abstract: ABSTRACT The child welfare workforce is charged with the demanding work of ensuring the safety, well-being, and permanency of maltreated children. Although child welfare work can be rewarding, it is also associated with high levels of stress and burnout, causing challenges to retain staff. Developing organizational cultures and climates within child welfare agencies that are supportive of the workforce and strive to improve outcomes is essential. Applying the ecological systems theory to a child welfare agency provides for an understanding that the agency is comprised of different levels of systems with interactions between the systems. This study examined the association between the individual level factors of job satisfaction, coping skills, self-efficacy, burnout, job stress, and individual affect with organizational level factors including culture and climate. Child welfare workers from one regional area were invited to participate in an online survey utilizing the Comprehensive Organizational Health Assessment and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale. Results indicate that there is an association between each of the individual level factors and the organizational factors. The importance of the role of individual affect was highlighted in the results in that the level of affect reported was associated with corresponding ratings of the perception of the organizational culture and climate. These results provide implications for hiring, training, mentoring, and supervision. This study attempted to assess if the organizational culture and climate of individual child welfare units could be linked to permanency outcomes. This linkage was not possible in this study, however implications to conduct this type of research are made. Advancing the study of organizational culture and climate beyond the impact of such factors as job satisfaction and retention to linking to direct client outcomes is an emerging and important field of research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Social Work 2017

abstract: In many respects, the current public child welfare system closely resembles that of over 100 years ago. Then, as well as now, nonprofit child welfare agencies are the critical providers of service delivery to vulnerable children and their families. Contemporary nonprofits, however, are confronted with social and fiscal pressures to conform to normative practices and behaviors of governmental and for-profit organizations. Simultaneously, these agencies may also feel compelled to behave in accordance with a nonprofit normative ethic. Yet, scholars and practitioners are often unaware of how these different forces may be shaping the practices of child welfare agencies and, the nonprofit sector in general. This multi-paper dissertation examines how managerial and organizational practices of child welfare nonprofits are influenced business, government, and other nonprofit organizations and the extent to which processes process of institutional isomorphism in child welfare nonprofits are happening. Data was collected from a national ample of 184 child welfare administrators to explore marketization practices, collaboration behaviors, and managerial priorities of these agencies. Multinomial logistic, ordered logistic, and ordinary least squares regression, and historical analysis help shed light on the contemporary practices of these agencies. The results reveal that these agency's behaviors are shaped by government control, influences from the business community, identification with a nonprofit mindset (i.e., nonprofitness), funding streams, and various other factors. One key finding is that identification with a nonprofit mindset encourages certain behaviors like collaboration with other nonprofits and placing greater importance on key managerial priorities, but it does not reduce the likelihood of adopting business management strategies. Another important finding is that government control and funding does not have as strong as an influence on child welfare nonprofits as expected; however, influence from the business community does strongly affect many of their practices. The implications of these findings are discussed for child welfare agencies and the nonprofit sector in general. The consequences of nonprofits operating similarly to business and government are considered. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Public Administration 2013

Children are placed in a children’s home when a Presiding Officer finds them to be in need of care and when there is no viable community placement alternative. The body of literature on children’s homes focuses primarily on the negative effects and outcomes of such statutory placement. The assertion that children who grew up in children’s homes will continue to use the services of welfare organisations in adulthood, is supported by the researcher’s observation as a practicing social worker. This, and the study of available literature, resulted in this qualitative, exploratory-descriptive and contextual research study with the following goal: to enhance the understanding of how intervention programmes at children’s homes can contribute to adult adjustment and independent functioning of those children in their care. A purposive sampling method was used to identify ten participants who had spent at least 2 years in a children’s home and who had been discharged from the children’s home at least 5 years ago (to the date of data collection). The sample was drawn from clients at non governmental social welfare agencies who fitted the sampling criteria. The data was collected via semi-structured interviews using an interview guide, which were recorded, transcribed and then analysed using a thematic content analysis approach. The results of the study may be used to develop and implement meaningful intervention strategies for individuals placed in children’s homes.

