Paper
From foster care to independent living. Qualitative micro-research on outcome evaluation of children’s permanence in a family-type residential setting
- issue: Issue 3 / 2008
- authors: Gianmaria Gioga, Sara Serbati
- keywords: Italy, evaluation, outcome, foster care, children
- views: 4119
- downloaded: 0
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abstract
Background. In recent years, the Faculty of Education (University of Padua) has developed research on the evaluation of the wellbeing of young people who have been in family-type residential care, in collaboration with the Fondazione Zancan.
Purpose. The research presented attempts to identify the factors that favour a positive change in the needs of children and families, underlining the importance of the presence of a planning that is both unitary and shared and that includes the active role of children and families as recipients of intervention.
The small-scale-research on the evaluation of outcomes of care in the "Murialdo" small residential units for children, Trento, Bolzano and Treviso, attempts to understand the needs of seven care leavers who had left care between two and eight years previously.
The research tries also to understand the influence of social workers' responses to the current needs of the young people. To meet that objective, the research used semi-structured interviews to investigate the points of views of the following: 1) the young people 2) the social pedagogues based at Murialdo 3) the social service workers responsible for children living away from their families.
The opportunity for considering the seven situations from the three points of view, has permitted the construction of an ecological framework for the ex-resident covering a long period of time, from the period prior to leaving their families to the present.
Method The use of interviews appeared most suited for its relational approach, allowing in depth responses and, at the same time, providing for the possibility of a comparison of perceptions from the different groups of those who were involved. Moreover, it allows a little quantification of results through content analysis, even if the results cannot be generalized using statistical inference methods.
Key findings. In the twenty-one research interviews it is possible to identify some key themes. First of all, at this distance of time, it is possible to identify a situation of positive wellbeing in those care leavers who are able to give a coherent account of themselves and their relationships, using their own life story. This ability seems to be connected to the family history of each young person interviewed, and in particular to the degree of attachment experienced in childhood, or in later life to another important adult.
This underlines the importance of the young person's positive relationships with their family of origin, which was found in these cases when, during the initial period of reception into residential care, there was a cooperative relationship between the social worker and young person's birth family. Hence it appears fundamental, to establish supportive and helpful relationships with the children's families during the time the young person is living in residential care, so that the family can understand what has happened and receive support.
With regard to the involvement of the birth family in the care process into residential care, in the 7 cases considered, the social workers had difficulty in "being with" both the family and the user. They preferred the family to be "out of the picture", or to delegate that part of the work, and tended to exclude parents who were challenging. It appears that social workers created relationships in which parents were used only as objects of intervention, kept informed but not treated as central figures. The young people talked about local social services in terms of "power", "control" and "judgment", and not in terms of help or support.
The social workers did not appear to be concerned with the families' responses to their actions, limiting themselves to diagnoses of incapacity or lack of motivation to improve relationships with their children.
The involvement of the families of origin is made more difficult because of the lack of a unitary programme of help, shared by social services and the residential care workers, as to how relationships can be maintained with the family of origin. It is also likely that during their reception into residential care, the young people interviewed had received mixed messages about their families, with the risk that some of the educational coherence was lost.
Recommendations. While we are only too aware of the limited sample involved in this research, in the seven case considered, it is nevertheless, possible to recognize a situation in which social workers do not give priority to "work in partnership and in an empowering way" with families of origin. They need to "recognize the capacity of families to change" (Milani, 2001). The situation risks loosing sight of the purpose of social workers' actions, which should be "to encourage people to use and make the most of their capacity for relationships, both those relevant to friends and relations, and those that start with their relationship with themselves" (Maguire, 1989).
It seems important to extend the research using not only interviews, but also tools for assessing outcomes.
From the point of view of operational practice, the research indicates how important it is to support services to recognise the consequences of their own actions. This requires the capacity to ask questions of oneself about the ways in which help is being offered to children and their families, in order to understand and review what has been experienced, using a unitary project that brings together social workers and the families.
Key references
Canali, C., Colombo, D. A., Maluccio, A. N., Dilani, P., Pine, B. A., Warsh, R. (2001). Figli e genitori di nuovo insieme. La riunificazione familiare. Padova: Fondazione E. Zancan.
Canali, C., Maluccio, A. N., Vecchiato, T., (Eds.). (2005). La valutazione di outcome nei servizi per l'età evolutiva e la famiglia. Padova: Fondazione E. Zancan.
Maguire, L. (1989). Il lavoro sociale di rete. Trento: Erickson.
Contacts: Gianmaria Gioga, Università degli studi di Padova, Fondazione E. Zancan Padova, Vicolo del Portello, 13 - 35129 Padova, gianmaria.gioga@sanita.padova.it, Phone 329-2107137.