Child sexual abuse is a very sensitive issue that causes trauma and damage to the victims. This does not affect only the victims, but their families and the society at large. It is sometimes difficult for the society to support the victims of child sexual abuse. It then becomes a burden on the families because they lack information on how to deal with their sexually abused children. The families do not have knowledge of forensic social work and it becomes difficult for them to understand the process of forensic investigation. The information kit for families affected by child sexual abuse will empower the families with knowledge on the process of forensic investigation. This will also help to prepare both the children and their families for what will happen after the case has been reported to the Child Protection Unit. They will also be able to know their expectations when it comes to the court proceedings. An improved understanding will help the child prepare for testifying. Developing an information kit and reader–friendly guidelines will assist in relieving the stress on parents and strengthen them in giving their children the necessary support. Further research should be conducted on families’ understanding of forensic investigation and the court proceedings involved when a child has been sexually abused. Currently there is little data on forensic social work in South Africa, due to the fact that forensic social work is still quite a new field in our country. The researcher thus identified a need for conducting a qualitative study with the parents of sexually abused children whose cases had been reported to the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit for forensic investigation at the time of the study. The aim of this study was to develop an information kit for families who were affected by child sexual abuse in order to give them a better understanding of forensic investigations in such cases. An interview schedule was developed with the purpose of confirming whether the families understood what they would be going through during the whole process. From the research it was evident that forensic social work was something new to the respondents as it was difficult for some of them to give detailed responses to the questions. It became clear that the families of sexually abused children are in need of relevant and clear information on forensic social work, the nature of forensic investigations and associated procedures. / Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Child sexual abuse is a very sensitive issue that causes trauma and damage to the victims. This does not affect only the victims, but their families and the society at large. It is sometimes difficult for the society to support the victims of child sexual abuse. It then becomes a burden on the families because they lack information on how to deal with their sexually abused children. The families do not have knowledge of forensic social work and it becomes difficult for them to understand the process of forensic investigation. The information kit for families affected by child sexual abuse will empower the families with knowledge on the process of forensic investigation. This will also help to prepare both the children and their families for what will happen after the case has been reported to the Child Protection Unit. They will also be able to know their expectations when it comes to the court proceedings. An improved understanding will help the child prepare for testifying. Developing an information kit and reader–friendly guidelines will assist in relieving the stress on parents and strengthen them in giving their children the necessary support. Further research should be conducted on families’ understanding of forensic investigation and the court proceedings involved when a child has been sexually abused. Currently there is little data on forensic social work in South Africa, due to the fact that forensic social work is still quite a new field in our country. The researcher thus identified a need for conducting a qualitative study with the parents of sexually abused children whose cases had been reported to the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit for forensic investigation at the time of the study. The aim of this study was to develop an information kit for families who were affected by child sexual abuse in order to give them a better understanding of forensic investigations in such cases. An interview schedule was developed with the purpose of confirming whether the families understood what they would be going through during the whole process. From the research it was evident that forensic social work was something new to the respondents as it was difficult for some of them to give detailed responses to the questions. It became clear that the families of sexually abused children are in need of relevant and clear information on forensic social work, the nature of forensic investigations and associated procedures. / Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Child protection is a reactive, non-linear, social process carried out in a context of unpredictability, uncertainty and complexity. One way professionals respond to this context is by negotiating almost every aspect of the work, negotiating both with people and through practice problems. This negotiation process has a cultural basis. I contend that: 1) skillful negotiation is culturally embedded in the activities and practices of child protection teams and individual workers; 2) child protection practice in this team is the skillful negotiation of practice problems while maintaining a balance between helping and enforcement activities that protect children; and 3) workers’ negotiation is not only activity-based but also a cultural way of thinking and being in the midst of this complex environment. I use the idea of a cultural repertoire as a framework for how professionals think and act and use ethnographic observation and participant interviews to explore its use in every-day practice.

