Search

Growing numbers of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning (LGBTQ) people are becoming foster parents in several western countries. The LGBTQ perspective on the child welfare system has received little attention in practice, research and policy. Despite their increased rights, LGBTQ foster parents continue to face challenges related to fostering. Knowledge is needed on LGBTQ individual perceptions of the process of becoming foster parents, including barriers and facilitating factors. This paper reports on the experiences of 13 gay or lesbian foster parents in Norway. The study shows a lack of knowledge about the possibility of becoming foster parents due to lack of information directed at them as a minority group. Participants felt vulnerable and experienced “minority stress” before encountering the child welfare system, while mainly experienced the encounter with the staff as good and respectful. Although several valued being treated “like everyone else” by the system, others questioned why LGBTQ-specific parenting issues were not raised and discussed. Apart from lack of information, the process towards foster parenting seemed mostly hampered by participants' own assumptions that sexual identity would be a barrier and to some extent biological parents' refusal. The study suggests that foster care and child welfare services would benefit from information in recruitment of foster parents, aiming at being more inclusive. Furthermore, we address gender and sexuality diversity related to foster care work and highlight the strengths and challenges it may offer.

Sexual and gender minorities, for example, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, are overrepresented in the child welfare system and an increasing number of LGBTQ people are becoming foster parents. The objective of this scoping review is to provide an overview of the existing empirical research on the practices of child welfare services towards LGBTQ individuals (i.e., youth, carers and foster parents). The review followed the methodology framework outlined by the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI). The electronic databases MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Science, PubMed and Idunn were searched to identify studies appropriate for inclusion. There were 45 studies that met the inclusion criteria; 24 concerned LGBTQ youth, 10 encompassed foster parents, while nine had the service perspective as the primary focus. The studies originated from the USA (k = 34), the UK (k = 6), Australia (k = 2) and the Netherlands (k = 1). Of the included studies, 28 were qualitative, 14 were quantitative, and three studies used mixed method approach. The findings indicate that LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in the child welfare system and that LGBTQ youth and foster parents often face stigma and discrimination. The results reveal a gap in the current knowledge about social workers' attitudes, knowledge and experiences regarding working with LGBTQ individuals.

This special issue of Nordic Social Work Research aims to explore the field of young people exiting out from care in the Nordic Countries, both from foster care, residential care and young people t...

This article focuses on support in transition to adulthood for young people who have been in the child welfare system in Norway. By drawing upon interviews with young people and social workers in c...

Despite high levels of mental disorders among young people living in residential youth care (RYC) institutions, only a small percentage of these children receive help from mental health services. The aim of the present study is to explore the usefulness of an inter-agency collaboration model from the perspective of service providers, and to investigate factors that promote and hinder effective inter-agency collaboration around early identification and follow up of mental problems and disorders among youth in residential care. A purposive sample of 16 professionals in three RYC institutions and related child and adolescent mental health services and child welfare services that were involved in piloting the collaboration model was recruited. Semi-structured individual and group interviews were conducted, and a thematic analysis was conducted to identify key themes. The results suggest that the collaboration model promoted increased awareness on mental health issues and a greater systematic inter-agency collaborative effort in assessing and following up the mental health of children and adolescents in RYC institutions. However, there were major challenges related to central elements of the collaboration model; the conduction of the multidisciplinary meeting within the deadline of three weeks, and participation of child welfare services-providers at the multidisciplinary meeting. Further dissemination of the collaboration model merits further consideration of the choice of screening assessment battery due to the lack of participation from teachers and parents, the time limit of three weeks and measures to increase participation from the municipal child welfare services. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

This chapter reports on a literature review that was conducted spanning the past 2 years to provide an overview of existing research and to identify future research needs in the field. Increased awareness of the changes related to traditional transition markers in emerging adulthood and of the poor outcomes and vulnerability of care leavers has led to a growing interest in this population. After a systematic process, 64 articles were included in the content analysis. This study identified four major topics that characterize recent research in this area: (1) policy, program, and services; (2) transition trajectories and markers; (3) social network and social support; and (4) subpopulations.

This qualitative study explores the need for social support in transition to adulthood for youths in the child welfare service, focusing on what support they need and from whom they can get such support. We have conducted individual and focus group interviews with in all 43 adolescents that are, or have been, in contact with the child welfare service in adolescence/young adulthood. The interviews are transcribed and analyzed by doing initial longitudinal analysis, and thematic analysis inspired by the main structure in Systematic Text Condensation (STC). Through the analyses we have highlighted four different categories of social support that the youths need; practical support, emotional support, affirmational guidance support and participation support. Our findings indicates that such support is necessary, but not always available for youths transitioning out from the Child Welfare System, as many of them lack an informal network of adults that can support them in their transition to adulthood. Several of them consequently need continued support from employees in the Child Welfare Service, which for many of these youths seems to represent a crucial source of social support. One of the challenges seems to be that the youths urge of independency together with the expectations of independency from the Child Welfare Services, makes youths end the contact with the Child Welfare Service too early. The simultaneously need for social support and urge for independency makes it relevant to discuss this in light of the concept of interdependency; which emphasizes the importance of connections and social relations as not only normal but also necessary. This underlines the need for more flexibility and a gradual independency; in contrast to the “sudden adulthood” that many youths transitioning out of child welfare seem to experience.

