This study examined parenting in relation to ADHD. The key point of the study was to let parents who experience an ADHD diagnosis share their view on parenting. The research required a comprehensive literature search, partly to examine earlier research in the particular field but also to gather information on parenting. One focus group interview and three semi structured interviews were used to gather relevant information. Informants were recruited from a project for individuals with neuropsychiatric disabilities. Aspects that were not taken in consideration in this study were gender differences in the view on parenting. Neither was the aim of the study to examine the children’s point of view. The study revealed that the informants’ view of parenting of today is all about status and reaching results. From their own experience of parenting, focus was on confirming their children and respect them as individuals. They considered themselves different than other parents, in areas as taking part of their children’s life and not to fit in according to clothing or appearance. Partly, they also felt that they did not get any understanding for their differences from the academic part of society.

Persons with intellectual disabilities (ID) have the right to decide freely when and if they have children. However parental ID is often regarded as a risk for their children’s wellbeing and parents with ID often meet negative attitudes towards their parenthood from both professionals and their social networks. The aim of this study is to examine the conditions for parents with ID and their possibilities to be good enough parents. Both published research and personal depictions found in media were used in this literature study. Three themes were identified and analysed using good enough parenting and empowerment as a theoretical framework. The first theme to prove oneself as a good parent includesexperiencers of having one’s parenthood questioned based on stereotypes about ID as a diagnosis. Parents with ID feel they are being surveilled and judged by the people around them. There is an underlying feeling among parents with ID that they need to prove themselves as able parents. The second theme good relationships encourage good parenting contains stories of how the relationship with the social network and professionals affect parents with ID. Support from others can be perceived in both positive and negative ways depending on the quality of the relationship in which the support is offered. The last theme one diagnosis, a spectrum of conditions describes the variety of needs and experiences which affect people with ID and their ability to be good enough parents. Social context and experiences of for instance poverty, trauma or abuse affect the ability to parent regardless of an ID or not. In conclusion, professionals have an opportunity to work empowering with parents with ID, but this opportunity is often missed. A variability in living conditions and social context affect the ability to perform as a good enough parent. This is true for all parents, but for parents with ID in particular.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka hur ett föräldraskap som är good enough beskrivs och definieras av personal på ett utredningshem för barn och föräldrar. Metoden som användes var en semistrukturerad fokusgruppsintervju med ett urval av personal från ett utredningshem. Resultatet analyserades utifrån socialkonstruktionism och ett genusperspektiv. Resultatet visade att utredningspersonalen hade en samstämmig definition och beskrivning av när ett föräldraskap är och inte är good enough. Fokusgruppen delade uppfattningen om att ett good enough föräldraskap innebär att föräldrar behöver visa personalen förändringsförmåga och förmåga till att mentalisera kring barnets behov utifrån ett åldersadekvat bemötande. Informanterna ansåg inte att de gör skillnad på mödrar och fäder gällande ansvarsfördelning. Utifrån socialkonstruktionistisk teori diskuterades huruvida det är möjligt för föräldrar att visa personalen efterfrågade föräldraegenskaper då utredningshemmets sociala konstruktioner av vad det innebär att vara good enough förälder kan kollidera med föräldrarnas. / The aim of this study was to investigate how a parenthood that is good enough is described and defined by personnel at an assessment home for children and parents. The method used was a semi-structured focus group interview with a selection of personnel from an assessment home. The result was analysed based on social constructionism and gender perspective. The results showed that the assessment personnel had a consistent definition and description of when a parenthood is and is not good enough. The focus group shared the notion that a good enough parenting means that parents need to show the personnel the ability to change and the ability to mentor about the child's needs based on age-sensitive treatment. The informants did not consider that they make a distinction between mothers and fathers regarding the division of responsibilities. Based on social construction theory, it was discussed whether parents can show the requested parenting skills when the social construction of the assessment home of what it means to be good enough parent may collide with the parents.