Dans le champ de la protection de l’enfance, le débat sur l’évaluation pour déterminer les besoins et les objectifs d'une intervention socioéducative anime les acteurs de ce champ. Cette recherche s’intéresse à une équipe soignante qui, au sein d’une unité de soins intensifs du soir, accueille après l’école des enfants «agités». Cette équipe peut être amenée à prendre contact avec les services de protection de l'enfance et alors être actrice d'une démarche qui vise à déterminer les objectifs et les besoins d’une intervention des services de protection de l’enfance. Notre démarche compréhensive à partir d’une observation participante appréhende la pratique de ces soignants pour aborder la question de leur relation avec les services de protection de l’enfance. Nous nous sommes appuyée sur l'écologie de la prise de décision pour mettre en relief les différents facteurs qui interagissent dans la décision des soignants de prendre contact avec ces service. Nous définissons les cadres théoriques qui structurent la pratique des soignants et identifions les contraintes et les stratégies des acteurs dans la relation qu'ils construisent pour déterminer les besoins et les objectifs d'une intervention. Nous montrons que les soignants ne s’appuient pas pour s’engager dans un processus de séparation sur des caractéristiques de danger d'une situation mais plutôt sur la capacité des parents à se saisir de l'accompagnement des soignants pour agir sur leurs difficultés. Ces résultats nous conduisent à comprendre à une échelle plus large le passage, dans le travail social, d’une attente de conformisation de l'individu aux attentes sociales à une aptitude de ce dernier à élaborer les difficultés rencontrées pour les anticiper et les surmonter dans une exigence d’autoréalisation. / In the last few decade, in the field of child welfare, the debate on assessment to determine both needs and aims of a social intervention has been developing. This research focuses on a mental health care intervention designed for children with behavioral disorders. The children come to the intervention site once school is finished. The intervention team offers care services, but in some situations the question of a possible intervention of child protection services may emerge. The team of mental health clinicians becomes then actor of the assessment process. A comprehensive methodology based on a participant observation enables us to get a better understanding of the clinicians’ practice and address the question of their relationship with child protection services. To underline the different factors which interact with the decision process of the clinicians we use the decision making ecology. We first define theoretical frameworks which structure the team practice. Then we identify constraints such as the French rules of child protection services and strategies used by clinicians such as their expertise position and by child protection workers such as their intermediate position to understand how their relationship is built. We also highlight that the clinician team rather than stressing out the risk of danger for the child may decide to contact child protection services when parents are not able to elaborate on their difficulties. These results lead to a new understanding of social workers’ intervention. Aims are not anymore to conform individuals to the social rules but to help them to elaborate on their difficulties to anticipate and deal with them with a demand of self-realization in mind.

The work deals with ethical implications that arise from social work with manyproblems family. The work is divided into three chapters. The first chapter deals with values and ethics in social work. The second chapter describes family, its functions and pathologies that may occur. Defines manyproblems families. The third chapter is the core of social work with manyproblems families mainly on ethical aspects associated with it. This is mainly a different value system of manyproblems families and social work, and on the ethical dilemmas that arise when a conflict of values of social worker.

Foster care is being discussed nowadays mainly in connection with conception of planned closing down of children´s homes due to which its enforcement rises. One form is kinship foster care. Relatives of the child become its foster carers. It is beneficial for the child to grow up in a wider family, at the same time some drawbacks of this form of foster care arise. The aim of the thesis was to look into the area of foster care from the point of view of a social worker of the social and legal child protection municipal office with extended autority of the South Bohemia Region. Two partial goals were set. The first one was to find out what the trend in relative foster care is, based on the records of the municipal offices with extended autority of the South Bohemia Region in the years 2005-2010 and the Czech Republic in the same period of time. The second one was to find out what the opinions on kinship foster care of the social workers of the social and legal child protection offices are, those who are in charge of foster care in the South-Bohemia Region. Strategy of qualitative research was chosen. To achieve the first goal, method of secondary data analysis and technique of content data anylysis were applied. To achieve the second goal, questioning method and semi-controlled dialogue technique were used. The first research data file consisted of foster care families registered in the years 2005-2010 with the social and legal child protection municipal offices with extended autority of the Czech Republic. The second one consisted of social workers of the social and legal child protection municipal offices with extended autority of the South Bohemia Region. Three research issues, which were gradually answered in the debate, were defined. Based on the research, two assumptions were determined at the end of the thesis. No.1 ´Social workers consider kinship foster care a suitable solution for social orphans.´ No.2 ´Social workers have critical attitude towards kinship foster care.´ At the end of the thesis, it is proposed to use it in training for social workers as well as in education of students of health and social care courses. The study could be also used in dispute over creation and expansion of professional services for foster carers and relatives.

