Search

Therapeutic residential care (TRC) privileges healing from trauma for vulnerable children and young people. It presents an opportunity for staff to partner with families to overcome trauma-induced ...

Child and family practice is recognised as a field of social work that has become increasingly complex. While evidence is growing in relation to effective supervision, there has been little research about the attributes of an effective supervisor, or the components of effective supervision. This paper reports on research undertaken in Victoria, Australia, which explored practitioners’ and supervisors’ experiences of effective supervision in this field. Data collection involved in-depth interviews with experienced supervisors and supervisees in order to explore the concept of effective supervision from participants’ perspectives. The data were systematically interrogated using a thematic inductive process, designed to enhance the voice of participants in the research. The study findings confirmed the complexity and centrality of the supervisory relationship, with the experience of a safe supervisory relationship proving essential. The importance of contemporary knowledge, leadership skills, and an ...

The role for staff within the residential youth justice facility is an intense one, offering both reward and challenge. Post-traumatic stress related to serious episodes of violence and vicarious trauma relating to the abuse and neglect derived from the residents' personal narratives are common. In recent years a residential center in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia has experimented with provision of a Staff Support and Supervision Program (SSSP). This article describes the context which gave rise to the program, its multi-theoretical underpinning, and its modus operandi. A qualitative evaluation highlights practice challenges and leadership techniques. The model is now being applied in two other Victorian youth justice centers.

Australian women killed by their partners have often been understood to come from backgrounds of poverty and marginalisation. However, it has become clear that a number of more affluent women also fall victim to intimate partner homicide. Notwithstanding their socioeconomic status, it seems that women victims of lethal violence lack the power to protest. This paper describes qualitative case study research with middle class women friends of a victim of intimate partner homicide. These women are determined to 'give voice' to their friend; they explore how they relate differently now to issues of gender, power and violence within the family and in the community. (author abstract)

An Introduction to Family Social Work Donald Collins, Catheleen Jordan, & Heather Coleman Belmont, CA, Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2007 393 pp., ISBN 049509224X, US$99.95 (paperback) When I first became e...

Harris Perlita (Ed.) London, British Association for Adoption & Fostering, 2006 xiv + 395 pp., ISBN 1903699770 or 9781903699775, £17.95 (paperback) I knew that this was going to be a tricky review ...