The aim of this research was to support new mothers in groups, so that they can function optimally as educators. During the research mothers with babies up to three months of age were used by means of a support group. This research project was done after it became evident from a literature study that new mothers suffered with unique problems during this adaption phase. In the empirical survey the researcher gave attention to the new mothers' specific needs and problems during this trimester. The researcher aimed to explore the experiences of the new mother as educator through weekly group sessions. From the results it was clear that there was a need of support from other mothers that is going through the same experiences. In this way new mothers could receive emotional support and obtain knowledge regarding relevant issues experienced during this unique life phase. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)

Family foster care is the main resource of alternative care for children in South Africa. The researcher is of the opinion, and is supported in this by literature, that very little is known about the dynamics within the foster family and its effects on the different family members. Of special interest to the researcher is to understand what happens in the lives of birth children of foster parents when they have to share their “world” with a foster child. Up till now little attention has been given to the children who are directly involved in the fostering process. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the experiences of birth children in the foster care system within the context of the family systems theory. The qualitative method implemented in the research made it possible to come to an understanding of the effects of fostering on these children and to give a true description to their voices. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Work)

Many South African families are beset by social, psychological and economic challenges placing children at risk. Family preservation services, capitalising on families’ strengths to resolve their problems, are crucial to avoid the removal of children from their homes. Using a qualitative approach, this study reveals the experiences and perceptions of twelve social workers providing family preservation services in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan of Gauteng Province. These social workers articulate their understanding of and experiences with the Children’s Act (Act No. 38) of 2005. They are generally optimistic that family preservation services can offer a helping process with the potential to improve family functioning. Nevertheless, there are stumbling blocks to effective service delivery, such as the kinds of social problems experienced by families, lack of funding, high caseloads, lack of resources and little co-operation from other disciplines and agencies. Based on these findings, recommendations are made for practice, policy and further research. / Social Work / MA (Social Work)

Review of the literature on the currently available services for special needs children and early intervention programs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, supports the fact that early intervention services for young special needs children and their families are very limited. The present study aims at determining the importance of early intervention services for children with special needs and their families. The study also aims to firstly identify the need for establishing more early intervention programs across the country as well as to give suggestions for effective utilization of the presently available services. Secondly, the study focuses on determining the needs o mothers of children with intellectual and physical impairments. Thirdly, the study aims to assess the extent to which the available services are benefiting the special needs children and their families. A descriptive research study was conducted on a sample of 27 mothers of young children with intellectual and physical impairments. Three questionnaires were designed and distributed to obtain information about the following issues: 1) the current early intervention services available for young. special needs children in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. 2) the background information of the families of the sample. 3) the needs of the mothers in the sample. The data was qualitatively analyzed and interpreted by comparing frequencies and their corresponding percentage values. Results of this study indicated that the majority of the mothers expressed severe and moderate need for more information about their child's impairment; and needed more services and intervention programs for their child. Results from the study also established a relationship between some of the socio-economic background variables and the different categories of needs. Finally, some of the needs of the mothers were met with the early intervention services provided by the centre where the study was conducted. / Inclusive Education / D.Ed.(Special Education)

Children are being removed unnecessarily from their families and placed into substitute care because service programmes lack resources to keep families intact. There are overseas programmes, which provide home services to families, with children at risk of out of home placement. Although there has been an IFPS project there is no established intensive short-term programme in South Africa that deals with families at the brink of dissolution.The objective of the research is to investigate whether an Intensive Family Preservation Programme is feasible in South Africa. The researcher received training in the United States and met with leaders in the field, to discuss the development and implementation of the programme in South Africa. Surveys obtained the attitudes and opinions of the local social workers and commissioners of Child Welfare in Durban towards the programme. The results from opinion surveys indicate that an Intensive Family Preservation Programme is feasible in South Africa. / Social Science / M.A.(Social Work)

