Social Work - Research Publications
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ItemNonfamilial kinship carers-Who are they and what support do they need to nurture children?(WILEY, 2019-11)Abstract There is a growing body of literature about kinship care in the Western world; however, much of it focuses on grandparent care. A lesser known aspect of kinship care is the care of children by nonrelatives known to the child or their family. What little research exists about this group suggests that such placements are less stable than familial kinship care. This article reports a research study in Victoria, Australia, that explored nonfamilial kinship care through analysis of administrative data, interviews with young people and carers, and focus groups with kinship care support workers. It emerged that current administrative databases are not yet able to reliably identify the carer relationship, and thus the extent of such care arrangements cannot accurately be determined. Interviews and focus groups revealed that nonfamilial kinship care is diverse and qualitatively different from familial kinship care, bearing some similarities to foster care yet managed very differently. It is suggested that policymakers need to pay more attention to conceptualizing nonfamilial kinship care within kinship care policy frameworks and that greater attention is needed to the individual support needs of children in such placements and their carers.
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ItemEditorial: Australian Children in Kinship Care–Hidden in Plain Sight?(Association of Childrens Welfare Agencies and NSW Family Services Inc., 2018)This is the Editorial to the first of two Special Issues of Developing Practice devoted to kinship care. It describes the 2018 ACWA project Kinship Care: Making it a National Issue and its various elements. It also outlines some things that are known and not known about kinship care, myths about kinship care that have sprung up in place of knowledge, and the depth of unmet support needs of kin children and their carers.
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ItemEditorial: Beyond Poverty and Disadvantage–Achieving Wellbeing for all Australian Children in Kinship Care(Association of Childrens Welfare Agencies and NSW Family Services Inc., 2019)This is the second of two Special Issues on kinship care. Here I explore ways forward to address kin children’s wellbeing from a human rights perspective.
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ItemFamily Contact for Children in Kinship Care: A Literature Review(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2013-09-01)
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Item'It's a Family Responsibility': Family and Cultural Connection for Aboriginal Children in Kinship Care(CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2015-03)Kinship care as a form of protective care in Australia has grown considerably over the past decade. The University of Melbourne Family Links: Kinship Care and Family Contact research project comprised a survey of kinship carers and consultations with key stakeholders. Given the significant over-representation of Indigenous children in kinship care arrangements, the project included a nested study of Indigenous kinship care. Research participants stressed the imperative for Indigenous children to be connected to family, community and culture. However, survey responses indicated that in many cases, family and cultural connections were not being assisted by cultural support planning. Indigenous caseworkers described the complexities of facilitating family contact, highlighting good practice as well as dilemmas and shortcomings in culturally sensitive practice. There was much evidence of the straitened circumstances of Indigenous kinship carers and unmet support needs among carers, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Suggestions are made about ways in which children in kinship care might be better supported to maintain their family relationships.
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Item"It's about the whole family': family contact for children in kinship care(WILEY, 2016-05)Abstract Contact with family for children in care is identified as a right under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, such contact often presents challenges because of the protective concerns that have led to care arrangements being made. The Family Links: Kinship Care and Family Contact research study explored the nature and extent of family contact in kinship care, with a particular focus on the circumstances that create positive contact and foster family relationships. Findings included evidence of a large proportion of parental contact that was negatively affecting children's well‐being, and was sometimes unsafe. By contrast, the frequent contact that children were enjoying with their siblings and wider family was reported to be mostly positive and supportive. Kinship carers described a range of services needed to facilitate more positive parental contact and to enable children to keep contact with significant family members.
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ItemA tangled web: parental contact with children in kinship care(WILEY, 2015-02)Abstract Contact between parents and children in care is a contested area. Parental contact is recognized to be important, yet may present protective issues; in the kinship care environment, it brings the particular challenges of complex family relationships. Seeking the parents' perspective in a child protection context is difficult and therefore under‐researched. This paper describes a nested study within an Australian research project on family contact in kinship care in which the perspectives of 18 mothers and 2 fathers were sought via in‐depth interviews. Mothers and fathers described strong feelings of disempowerment in the context both of their family and the child protection system. The relationship between parent and caregiver emerged as a significant issue. All of the parents wished to remain in contact with their children in a meaningful way, whether or not they were likely to resume their children's care; however, contact arrangements presented many difficulties for them. Mothers articulated the need for services that are more empowering and respectful, rather than oriented towards them as failed parents. In order to build appropriate models of support and intervention, we argue for a more inclusive conceptual frame for family life that gives greater recognition to the role of non‐custodial parents in the lives of their children.
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ItemDevelopmentally sensitive parental contact for infants when families are separated(AUSTRALIAN INST FAMILY STUDIES, 2010)