This dissertation addresses gaps in the child welfare literature from a systemic perspective. The extant literature focuses primarily on children in care, which excludes 90% of children and families involved with the system. In addition, foster parent retention has become an area of primary concern because there are fewer individuals who are willing to foster. Research that examines all children involved with the child welfare system and ways to improve foster parent experiences is imperative to address these areas of need. The two studies herein address these gaps in the literature by examining children who are in contact with the child welfare system but largely remain out of care, children who are in care, and foster caregivers. The first study compared two groups of children in the Ontario child welfare system: those who remain with their natural family and those in out-of-home care. The emotional and behavioural functioning, prosocial behaviour, education, health, and resources (internal and external) of these two groups of children were examined and relatively few significant differences were identified. However, it was found that, despite having comparable mental health and educational functioning, children who remained in their natural homes had significantly fewer external resources than children in out-of-home care. Children in out-of-home care may have increased access to community resources despite having similar needs to children who remain in their natural home environments. Additional research is needed to replicate and better understand these findings so that the child welfare system can best meet the needs of its children. The second study examined how foster child characteristics, as well as other foster parent and agency factors, impact Canadian foster parents’ experience of fostering, particularly related to agency workers, the fostering system, training, and foster children and their placements. Results identified that foster children’s needs and maltreatment histories, as reported by foster parents, were not significantly associated with perceptions about fostering. The factors that were the most highly associated with positive perceptions about fostering were increased practical and emotional support. These findings indicate that child welfare agencies can improve foster parents perceptions about fostering by providing sufficient practical and emotional support. A monitoring system that allows foster parents to provide regular feedback would be beneficial in continuing to evaluate their fostering experiences, assess the impact of interventions targeting foster parent support, and address any areas of concern. As a whole, the results of this dissertation highlight the importance of providing both children and foster parents in the child welfare system with appropriate supports that promote positive child functioning and foster parent experiences.

Residential care has evolved overtime from a system of supporting indigent children to care for those youth with mental health, behavioral, or medical disability diagnoses. Currently, in the United States there are 57k children involved in the child welfare system with approximately 14% residing in residential care. These systems have a long history of utilizing punishment-based, coercive techniques for managing problem behavior. Although these methods are thought to be further traumatizing for youth who have already been traumatized throughout their lives, the punishment-based techniques are ubiquitous throughout residential care. This study sought to evaluate the feasibility of adopting the School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) model to residential care for youth involved with the Florida child welfare system. During this study, two cottages at the facility met high PBIS fidelity and experienced a decrease in reported inappropriate behavior across daily behavior scores and incident reports. The results are promising and suggest PBIS can be adopted and implemented within residential facilities. Limitations and future research is discussed.

This project outlines the existence of neoliberal multiculturalism and identifies the implications and limitations of its practice. Neoliberal multiculturalism involves the institutionalization of group autonomy by the state to download responsibility to jurisdictions that have historically lacked sufficient fiscal capacity and have been hampered by colonialism in the development of the political capacity necessary to fully meet the requirements entailed by the devolution. At the same time, this practice releases the formerly responsible jurisdiction from the political burden of the policy area(s) despite its continued influence and effect. As demonstrated by my analysis of the Indigenous child welfare devolution that has occurred recently in Manitoba, neoliberal multiculturalism therefore involves a certain kind of “privatization”—that is, it involves the appearance of state distance from said policy area. This practice problematizes the traceability of power and decision making while at the same time it co-opts and in many ways neutralizes demands from critics of the state by giving the appearance of state concession to these demands. In response to the dangers of neoliberal multiculturalism, I situate multiculturalism in a robustly political model of democratic multi-nationalism (characterized by both agonism and deliberation) in order to combat multiculturalism’s tendency simply to rationalize “privatization” and to enhance democratic accountability. My approach goes beyond dominant constructions of group autonomy through group rights by emphasizing that autonomy is a relational political practice rather than a resource distributed by a benevolent state. Building on my analysis of Indigenous autonomy and the unique challenges that it presents for traditional democratic practices, I outline a contextually sensitive, case-specific employment of what I term “democratic multi-nationalism”. This approach conceives of Indigenous issues as inherently political in nature, as opposed to culturally defined and constituted, and therefore better meets the challenges of the colonial legacy and context of deep difference in which Indigenous-state relations take place today. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

This study seeks to investigate the challenges faced by the recipients of the child support grant, with special reference to Morgan Bay, a rural area under the aegis of the Amathole District Municipality in East London. The child support grant is a strategy that was introduced to alleviate poverty in previously disadvantaged communities. The child support grant replaced the state maintenance grant. South Africa has high levels of unemployment; and this situation is considered to be a major contributing factor to poverty. After the apartheid era, the African National Congress (ANC) led government introduced a litany of redistributive policy frameworks aimed at reversing the imbalances of the past created by the apartheid government. The child support grant, which was established during the year 1998, is viewed as one of the strategies introduced by the South African government aimed at alleviating poverty caused by the lack of jobs. The aim of the study is to assess the implementation of the child support grant impact as a developmental strategy in rural communities, such as Morgan Bay. The study seeks to determine how the child support grant redistribution has affected rural communities. In other words, the research seeks to determine whether the child support grant redistribution has affected rural communities positively or negatively, and to ascertain whether it has mitigated the impact of socio-economic challenges in rural communities. The study also seeks to explore other strategies, which could be implemented to supplement the child support grant, and possibly decrease the level of dependence on the child support grant – by having a back-up strategy for alleviating poverty.

