SocialJustice &SocialChangeResearchCentre

Kinship Care as a Challenge to Child Welfare Constructs

Leonie Gibbons Elizabeth Watson

Jan Mason

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AN EXAMINATION OF ISSUES AROUND THE SUPPORT AND SUPERVISION OF KINSHIP CARERS, WITH A PARTICULAR FOCUS ON NSW

ARC Linkage UWS-ACWA . Commenced 2005

Jan Mason CI - SJSC, UWS Liz Watson CI - SJSC, UWSAndrew McCallum PI - CEO, ACWALeonie Gibbons, PhD student - 2005 - 2007 Ainslie Yardley, Researcher - commenced Feb 2007

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PROJECTGeneral aim: to contribute to the development of policies

on kinship care which will benefit children and their carers in NSW and more generally.

Specific aims:• To examine the issues, assumptions & values, relevant

to policymaking about supervision & support of kinship carers.

• To compare formal kinship carers, informal kinship carers & foster carers in NSW, in terms of background, demographic characteristics, & experiences of caring for children, particularly in relation to support &supervision.

Implementing Aims to this point:• Resulted in an emphasis in this project on reflection.• Reflections are the focus of this paper.

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SUMMARY OF METHODS•SURVEY - KINSHIP AND FOSTER CARERS

•FOCUS GROUPS - KINSHIP CARERS

•REFLECTION - EMBEDDED IN PROJECT

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Influences on design of study -

• Industry partner, ACWA, wanted a survey with a focus similar to UK study (Sykes et al 2002)

• Limited research on carers in 2004 - some change since then.

• Our earlier research with ACWA (Mason, Falloon, Gibbons, Spence, Scott, 2002) showed the centrality of support and supervision issues.

• ABSEC researching on indigenous kin carers.• Children’s perspectives not a focus.

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Child Welfare

FosterCare

Kinship Care

Overlap between the child welfare system and

kinship care

From, Gibbons, L. Watson, E and Mason, J. Kinship Care as a Challenge to Child Welfare Constructs. Paper to be submitted for publication.

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Child Welfare

FosterCare

Kinship Care

Provisions for grandparent carers— these are often also made available

to other relative carers

Ageing

Carers & caring

From, Gibbons, L. Watson, E and Mason, J. Kinship Care as a Challenge to Child Welfare Constructs. Paper to be submitted for publication.

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2 Value Positions influence kinship concepts:

• 'Kinship defenders' position• 'Society as parents' position

derived from Lorraine Fox Harding, In Morgan, S and Righton, P. Child Care: Concerns and Conflicts (1989)

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'Kinship defenders' position Support

Characterised by:• 'unique value' of biological family as best

place for children;• families targeted by child welfare

frequently socio-economically disadvantaged, requiring supports to strengthen.

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Characterised by:• emphasis on 'good' care;• advocating that mistreated children should be

placed with 'good’ substitute carers - ‘strangers’;• ‘mistreating’ families labelled 'dysfunctional‘;• severing of biological bonds through promoting

certainty and permanency for children.

'Society as parents' position - limited support

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Examples of contrasting contexts and provision of support

• Situation 1: mother’s death from cancer = g’parent care ‘valid’. Social and agency support

• Situation 2:drug addicted mother abandoned childen to g’parent. Lacked social supports except g’parents group. Had to fight for financial support from agency.

Based of findings from Sandy Chan, Honours (2007) thesis: The Existing Formal and Informal Supports of Grandparents who are the Guardians of their Grandchildren.

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AGED CARE POLICY

SUPERVISION

CHILD PROTECTION POLICY

CARERS POLICY RISK

ACCOUNTABILITY

SUPPORT

Questions at this stage of our project.

•Does kinship care policy need to be separate from other child welfare

policy?•What approaches to support and/or supervision might be appropriate to

kinship care?•Might our solutions for kinship care

have relevance for broader child welfare issues?