communications technology (ICT) in human services have accelerated rapidly and have elicited academic concern about the impact on practice, changes in approaches to implementation, and a shift to user-led development. This article describes the development of ICT by a nongovernment child welfare agency over the past two decades. It is guided by a social constructionist view of technology in which technology is shaped by social factors, but in turn shapes the “social” implementation as requiring the integration of two distinct technologies: a standardized framework for practice and the computer. Both technologies had to be carefully aligned to workplace culture, but the interests of workers have not been allowed to dominate those of and children and families. The organization of work has had to change. This article explores the agency’s experience drawing on theories of implementation of ICT in human services.

A place to learn: cultivating engaging learning environments for young rural Aboriginal Australians

Rural Aboriginal Australians experience disadvantage across a number of significant social and economic outcomes, including educational engagement and achievement. Current debate postulates that educational environments and systems perpetuate this disadvantage. This qualitative study aimed to contribute to the debate by taking a broader ecological view to consider the aspects of the learning environment that may promote engagement with learning. This paper reports on research conducted in a community-based programme designed to support the engagement of young rural Aboriginal students. A total of 32 participants (including children, parents/carers, tutors, managers, and local teachers) were interviewed to explicate their perspectives on the key aspects of the learning environment that fostered student engagement. An analysis of the interview data identified core characteristics that could be employed to foster engagement and thus contribute to developing equity and self-determination for young rural Aboriginal Australians. Core characteristics that were valued included: a focus on learning and individualised pace; a flexible and relaxed atmosphere; individualised assistance; having an adult who showed interest in the child and their learning; providing a culturally secure learning environment; provision of food; supplying transportation; and staff being part of the same community. This paper contends that these characteristics are valued by the community and thus should inform the practices within the community-based programme as well as mainstream education to facilitate future engagement in learning.

Commentary on Computer-based Information Systems and Human Service Organisations: Emerging Problems and Future Possibilities (Gillingham, 2011)

In his article in Australian Social Work (September, 2011), Philip Gillingham explored the failure of Australian electronic information systems (IS) to provide useful data on which social workers and policy makers could improve child welfare services. He outlined considerable concerns about the administrative databases used by statutory welfare departments in Victoria, New South Wales (NSW), and Queensland, and called for social workers to actively engage in the development of IS. He suggested ethnographic methodology as a way to understand social workers’ tasks and their requirements of IS. While agreeing that improvement is required in existing administrative data collection, this commentary offers three major critiques of Gillingham’s suggestions on the way forward. First, it points to the urgency of social workers engaging with IS to reform child welfare systems. Second, it draws attention to the work already undertaken on practice-based IS by social worker academics and practitioners. We cannot afford to waste time and resources to duplicate this work; existing IS should be used more widely. Third, this paper challenges Gillingham’s assumption that workers alone should dictate the nature of IS, and proposes a role for service users in creating improved, highly useable IS.

Participation in Child Welfare Services Through Information and Communication Technologies

Case management systems were designed to open the way for increased participation of young people and their families in child welfare interventions, and, their standardised format provides a valuable opportunity to use ICT in social work practice. Existing research is unclear about how effectively case management affects participation, nor, the impact of ICT on social work interventions. This paper describes the findings of qualitative research with service users about their experiences of case management and how ICT could further their involvement in critical decisions for families. Service users are keen to use ICT and this could help overcome the limitations of paper-based case management systems and exploit the communication potential of the internet and mobile phones. However, before ICT could be used, the complex ‘digital divide’ affecting disadvantaged families would need to be addressed and social workers’ understanding and current use of ICT would need to be explored.

Identity Formation in Children and Young People in Open Adoptions from Out-of-home Care in New South Wales, Australia

ABSTRACT Semi-structured interviews were used to explore identity development for nine adoptees (aged 9–23 years) who were adopted by their foster carers in New South Wales, Australia. Adoptions were open, with court-ordered face-to-face contact with birth families. Findings suggest that participants had healthy adoptive identities, with coherent and meaningful narratives about their life histories. Adoption provided a sense of security and belonging. Openness provided information to build a self-narrative and encouraged discussion of adoption issues within adoptive families. Adoptive parents were critical in helping children understand their adoption and facilitating direct contact with birth families, thus laying foundations for positive identity development.