Research has indicated that offering support and services for people who experience mental health problems and their families is a complex and contested area. Despite the controversies surrounding therapeutic interventions with families, it has now been recognised that relatives and other supporters of people with mental health problems should be included in their care. Whole- family interventions and partnership working with carers and families is now central to secondary care UK mental health policies and clinical practice guidelines. However, for many families/ carers this remains an aspiration rather than a reality. The way in which we successfully developed family focused mental health practice, as well as specialist family interventions (FI) for people who have been given a diagnosis of psychosis, has therefore aroused considerable interest. The Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has adopted a Strategy to Enhance Working Partnerships with Carers and Families, developed best practice guidance and has established two complementary workforce development projects - the development of specialist family intervention services and the widespread training of mental health staff to create a ‘triangle of care’ with service users and their families. This has resulted in widespread adoption of systemically informed, ‘whole-family’ practice. In response to the widespread difficulties experienced following other staff- training initiatives we developed specialist family interventions (FI) services by means of an innovative one-year course delivered in partnership with Plymouth University. This training initiative has been widely acknowledged for its novel integration of psycho-educational and systemic approaches and the effective in-situ, multi-disciplinary service development model. An advantage of this approach is that by the end of the course a local FI Service has been established and staff experience fewer difficulties in applying their new skills than people trained in other programmes. We then ensure the continued development of clinical skills by means of a service structure that emphasises on-going supervision. Regular audits of the service and in-depth research studies clearly indicate that the service is effective and highly valued by users. Our ‘cognitive-interactional’ approach, which integrates systemic therapy with psychosocial interventions (individual- and family-CBT) within a collaborative therapeutic relationship, enables us to meet the needs of families in a flexible, tailored manner. The FI teams are able to deliver early interventions for people with first episode psychosis, as well as meeting the NICE guidelines for people with longstanding symptoms. Recognising that many families do not require formal family interventions/ therapy, we also have been designing ‘stepped-care’ family intervention services. We have developed, and extensively evaluated, short training packages to enhance working partnerships with families throughout our mental health services. We have used this three-day package to train a range of community and inpatient teams. We have also encouraged family- inclusive practice with the establishment of a trustwide steering group, practice guidelines and the establishment of ‘family liaison’ posts to facilitate family meetings on inpatient units, as part of the assessment process. Both training initiatives explicitly focus on developing systemic thinking, by integrating CBT and systemic therapy. The involvement of families/ carers in the design and delivery of both training initiatives is also crucial.

This dissertation is a qualitative secondary content analysis of clinical records collected for the Spokane Safe Start Project in Spokane, Washington, a program designed to offset trauma in children exposed to domestic and intimate partner violence (IPV). The Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization have identified intimate partner violence (IPV) as a health policy issue. Most studies of intimate partner violence and children exposed to violence have used samples from domestic violence shelters, large phone-based community surveys, or convenience samples such as college students. Currently, studies of families that have experienced intimate partner violence and received services in their homes do not exist. As such, the process and effects of intimate violence in families residing in their homes have not been identified. The purpose of this study was to identify the structural issues, factors affecting service engagement, family characteristics, and factors promoting resiliency in families that experienced intimate partner violence and were served by the Spokane Safe Start Project in Spokane, Washington, a program designed to offset trauma in children exposed to caregiver intimate partner violence. To this end, the four research questions were: 1) What are the underlying structural problems that affected these families? 2) Is family functioning at intake associated with the length of time with the program? 3) Of the families that engaged with Safe Start for at least five face-to-face contacts, what are the caregiver and/or family characteristics that seem to indicate the presence or absence of resilience in the caregivers? This study involved the analysis of the clinical case records of 30 families that received Spokane Safe Services. The primary source of data for this study came from the narrative portions of the electronic ACCESS and written client clinical records. The Spokane Safe Start clinical narratives served as a record of clinician observations, interactions, and service delivery to families greatly affected by intimate partner violence. Using the bio-ecological perspective and family systems theory as the theoretical frameworks to understand intimate partner violence and its effects on children, data analysis and synthesis, I used qualitative content analysis thematic analysis, and data matrices. In essence, this is a multiple case study producing "context-dependent knowledge" that is vital to develop ecologically sound interventions to address intimate partner violence and its effects on families (Flyvbjerg, 2006, p. 221). This study revealed three main findings. Families encountered roadblocks in the form of environmental and individual obstacles. These obstacles included family-of-origin dynamics, severe financial problems, and individual issues such as relationship ambivalence and substance abuse that posed serious limitations to developing resilience. Parent-child interactions were strained and difficult in most families. The majority of children experienced chronic IPV and many had a history of maltreatment as well. Although many parents were concerned about the future wellbeing of their children, they also had difficulty reflecting on their children’s emotional needs and experiences. Evidence of resilience in the case narratives was quite limited. There was evidence, one particular clinician's model of service provision was more successful at engendering resilience than that of the other clinicians. Results were triangulated with the extant literature and previous quantitative studies conducted by Washington State University on the Spokane Safe Start data indicating the results of this study are trustworthy and credible. This study makes an important contribution to the family violence literature and may serve as a resource for policy and program development. / Graduation date: 2012

