Lost and Found

Making and Remaking Working Partnerships with Parents of Children in the Care System

Judith Masson, Christine Harrison, Annie Pavlovic

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138335134
• eBook ISBN: 9780429813627
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1999, this volume is a collection of essays focused on the theme of partnership with parents in social work practice with children and families. It covers issues relating to the quality of care and preparation for aftercare, particularly children's identity needs and preparation for life after care which are highlighted in the Quality Protects programme. It developed from an action research project, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and conducted by the editors a Warwick University between 1993 and 1996. Through teaching activities associated with the implementation of the Children Act 1989 the editors became aware that there were many parents who had lost contact with both their child and their child's social workers after their child had entered the care system. These were the 'lost' parents of the study. Partnership with parents has become an integral part of social work with children and families living together or apart. Inevitably it concerns many other people involved in the care of children and providing advice to individuals. Partnership permeates all aspects of relationships between parents, children and those providing care in place of parents. Consequently, the issues discussed in this book are of relevance to all those working directly or indirectly with children, parents and other relatives. Amongst these are social workers, family placement workers, carers and residential workers, team managers and policy makers in local authority social services departments, guardians ad litem, court welfare officers and lawyers acting for children or parents, children's rights officers and advisers working in voluntary agencies which support families and children.

1

Recreation and promotion of partnership through action research

Christine Harrison, Judith Masson

Introduction

In 1997, there were just under 52 000 children and young people being looked after by local authorites. Although 9000 had spent only a relatively brief period in the care system, there were over 19 000 who lived away from their families, in state care, for more than three years. Amongst those who become looked after in any year, 8 per cent, 2400 children, although not readily identifiable, we know will not return home during their childhood. It is for all these children that there should be acute concern about maintaining links with their families and communities, knowledge about identity and culture, and how they understand their personal histories.

Prior to the Children Act 1989, where children remained in long-term care, little attention was sometimes given to maintaining links with their families of origin. In 1986, Millham and colleagues published their influential study, Lost in Care, which revealed a dismal picture of children’s lives in care, cut off from families, friends and communities, and without a clear plan for their future. The research highlighted the importance of swift and active social work intervention in the period immediately after reception into care if children were to be restored to their families. It underlined the crucial role of contact with family in facilitating early discharge from care. Subsequent research by Millham and colleagues focused attention on family contact for children in the care system long-term (Millham et al, 1989). In practice, less attention was given to the role of the family for the minority of children who would not return home. For these children, family relationships, rather than being promoted, were actively or passively discouraged. Formal termination of contact was routine in some authorities. In others, informal methods - placing children at a distance, and siblings separately, providing no financial support for visits, not disclosing children’s whereabouts and doing nothing to counteract an environment hostile to visiting - were just as effective in destroying relationships (Millham etal, 1989).

Accumulating research in the 1980s contributed to a wholescale re-evaluation of the care of children away from their families (Fox Harding 1991; DH, 1991a; Cretney and Masson, 1997). Parents were recognized as having an important contribution to make to their separated children’s welfare; links with the wider family, community and culture were seen as vital for children’s well-being. The Children Act 1989 embodied these new understandings in provisions relating to parental rights and responsibilities, local authority powers and duties and children’s rights, striking a ‘new balance’ (DH, 1989b, p.iii) between the family and the state. The key provisions of the Act and their implications are discussed by Masson in the next chapter.

The legislation was welcomed; considerable enthusiasm was engendered through a massive programme to educate and train practitioners for the new environment of child care and the challenges it would present (Masson, 1992). Nevertheless, it has proved difficult to shift the entrenched approaches in social work practice and social services departments. Initial enthusiasm is, of itself, insufficient to reshape attitudes, values, policies and practices in ways which lead to enduring change (Laming, 1998; Cheetham and Kazi, 1998; Select Committee on Health, 1998). In particular, family support services have remained lamentably underdeveloped in the face of pressures for child protection (Audit Commission, 1994; Dartington Social Research Unit, 1995).

More difficult even to contemplate has been the application of Children Act principles and provisions to children already in the care system and their families. In these situations implementing the Act necessitated redirecting efforts, often towards goals which had previously been dismissed, confronting the consequences of past social work practice and changing the perspectives of workers and carers, not all of them convinced of the merits of change. The idea that new legislation is not retrospective provides a convenient justification for doing nothing different in cases already held. But laws which give new rights rarely limit them to those newly affected by them, at least where the responsibilities apply to public bodies rather than individuals. For example, when access to birth records was introduced it applied to anyone who had been adopted, not just those adopted since 1975.

Translating the principles encompassed by the Children Act into policy has made demands on managers; the development of children’s services plans provides a focus for service improvement and co-ordination (DH, 1998). For social workers, partnership provides a challenge, even for those committed to the empowerment-based practice which is the pre-requisite of any real, as opposed to euphemistic, degree of partnership. Social, political and organisational factors as well as legal imperatives, profoundly influence practice and present workers with dilemmas and pressures which have to be skilfully navigated. In relation to ‘lost’ parents this was particularly challenging because workers were often struggling with the inheritance of bad or discriminatory practice.