The recruitment, enlistment and forceful conscription of children as soldiers is a cause for grave concern all over the world and most especially in Africa, where years of factional fighting, civil wars and cross border conflicts have raged, children and youth have been pulled into violence not only as victims, but also as perpetrators. The involvement of children in war posses a severe challenge to prevailing moral and legal norms of the conduct of modern warfare. A major problem and most controversial issue, among others, is on the age at which children should be eligible to become combatants. Children, who may be viewed as a valuable resource due to their often inherent malleability, wish to avenge family member(s) killed in war, sense of immunity to danger, and or feeling of power in participating in the violence. Can the use of children as soldiers be effectively regulated in Africa? All efforts to assist child soldiers in recovering from the devastating effects of wars often unwillingly helped promote the growing number of child soldiers. This is in part because wars are now more fought internally among rebel armies and factions vying for power with the government and thus enlist children into their various armies. The study comes to a conclusion that drastic steps need to be taken to ameliorate this unfortunate situation. This formed the basis of the recommendations offered in the thesis to assist the African continent.

This study focused on the policy responses formulated by the government of Zimbabwe and their implementation to meet the social needs of the people with special emphasis on the Zimbabwe National Orphan Care Policy (ZNOCP) of 1999. The challenges this policy is facing from the newly evolving structure of the child headed households was the centre of this study. At independence, the government adopted the incremental approach to policy making and extended formal social policy to the previously marginalized black majority. The ZNOCP was introduced in 1999 during the second phase of ESAP. The same period saw the spread of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. HIV and AIDS led to an increase in the number of orphans some of whom ended up in CHH without adult supervision. The day to day challenges of this group of orphans was investigated in Masvingo rural district. For this study both the qualitative and quantitative methodology paradigms were used. Secondary sources such as journal articles, published books and computer databases helped in complementing the field work. Four sets of questionnaires were administered to four groups of people which were the heads of CHH, extended families, community leadership and government officials. The analysis of this study led to the following conclusions about social policy and the plight of children in CHH. Firstly, that social policy has failed in Zimbabwe due to the incremental approach to policy making which was taken by the government because of its nature of being reformist as opposed to being transformative. Secondly, that the xiii ZNOCP is not being properly implemented therefore it does not have any impact on the lives of children in CHH. These children are struggling for basic social services like food and nutrition, clothing, education health, shelter and birth registration. Thirdly, the extended families and the community have been weakened by HIV and AIDS and impoverished by ESAP such that they cannot take care of their own families, let alone their deceased relatives‟ orphaned children as stipulated by the ZNOCP. Finally, the passive role being taken by the government in the care and protection of the children in CHH is detrimental to their welfare. The comparative case study of the Slangspruit informal settlement in South Africa shows that challenges faced by orphans are common. This study therefore recommends that there is need for the review of the ZNOCP. The new policy should come up with child care strategies which take into cognizance the evolutionary nature of the community. A human rights based approach ought to be the basis of child protection interventions in Zimbabwe. The study recommends that all stakeholders from the government down to the community need to fully participate in their various capacities in child care and protection. Resources in terms of finance and human resources should be made available and channeled to the intended beneficiaries. There is also need for capacity building in the communities and to intensify HIV and AIDS prevention, mitigation, care and treatment interventions to reduce the prevalence of orphans.

The social welfare services of the western nations are administered in almost all cases through a combination of voluntary and statutory organizations. The patterns of the relationships subsisting between these two kinds of welfare agency exhibit wide variations from one country to another, and between one area of service and another within the same country. Although there is an extensive literature on the subject purporting to state the nature and scope of the roles peculiarly suited to each of the two kinds of agency, it is not in fact apparent either that the claims of attributions on which this literature rests are valid or that the activities of the agencies themselves conform in a regular way to the model. The present study deals with one area of welfare services in one jurisdiction, namely child welfare service in England and Wales at the present time. It attempts to determine what the character of the relationship between private and public organizations in the field of child welfare is, to evaluate the relative advantages and disadvantages of that relationship, and to offer a number of hypotheses designed to explain the idiosyncrasies of the relationship. It is conceived as one of a number of projected studies, all of which are to be concerned with assessing the plausibility of conventional accounts of the public-private relationship, with the identification of the principal causes of the relationships that are actually observable, and with contributing to the development of a theory of the matter which would assist in the formulation of realistic, efficient and logically consistent methods of organizing and administering social welfare services. The main findings of the study are that: (1) marked differences in the relations between private and public welfare agencies exist even between the constituent parts of a single area of service, — in this case, between delinquency, adoption, protection and recreational services within the single area of child welfare; (2) these differences seem as often as not to be the result of historical accident rather than of principled adherence to a coherent view of what the private-public relationship ought to be; (3) the problem of explaining the sources of the historical accidents in question does not appear to be amenable to any general mode of explanation in the present state of our knowledge of the subject; (4) gross inefficiencies in the administration of child welfare services are a common consequence of unwillingness or inability to come to terms with the problems arising from the co-existence of private and public organizations. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate