In the last two decades, increasingly more research has been conducted on the process of participation as a children’s right both nationally and internationally. This includes research on children’s participation within the family environment as well as with children who are placed into alternative care. Children’s participation within the field of child protection continues to demonstrate challenges for both children and those adults working with children in this environment. A child and youth care centre forms part of the broader field of child protection and represents a bounded system of dynamics especially with regard to the process of children’s participation. There continues to be various barriers with regard to children’s participation in general but especially for children who have been found in need of care and protection. This is largely linked to the emphasis being put on the vulnerabilities and needs of children who have been placed into alternative care. The general aim of the study was to qualitatively, through a case study design, explore and describe the nature of participation as a children’s right in the context of a child and youth care centre in the Western Cape. The case study was utilised in order to gain more insight into the nature of participation as a children’s right, based on the perceptions of the children, child care workers, social workers and professionals within the system. Thirteen semi structured individual interviews were held with the child participations. Prior to the interviews, a session was held with the children to discuss the purpose of the research and to allow them to become more aware of the concept of children’s participation. The children were asked to create a collage of their perception of children’s participation as a right. Two separate focus groups were held for the adult participants; one for the child care workers and the other for the social workers and professionals. Based on the findings of this qualitative study about the nature of children’s participation as perceived by both children and adults in a child and youth care centre, the article in Section B aims at highlighting those critical elements needed for the realisation of children’s participation within a context of child protection. / MSW (Child Protection), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This thesis describes and analyses in three substudies how home-based measures for children are expanding and why an open care idea are established as part of the Swedish child welfare. The first substudy describes the national increment of what today can be considered as a treatment policy – non-institutional care in child welfare. The results are analysed with Kingdon's agenda setting theory and shows that the factors of what Kingdon describes as problems-, politics- and policyflow influenced the national increment. Significant mechanisms have primarily been, the profession, the society's concerns for socially disadvantaged children, negative experiences of institutionalisation and a political position to deinstitutionalise all care. The second substudy focuses on how knowledge and research contributes to ideological, professional, and organizational change in child welfare by analysis of Research & Developments reports and articles from the professional journal Socionomen. Based on the neo-institutional concepts of organisational fields and isoformism the study's results shows that a consequence of adaptation strategies and "rationalized myths" are a number of similarities in how home-based measures are organized and which measures that are used. The third substudy, a case study, analyses how we can understand a local development of ideas in social services for children with concepts from neo institutional theory. Interviews and municipal documents are analysed and shows that the local translation of an open care idea is characterized by discretion, personal preferences and action and affects the choice of method and organization. The study also shows a political mistrust of institutional care while there is at the same time political confidence in the individual social worker's ability to find solutions that allow non-institutional measures to be an alternative to institutional care. An overall conclusion of the thesis is that there is now a treatment policy in social services for the children, which involves extensive efforts at home and it has led to that more children receive support from social services. One result of non-institutional care increment is that it led to increased costs for municipalities for intervention for children and young people when out-of-home care has not decreased. Another general conclusion is that translation and adaptation of ideas to local contexts is something that generally fits street-level bureaucrats need for discretion.

In contemporary Japan, approximately 85 per cent of children in alternative care are placed in large institutions. This contrasts with global discourse, encapsulated in the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, and with practice in most OECD countries, which use foster care more extensively. Explanations for Japan's outlier status often focus on a homogenous national culture, yet there is significant regional variation between local authorities in how policy is implemented, most readily visible in the percentage of children in foster care. The title of this dissertation points to the three original contributions to knowledge of this work. The first is the rich ethnographic description of the child guidance centres and the decision-making process by which a child is removed from the family and placed into care. The second contribution is the explanation of regional variation in policy implementation. This is explained with reference to regional variation in resources, in norms, on the goals of care, the functions of different types of care, and the threshold until which a child is seen as being suitable for foster care, and in the organisational cultures of the child guidance centres. The final contribution to knowledge is the construction of the family-bond, between child and 'parent'. This is understood as singular and discrete, that is, that a child can only have one family-bond at any moment in time. Where foster care is constructed as anything other than professional or semi-professional care in a family setting it is seen as a threat to the child's family-bond with their natal parent. This dissertation argues that current attempts to increase the use of foster care by national and local authorities are likely to have limited impact unless they take this construction of the family-bond into account and focus on redefining the function of foster care.

Magister Artium (Child and Family Studies) - MA(CFS) / The main aim of this study was to explore lived experiences of unaccompanied foreign minors in South Africa from a social work perspective. An important goal was to also explore the lack of guidelines on how to assist these young people. This study was conducted in a Children's Shelter, which is situated in the North-Eastern outskirts of Polokwane, where a group of unaccompanied refugee children from Zimbabwe were living. This study was qualitative and explorative in nature. Non-probability sampling was used to select participants for the study. Ten children were selected, ranging from age 14 to 18 years. Semi-structured interviews with the children and a focus group discussion with five care workers were held. Thematic analysis was used. The findings of this study revealed that services by government social workers are limited compared to those from social workers employed with nongovernmental organisations. It is hoped that this study will assist government and other role players in planning, advocacy and policy development related to the issues affecting unaccompanied refugee children. / South Africa

Substitutional child care is an indispensable part of system of social and legal protection of children. Until 1989, institutional care was preferred, while after the fall of communist government it had been gradually replaced by substitutional family care, because of the inappropriateness of institutional care to fully compensate for family environment. Deinstitutionalization means transforming the system of placing children to alternative care and it is understood as transition from institutional care to types of substitutional family care, eventually to more individual type of care with more family character. An amendment to the Social and Legal Children Protection Act, which aimed at transforming the system of substitutional care towards more individual work with endangered children, came into force in 2013. The amendment restored the institute of temporary foster care and modified the institute of long-term foster care. Moreover it set up system rules for the work of social and legal children protection authorities, it focused on prevention concerning endangered children etc. The goal of the thesis is to evaluate changes in the area of deinstitutionalization of substitutional child care in the Czech Republic after the amendment to the Social and Legal Children Protection Act from 2013, especially...

The social phenomenon of children without parental care and those at risk of separation from their parents has gained considerable global attention in recent years. A key concern is the over-reliance on institutional care mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America as the default form of alternative care for such children. Extensive research points to mostly negative impact of separation of children from families and institutionalization of children which affects their health outcomes and development. In response to this global crisis, the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children were developed in 2010. Kenya domesticated the guidelines in 2014 and is in the process of implementation. The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development and more specifically the Social Sustainability Principles are used in this study to assess the extent to which the UN Guidelines, Kenya Guidelines and implementation of alternative care of children in Kenya align to Social Sustainability. This research finds that the guidelines are highly aligned to social sustainability although their implementation points to major structural obstacles that if minimized will promote social sustainability of alternative care in Kenya. A coherent well-coordinated approach that takes a systems perspective and links to the mainstream social development agenda is recommended.

A qualitative study was undertaken to develop an understanding of the social welfare services rendered to street children and to ascertain how these social welfare services can be enhanced from the perspective of service providers employed by NGOs in Pretoria. An explorative, descriptive and contextual research design was utilised. The researcher used purposive and non-probability sampling methods to draw the sample. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect information from nine service providers working with street children. Data were analysed according to the framework provided by Tesch (in Creswell, 2009). Data was verified using Guba‘s model (in Krefting, 1991).The study highlights challenges faced by NGOs in providing social welfare services to street children. The study provides a critical analysis of some of the key social welfare service challenges that need to be addressed to ensure effective and sustainable delivery of social welfare services. how these social welfare services can be enhanced from the perspective of service providers employed by NGOs in Pretoria. An explorative, descriptive and contextual research design was utilised. The researcher used purposive and non-probability sampling methods to draw the sample. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect information from nine service providers working with street children. Data were analysed according to the framework provided by Tesch (in Creswell, 2009). Data was verified using Guba‘s model (in Krefting, 1991).The study highlights challenges faced by NGOs in providing social welfare services to street children. The study provides a critical analysis of some of the key social welfare service challenges that need to be addressed to ensure effective and sustainable delivery of social welfare services. the social welfare services rendered to street children and to ascertain how these social welfare services can be enhanced from the perspective of service providers employed by NGOs in Pretoria. An explorative, descriptive and contextual research design was utilised. The researcher used purposive and non-probability sampling methods to draw the sample. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect information from nine service providers working with street children. Data were analysed according to the framework provided by Tesch (in Creswell, 2009). Data was verified using Guba‘s model (in Krefting, 1991).The study highlights challenges faced by NGOs in providing social welfare services to street children. The study provides a critical analysis of some of the key social welfare service challenges that need to be addressed to ensure effective and sustainable delivery of social welfare services. / Social Work / MA (Social Work)