The conception of the project

It was within this context that the idea for the ‘working in partnership with “lost” parents’ project was conceived. This was an action research project designed to identify how and in what ways working partnerships could be developed between social workers and the parents of children in long-term care who were not currently in contact with their child or the social worker. That this was an issue, that such cases existed and that social workers were uncertain about how to proceed became obvious to us as we spoke to them during the course of teaching and training. Not everyone was convinced of the need for the research or by its aims. Early presentations about the project to some management teams evoked the response that this was ‘opening up a can of worms’ and protests that it could never have been intended that the Act would be applied in this way. Other responses, from social workers and team managers already attempting to find family histories and family members for children being looked after, were positive. Indeed, these people were keen to share their dilemmas and successes and anxious to participate in a project which would explore and support the work they were trying to do with young people in their care. Alan’s social worker brought to the project both her positive experiences in tracing and recontacting lost family members and the determination to attempt to improve the circumstances of young people for whom past decisions, taken with the best of intentions, had left negative legacies.

Alan

Alan was received into care as a young baby because of the seriousness of his mother’s mental health problems. His father, who was not married to his mother, visited Alan at the residential nursery where he was placed but was given no encouragement to remain involved with his son. Alan’s father disappeared; no record was kept of his full name and the only information recorded was that he was thought to be from Nigeria. Alan’s mother came from the Caribbean. At the age of 6 years, Alan was made a ward of court; under the Children Act 1989 he became the subject of a deemed care order.

Concern that Alan would be traumatized by his mother’s behaviour led to the termination of her contact with him. Alan was placed transracially in a predominantly white area, some distance from the multiracial area where his mother lived. The placement was regarded as stable although it did not meet all of Alan’s needs. His social worker became increasingly aware of the impact on Alan’s identity of his separation from family, culture and community, and lack of knowledge about his background. Alan became more vocal about the racism he was experiencing; his worker who had been involved in the termination of his mother’s contact began to re-evaluate this. Working with Alan, she began the task of re-establishing contact with his family. She traced two half-brothers. Alan’s mother’s mental health problems continue, but with the support of his brothers Alan can cope with this.

Finding Alan’s father was more difficult because of the paucity of information the social worker held. However, an advertisement in the black press containing the father’s Nigerian family name drew a response from paternal cousins and opened up another dimension of Alan’s identity. Indirect contact was made with Alan’s father, who had returned to Nigeria; father and son exchanged correspondence. Sadly, the father died before a meeting could take place. Both Alan and his social worker regret some of the decisions taken about Alan’s early life, and Alan is angry about the care provided for him. The relationships which have been restored have enabled Alan to have some knowledge of and pride in his family and cultural heritage; they also help him to offset the racism he continues to experience.

More detailed discussions confirmed that there were many children in local authority care for whom loss of living parents was an issue or who had lost contact with other people significant to them, like brothers and sisters. In the course of these preliminary discussions, it also became evident that there were other children and young people experiencing similar degrees of loss following an order freeing them for adoption which had not led to an adoption order. For these young people many similar issues arose but the partnership obligations of the Children Act do not apply to their parents who in law are former parents with limited legal recognition. For this reason children who had been freed were not included in the study.

For us the emphasis was not just on research, but also on action, and on trying to ensure that the benefits of the Children Act were given detailed consideration for all looked after children. If working partnerships could be established in these most inauspicious circumstances, where the parent was literally ‘lost’, then the perceived difficulties in working with parents would appear less severe. In addition, the experience, knowledge and skills derived from restoring working relationships with ‘lost’ parents, and from the perspectives of parents, children and social workers involved, would yield lessons of wider relevance to child care practice.

The project aimed to draw directly on the work of a small number of teams, where one or more team member was committed to the principle of working in partnership, held a relevant case or cases and wanted to participate in the research. Through this, there could be an exploration of ways in which links with ‘lost’ parents could be re-established and of what facilitates or frustrates the establishment of working partnerships. The progress and outcome of the work would be evaluated with the inclusion of the perspectives of parents and young people as well as social workers. In an attempt to reconcile some of the tensions between research and practice in social work (Adams et al, 1998) the research team involved participating social workers in the development of the project by responding to needs which they expressed. The essential foundation for the action-research orientation of the project was the identification of positive practice through collaboration with research participants. The project provided support, consultancy and training from the research team and external contributors, for practitioners taking part in the study. Social work participants appreciated the support given to their practice at a time when many social workers have been undermined and deskilled by both organizational change and increased proceduralization of practice (Langan and Clarke, 1994).

The broader context of research and practice

The Children Act 1989 obligations and the requirement to extend them to children who had been in care before its implementation provided the banner for the research project. However, the rationale and practice imperatives extended well beyond this legal framework and were derived from a wealth of research, knowledge and personal accounts that have offered significant challenges to social work policy and practices in child care. This included research not just in child care or social work but also from related fields, for example feminist theory, identity politics, queer theory and postmodernism. Within the field of child care and child development, new understandings have precipitated a re-evaluation of the care of children away from their families. Views about attachment, permanence and the significance, form and extent of contact with parents and other people important to the child have been repeatedly revised over the last two decades. At the heart of everything lies the child, his/her sense of self, place in the social world and well-being.

Neither law reform nor exhortations for change, however impassioned, will necessarily shift the long-established policies and practices in child care and welfare. However, changes are more likely to occur if workers and managers understand the reasons for them. This understanding is enhanced through knowledge of relevant research being set in the context of practice. Evidence continues to accrue about the impact of multiple disadvantage and oppression in the lives of those in receipt of welfare services, in relation to gender, poverty, ‘race’, disability and sexuality. There is also evidence that welfare and social services have failed to take sufficient account of this and have thus, albeit inadvertently, compounded discrimination in their interventions with children and their families (Ahmad, 1990; Langan, 1992; Barn, 1993; Barn et al, 1997; Booth and Booth, 1994). Feminist writers, for example, in social work and related fields have continued to centralize gender in debates about child protection (Milner, 1993), domestic violence (Mullins, 1997; Mullender and Morley, 1994; Mullender, 1996), child sexual abuse (Kelly et al, 1991, 1995; MacLeod and Saraga, 1988; Hooper, 1992), child contact arrangements (Hester and Radford, 1996) and racism in the lives of black women (Wilson, 1993; Mama, 1989).

The impact of these and other forms of oppression has also been described where children become looked after, are identified as being in need, or are on child protection registers. It is families ‘overwhelmed and depressed by social problems that form the greatest proportion of those assessed and supported by child protection agencies’ (Dartington Research Unit, 1995, p.22). Racism, both in the lives of black children and families and through welfare agencies, compounds this. Racism may have a particularly negative impact on black children and those of mixed parentage who enter and remain in the care system (Banks, 1992; Barn, 1993; Ince, 1998).

Until relatively recently, little concerted attention has been paid to the quality of the lives of children and young people in the care system (DH, 1995; 1998), particularly when compared to other areas of child care such as child protection (Stevenson, 1992). While most children and young people in local authority care will return to their birth families (Bullock et ah, 1993a), for the proportion who remain looked after, long-term care has frequently been characterized by instability, disruption and, sometimes, abuse (Utting, 1991). The negative effects on their health, education, self-esteem and identity have proved enduring (Stein and Carey, 1986; Biehal et al, 1992a; Broad, 1997; Ince, 1998); young people who have been in the care system are overrepresented in the populations of young homeless, young unemployed and those in custody (Select Committee on Health, 1998). Additionally, evidence suggests that ‘disabled children experience patterns of care which would never be tolerated for non-disabled children’ (Morris, 1995). Inadequate planning, in and beyond care, have long been a concern; the risk of losing contact with parents, siblings and other family members is known to be very high. The development of the DoH’s Looking after Children recording system (DH, 1995; Ward, 1995) and Quality Protects (DH, 1998) are responses to this catalogue of concerns, although on their own they will not guarantee high-quality care.

Where parental involvement is concerned, research evidence suggests that in the past parents were frequently marginalized and their contribution to their children’s identity and development was either undervalued or viewed as a destabilizing influence (Masson, 1990). This particularly characterized approaches to permanency planning for children and young people from the mid-1970s which, when rehabilitation was not speedily achieved, focused on termination of contact and long-term fostering or adoption. Permanency arrangements often failed to provide the intended stability. It proved difficult to find placements; breakdown rates for both adoption and fostering were similar, rising to almost 50 per cent after five years for boys placed when aged between 8 and 11 years (Fratter et ah, 1991). Despite these problems, child care agencies approached decisions about children’s entry to the care system with the assumption that it provided better care.

Work undertaken by Jenkins and Norman (1972) drew attention to filial deprivation, a concept which captured the range of emotions experienced by parents separated from their offspring. Feelings of guilt, inadequacy and distress undermine parents’ intentions to maintain contact with their child and social worker. Although this is well recognized, attempts to counteract it have not been sustained. Parents, particularly mothers, experiencing considerable disadvantage have felt powerless to convince social workers that they continue to care about their children and could, if given the opportunity to participate, make a significant contribution to their well-being (Family Rights Group 1986; Fisher et al, 1986; Monaco and Thoburn, 1987; Farmer and Owen, 1995).

Family contact is the key to discharge from care (Millham et al., 1986); contact and knowledge of family of origin are crucial to a child or young person’s development while in long-...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• Table of cases
• 1 Recreation and promotion of partnership through action research
• 2 Legal issues: partnership with parents and children’s rights
• 3 Working in partnership with parents of children being looked after: issues of theory, research and practice
• 4 Young people, being in care and identity
• 5 Partnership with parents of children in foster care or residential care
• 6 RebuUding partnerships with parents of looked-after children
• 7 Partnership and leaving care
• 8 The experience of making contact with birth parents in adoption
• 9 Partnership and contact: issues for management
• 10 Searching for lost parents
• Appendix: useful addresses
• Bibliography
• Index