Este trabalho pretende realizar uma história cultural ou "arqueologia" dos abrigos espíritas para a infância no Brasil, construídos como verdadeiros"monumentos" da fé espírita, cuja materialização começa a ocorrer na segunda década do século XX, a partir de algumas iniciativas ou instituições que se tornaram pioneiras, tais como o Abrigo Thereza de Jesus, fundado em 1919 na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Inspirados no lema "Fora da caridade não há salvação", um dos pilares do aspecto religioso do Espiritismo, os espíritas entram na milenar história das práticas de proteção à infância apenas na Idade Moderna. A doutrina espírita,procurando estabelecer, desde o seu "nascimento", a aliança entre Ciência e Religião, acaba adquirindo a feição de uma "religião moderna", reinvenção da tradição cristã em tempos de racionalismo e cientificismo. Entretanto, apesar da ênfase doutrinária no exercício da caridade individual e silenciosa como fundamento para a evolução espiritual, o movimento espírita acaba ampliando este sentido inicial presente nas obras de Allan Kardec, publicadas em Paris entre 1857 e 1869, tendo incorporado ou se apropriado de representações e práticas de caridade que foram desenvolvidas histórica e culturalmente dentro da tradição cristã mais antiga. / This text intends to produce a cultural history or "archaeology" of spiritist shelters for children in Brazil, constructed as true "monuments" of the spirit faith, that had started to appear in the second decade of the 20th century, from some pioneering activities or institutions such as the Abrigo Thereza de Jesus, established in 1919 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Guided by the motto "Outside of the charity there is no salvation", one of the pillars of the religious aspect of the Spiritism, the spiritists became part of millenarian history of the childrens protection only in the Modern Age. The spiritist doctrine, looking for to establish, since its "birth", the alliance between Science and Religion, finishes acquiring the feature of a "modern religion", reinvention of the Christian tradition in times of rationalism and scientific dogmatism. However, although the doctrinal emphasis on exercise of individual charity and silent as basic principle for spiritual evolution, the spiritist movement was not limited to this initial sense contained in papers published by Allan Kardec in Paris between 1857 and 1869, having accomplished the incorporation or appropriation of representations and actions of charity that had been developed historical and culturally inside of the older Christian tradition.

Magister Artium - MA (Child and Family Studies) / The Management of children, younger than twelve years of age, who pose a risk to other children, remains complex and confusing. When their behaviour includes sexual aggression towards other children, ignorance about how to manage them becomes even more challenging. Society has an expectation that any sexual aggressor should be punished, however, when the aggressor is younger than ten years old, different responses are necessary. The aim of this current study was to explore the management of learners with sexual behaviour problems, within the primary school setting. The main question underpinning this study was: How are children, aged five-to-nine-years, with sexual behaviour problems, managed by social workers and educators? A qualitative methodology, with focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews were used to conduct this study. Educators from primary schools, as well as social workers from the Western Cape Education Department, were purposively selected to form the sample for this study. Focus group discussions were conducted with the educators, while semi-structured interviews were conducted with the social workers.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:45:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissAS.pdf: 873261 bytes, checksum: 9886f0f3c41c4d04cfaf6a4ff398724f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-02-09 / Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos / Research indicates how foster care institutions problems may harm the development of children and adolescents in need for protection. Thus, a more efficient practice by professionals who work in these entities could contribute with the prevention of deficiencies, which institutionalized children may present. The present work focuses on the role of child protection services and has as general objective to investigate the strategies employed by such professionals, when evaluating foster care institutions, as well as under which quality indicators their assessment behavior is under control. Two studies were carried through in two interior cities of São Paulo estate, Brazil. Four child protection agents, a member of the Municipal Council for the Rights of the Children and the Adolescents, a member of the Social Assistance City Council, the Judiciary power s Social Worker, the town´s Judge, and the Coordinator of the town s single foster care institution participated of Study 1. Study 2 participants were: nine professionals responsible for the foster care evaluation (five Child Protection Agents, one member of the Municipal Council for the Rights of the Children and the Adolescents, the Youth and Child Judge and the city s Prosecutor; as well as five foster care institutions Coordinators). The data was collected by means of interviews, questionnaires and document analysis. Results indicated that the professionals who monitor foster care institutions, in both studies, use, predominantly, local visits to the entity as an evaluation strategy. However, these visits vary in frequency and format (some talk every two to six months with employees and children; while others only observe the functioning of the entity). Quality indicators described as guidelines for the assessment are also varied. The low frequency of reports regarding training aspects of foster care staff and the entity s concern for maintenance of the familiar bonds are of notice. / Pesquisas indicam como as dificuldades de instituições do tipo abrigo podem prejudicar o desenvolvimento de crianças e adolescentes que estão sob essa medida de proteção. Nesse sentido, uma prática mais eficiente dos profissionais que atuam nessas entidades, poderia contribuir com a prevenção de deficiências às quais os abrigados estão sujeitos. O presente trabalho foca o papel da rede de proteção à criança e ao adolescente e tem o objetivo geral de investigar as estratégias utilizadas por esses profissionais ao avaliarem os abrigos, bem como sob quais indicadores de qualidade o comportamento de avaliar dos mesmos está sob controle. Foram realizados dois estudos em duas cidades do centro-oeste do estado de São Paulo. Participaram do Estudo 1 quatro conselheiros tutelares, uma representante do Conselho Municipal dos Direitos das Crianças e dos Adolescentes, uma integrante do Conselho de Assistência Social do Município, a Assistente Social do poder judiciário, o juiz da cidade e a coordenadora do único abrigo do município. Os participantes do Estudo 2 foram nove profissionais responsáveis pela avaliação dos abrigos, sendo eles: os cinco Conselheiros Tutelares do Município, uma das integrantes do Conselho Municipal dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente, o Juiz da Vara da Infância e da Juventude e o promotor da cidade; e cinco coordenadores de abrigos. A coleta de dados foi realizada por meio de entrevistas, questionários e análise documental. Os resultados indicam que os profissionais que monitoram os abrigos, em ambos os estudos, utilizam predominantemente a visita à entidade como estratégia de avaliação. No entanto a mesma é conduzida de forma e freqüência variada (alguns conversam, bimestralmente ou semestralmente, com funcionários e abrigados; outros apenas observam o funcionamento da entidade). Os indicadores de qualidade descritos como orientadores da tarefa de avaliar, também são variados. Ressalta-se a baixa freqüência de citação de aspectos relacionados às práticas educativas dos monitores dos abrigos e cuidados da entidade para manutenção dos vínculos familiares.

Este trabalho pretende realizar uma história cultural ou "arqueologia" dos abrigos espíritas para a infância no Brasil, construídos como verdadeiros"monumentos" da fé espírita, cuja materialização começa a ocorrer na segunda década do século XX, a partir de algumas iniciativas ou instituições que se tornaram pioneiras, tais como o Abrigo Thereza de Jesus, fundado em 1919 na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Inspirados no lema "Fora da caridade não há salvação", um dos pilares do aspecto religioso do Espiritismo, os espíritas entram na milenar história das práticas de proteção à infância apenas na Idade Moderna. A doutrina espírita,procurando estabelecer, desde o seu "nascimento", a aliança entre Ciência e Religião, acaba adquirindo a feição de uma "religião moderna", reinvenção da tradição cristã em tempos de racionalismo e cientificismo. Entretanto, apesar da ênfase doutrinária no exercício da caridade individual e silenciosa como fundamento para a evolução espiritual, o movimento espírita acaba ampliando este sentido inicial presente nas obras de Allan Kardec, publicadas em Paris entre 1857 e 1869, tendo incorporado ou se apropriado de representações e práticas de caridade que foram desenvolvidas histórica e culturalmente dentro da tradição cristã mais antiga. / This text intends to produce a cultural history or "archaeology" of spiritist shelters for children in Brazil, constructed as true "monuments" of the spirit faith, that had started to appear in the second decade of the 20th century, from some pioneering activities or institutions such as the Abrigo Thereza de Jesus, established in 1919 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Guided by the motto "Outside of the charity there is no salvation", one of the pillars of the religious aspect of the Spiritism, the spiritists became part of millenarian history of the childrens protection only in the Modern Age. The spiritist doctrine, looking for to establish, since its "birth", the alliance between Science and Religion, finishes acquiring the feature of a "modern religion", reinvention of the Christian tradition in times of rationalism and scientific dogmatism. However, although the doctrinal emphasis on exercise of individual charity and silent as basic principle for spiritual evolution, the spiritist movement was not limited to this initial sense contained in papers published by Allan Kardec in Paris between 1857 and 1869, having accomplished the incorporation or appropriation of representations and actions of charity that had been developed historical and culturally inside of the older Christian tradition.