The presence of poverty, unemployment and children been infected or affected by HIV/Aids contributed to a high level of children in need of care and protection (Patel, 2005:165) and forced communities to came up with a ways of addressing this increasing need of alternative care. Cluster foster care schemes were one of the initiatives that were started spontaneously by community members to address need for more alternative care options (Colby-Newton, 2006:18). This form of alternative care was also included with the proclamation of the Children’s Act, 38 of 2005 and the Children’s Amendment Act, Act 41 of 2007 (Matthias, 2010:172-176). Although cluster foster care schemes are acknowledge and practice as a form of alternative care for children in need of care and protection the operationalising thereof remain a grey area. In an unpublished study by Taback and Associates, it was suggested that further research should be conducted regarding elements that need to be included in the operationalising of cluster foster care schemes (Taback and Associates, 2010:4). The above form the motivation for this study and also provide the basis for the formulation of the research question namely: “What are the operational elements necessary for the operationalising of cluster foster care schemes?” Following from the research problem and research question, the goal for this research was to explore and describe the present functioning of cluster foster care schemes in order to identify operational elements to be documented in a guideline for service providers and social workers. The researcher made use of qualitative research approach to explore and describe the participants’ perception on the research problem. This research endeavour firstly falls in the ambit of the phenomenology research design, which aimed to describe the conscious experience of the everyday life of the participants, which were in this study the managers of cluster foster care schemes as well as foster parents that provide foster care as part of a cluster foster care scheme. In addition to this the researcher also opted to include the exploratory, descriptive and contextual research design, which guided the exploration, description and contextualising of the views of the participants on elements needed to operationalise cluster foster care schemes. In order to achieve the above the researcher the researcher decided to make use of an intervention research model by Rothman and Thomas (1994:3-51), namely the “Intervention Develop and Design” framework (IDD framework). In this study the researcher only used phases one to phase four and certain steps of the IDD framework to develop the operational guidelines for the operationalising of cluster foster care schemes. In concluding the report of the study, the researcher provided summaries of and conclusions related to the background rational; research questions; goals and task objective of the study; the research methodology implemented; the empirical findings and literature consulted; and the developed operational guidelines. He concluded the document with recommendation related to the research process and methodology employed; research findings; and recommendation for further research on the research topic. / Social Work / D. Soc.Sc. (Social Work)

The diploma thesis is focused on host care in the Czech Republic. The first chapter deals with attachment and its explanation. The second chapter describes alternative care in the Czech Republic. The list of alternative care forms and types of institutional care are included in this part. The third chapter is focused on host care and its legislative framework, forms, advantages, risks and the process of host care mediation. In the fourth chapter there are introduced specific examples of host care. The fifth chapter describes the survey methodology focused on host care. The sixth chapter contains thequestionnaire survey assessment. To define the issue, the author uses specialized literature aimed at substitutional family care and host care, Czech laws (i.e. Social-legal protection of the children law, Civil code, the law of institutional care accomplishment). She also derives from websites occupied by host care, such as civic association Děti patří domů, The Centre for Adoption and Foster Care. The aim is to verify theoretical facts followed from specialized sources and the description of host care in the Czech Republic.

No description available.