This current systematic literature review aims to examine what is known about foster parents' needs, satisfaction and perceptions of foster parent training. A systematized search in relevant databases resulted in 13 publications, with mostly quantitative studies, originating from four countries. Research on foster parent training is scarce, and the satisfaction, needs and perceptions of foster parents were included as secondary outcomes in most of the reviewed studies. A synthesis of the results from the reviewed quantitative studies indicate high levels of user satisfaction, whereas qualitative findings indicate needs for more advanced training on parenting children with special needs, and more real life and flexible practice/training. In conclusion, more research is needed to increase the knowledge on prospective and current foster parents' perceptions of, and satisfaction with foster parent training, and their needs for training. © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open Access CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

IntroductionIn previous studies, it is estimated that sexual minorities (eg, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) individuals) are overrepresented in the child welfare system. However, the numbers are unclear, and there are limited studies in this field. No systematic review of LGBTQ issues across a broader context (ie, youth, foster parents and service providers) of child welfare services exists. The overall objective of this scoping review is to systematically scope the existing research on LGBTQ issues in the context of child welfare services, including policy, practice, service providers and users’ perspectives.Methods and analysisThe scoping review framework outlined by the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) based on previous work by Arksey and O’Malley and Levac and colleagues will guide this review. In addition, the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR): Checklist and Explanation will be used throughout the process. We will search electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Web of Science and Idunn) and grey literature sources to identify studies that are appropriate for inclusion in this review. Using inclusion and exclusion criteria based on the ‘Population–Concept–Context’ framework, two researchers will independently screen titles, abstracts and full-text articles considered for inclusion. Any qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method study of LGBTQ issues in the child welfare context will be described and synthesised using a thematic synthesis approach.Ethics and disseminationA scoping review is a secondary analysis of published literature and does not require ethics approval. This scoping review is meant to provide an overview of the existing literature, aiming to expand policy-makers’ and practitioners’ knowledge of LGBTQ issues in a child welfare context and identify research gaps that can be used as a basis for further research. The results will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed publication, a conference presentation and a presentation to the key stakeholders.

Introduction\ud In this article we focus on young people transitioning to adulthood from child welfare services, and how the concept of recognition can be useful for understanding the complexity of young people’s needs in this transition. We draw upon Honneth’s (1996) theory of intersubjective recognition as a way of understanding young people’s experiences of their contact with child welfare services.\ud \ud We ask how recognition theory can help us to understand young people’s experiences and needs in their transition to adulthood from child welfare services, and what are the practical implications. We focus on relationships, participation and social support as the three components highlighted by the young people who participated in interviews. Previous research also indicates that young people leaving care often face challenges related to creating and maintaining good relationships (Marion et al., 2017; Rutman & Hubberstey, 2016), participating effectively in decisions (Authors reference 1) and receiving good quality social support (Barry, 2010; Höjer & Sjöblom, 2010; Authors reference 2; Authors reference 3; Thomas, 2005). We argue that Honneth’s theory is potentially useful, in that these three elements appear to depend on, and imply, the kinds of recognition that he identifies. This theoretical framework provides us with an analytical tool that enables us to understand the young people’s negative stories as experiences of misrecognition, and to show the complexity of the dynamics that shape recognition and misrecognition for this group (Warming, 2015).

Background This study addresses children of parents with intellectual disability in Norway. The aim was to examine: (i) the impact of definitions of intellectual disability on prevalence, (ii) whether numbers were increasing, (iii) the prevalence of motherhood and fatherhood and (iv) rates of lost custody. Methods Analyses of national registers (n = 30 834) and mapping in four municipalities (n = 85). Results 0.19% of all children had parents with recorded intellectual disability, increasing to 0.87% with wider inclusion criteria. The number of children born to parents with intellectual disability has been declining since the mid-1980s. The proportion of mothers with intellectual disability was twice that of fathers. Parental custody was revoked for 30–50% of children, with single mothers being at particular risk. Parents with intellectual disability accounted for 20–25% of all custody cases. Conclusions The results show that prevalence depends on the definition of intellectual disability. The decreasing number of children and the need for development of specially adapted family supports are discussed.