This study treats the problems that the social worker (the child welfare worker) is faced with, when deciding to take a child into compulsory care. Empirical data (with particulars of the children and parents involved) covering the public child care at a local authority, was collected from its records and by means of interviews. Data concerning the social workers was obtained through observation, interviews and questionnaires. Out of 166 new child care clients during one year, 77%were teenagers, and nine out of ten children taken into care were adolescents.Taking up a position in child care cases and making decisions about courses of action were mostly difficult or even painful for the social worker. The decision to take a child into care was considered the hardest task in social work.The social worker's dilemma is created by the requirements of the law that any decision to take a child into care should be based on satisfactory predictions of the consequences for the child.The social worker's agony arises out of her attempts to motivate such predictions when in fact she is convinced, through experience,that very few, if any, of the consequences can be safely established.Empirical data showed that motivations of the decisions given in the investigation for the court were often vague and implicit. This may be explained by referring to the emotionally experienced conflict between prediction and subsumption.In other empirical data social workers described their anxiety when handling cases where children are taken into care. This may be analysed as 'the agony of decision-making', caused by their choice between alternative courses of action, and 'the agony of separation' brought about by the social worker's identification either with the child or with its parents.The proposed model for decision-making aims to reduce the social worker's agony, by shifting some of her burden of responsibility over to the society. This is achieved by letting the grounds for a decision to take a child into care rest explicitly on the principia of subsumption. The social worker's task is thereby limited to assessments of the child's present situation. Three criteria of assessment, child abuse, sexual abuse and 'Good-Enough Parenting' are suggested. The study points out the importance of specifying what is counted as 'Good-Enough Parenting'. / digitalisering@umu

Intensifying interventions to improve the quality of care that children receive from parents/ primary caregivers is mandated by several strategic objectives, such as the National Plan of Action for Children 2012-2017 (South Africa 2012), the White Paper on Families in South Africa (2013), and the Children’s Amendment Act 41 of 2007 (South Africa 2007). Parenting programmes remain popular parenting interventions (Daly, Bray, Bruckauf, Byrne, Margaria, Pecnik & Samms-Vaughan 2015:18; Richter & Naicker 2013:9) reporting outcomes of enhanced parent-child relationships, improved behaviour of children, and reduced parental stress. There is a concern that parenting programmes offered in South Africa lack evidence of their efficacy (Wessels 2012:9) and cultural and contextual relevance for the recipients (Begle, Lopez, Cappa, Dumas & de Arellano 2012:56; Richter & Naicker 2013:1). The study developed a locally specific parenting support intervention for parents/ primary caregivers living in the low-cost housing development of Welbedacht East using the Intervention Development Design model. Parents/ primary caregivers were involved throughout the study, contributing to the intervention’s applicability, as well as its contextual and cultural relevance. Bioecological and social inclusion theories framed the study. A qualitative research approach supported by an exploratory, descriptive and contextual design was used. Two purposive samples (parents/ primary caregivers and community champions) were recruited. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect the data. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke 2006) produced the findings that were presented at a consultation workshop attended by research participants and relevant stakeholders where the parameters of the intervention were determined. These were subsequently developed into the elements and intervention protocols by four indigenous community experts following the Delphi process. Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) approach to trustworthiness as presented by Porter (2007:85) and Thomas and Magilvy (2011:152) was used. Cultural competence was maintained throughout and ethical considerations were observed to circumvent harm to participants and uphold the integrity of the research process. The perceptions of the parents/ primary caregivers were consistent with scholarly indicators of ‘good enough’ parenting, but the contextual stressors they experienced challenges their ability to fulfil some of these indicators. An intervention was needed to increase parental capacity to improve parent-child relationships, cultivate life skills for improved psychological health, and advance the financial independence of parents. It was concluded that a parenting programme on its own would fail to address the most pressing needs of parents/ primary caregivers living in disadvantaged circumstances and custom-made parenting support interventions were needed to increase parental capacity to manage the structural challenges that compromised parenting, such as socioeconomic interventions of a social developmental nature. / Social Work / D. Phil. (Social Work)