Population-based administrative data (2009-2012) from several sources were used to compare the health status and access to health services between a cohort of children in care with developmental disabilities (DD) (n=1,212) and a matched comparison group of children in care without DD (n=2,424). The two study groups were compared on a number of measures, including total respiratory morbidity, prevalence of diabetes, mood and anxiety disorders, continuity of care, injury-related hospitalizations, hospital-based dental care, and total number of ambulatory physician visits. Children in care with DD were significantly more likely to have a history of mood and anxiety disorders, respiratory illnesses, diabetes, hospital-based dental care, and injury-related hospitalizations compared to the matched comparison group. Children in care with DD also had significantly higher number of physician visits than children in the matched comparison group. No significant difference between the two study groups was found for continuity of care. / October 2015

The aim of this research was to support new mothers in groups, so that they can function optimally as educators. During the research mothers with babies up to three months of age were used by means of a support group. This research project was done after it became evident from a literature study that new mothers suffered with unique problems during this adaption phase. In the empirical survey the researcher gave attention to the new mothers' specific needs and problems during this trimester. The researcher aimed to explore the experiences of the new mother as educator through weekly group sessions. From the results it was clear that there was a need of support from other mothers that is going through the same experiences. In this way new mothers could receive emotional support and obtain knowledge regarding relevant issues experienced during this unique life phase. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)

Although the White Paper on Families (2013) stipulates that family resilience should be strengthened in family preservation services, no guidelines exist for social workers in the South African context to do so. A need for practice guidelines for social workers in rendering services to families to strengthen family resilience was identified. The following central research question was formulated: How and by doing what, can social workers foster and sustain family resilience? The Intervention Design and Development (IDD) model of Rothman and Thomas (1994) was adapted for the study which included qualitative research to explore and describe the understanding, experiences and suggestions of social workers on family resilience for informing the family resilience intervention guidelines. Data was collected through focus- group and face-to-face semi-structured interviews with social workers employed by the Department of Social Development, and the NGOs from Gauteng, North West and Limpopo province. Tesch’s steps (cited in Creswell 2009:186) were used to analyse the data systematically and data was verified by Guba’s model (cited in Krefting 1991:214–222). Implementing steps 1–5 of phase 1, steps 1–3 of phase 2, step 2 of phase 3 and steps 1–3 of phase 4 of the IDD model, “Practice Guidelines for Social Workers to foster and sustain Family Resilience” (“The Guidelines”) were developed by translating the family resilience theory into practice to guide social workers to be able to develop and implement a family resilience intervention. The content of “The Guidelines” include an introduction containing the social work service delivery principles, the theoretical approaches of service delivery to families and the legislative and policy framework for services to families that would underpin a family resilience intervention. Section 1 of “The Guidelines” was developed and structured around the understanding of the family resilience construct and the family resilience process model on how family resilience operates. Section 2 of “The Guidelines” is presented in a question and answer format. This section provides practical guidelines on how to identify the target group for family resilience interventions, the reciprocal relationship between individual resilience and family resilience, family resilience interventions following the social work intervention process (i.e. intake, developmental assessment, a family developmental plan, and intervention strategies in accordance with the basket of services for families and monitoring and evaluation), how to integrate the domains of family resilience into the family resilience intervention, the need for education of both the social worker and client family on family resilience, the multi-dimensional aspects of the family requiring a multi-disciplinary approach and the role that the safety of family members play when rendering a family resilience intervention. / Social Work / D. Phil. (Social Work)