Paper
Shards of the old looking glass: restoring the significance of identity constructions in promoting positive outcomes for looked after children
- issue: Issue 1 / 2010
- authors: Isabella McMurray
- keywords: longitudinal data, effects
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- downloaded: 0
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abstract
Introduction
There is a driving force within current UK child welfare policies to promote a strengths-led approach to both assessment of and care management of children in need. These policies emphasise the importance of tangible outcomes such as education and health, whilst other developmental outcomes such as identity are subordinated. Although the authors appreciate the relevance of these more concrete indicators, we suggest that this focus has left a gap at a theoretical, strategic and operational level for more psycho-social aspects such as identity.
Purpose
This presentation seeks to redress this lacuna by considering identity as both a process and an outcome. The discussion of this paper is informed by the findings of a two stage project aimed at appraising the relationship between outcomes and settings of children in need. Analysis of semi-structured interviews with social care practitioners and where possible parents, young people and foster carers showed that issues of identity were more than just a distinct developmental domain of the assessment framework. Instead aspects of identity were underlying the narratives of all participant groups across developmental, parenting capacity and environmental domains as detailed by the assessment framework. Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory will be used to illustrate how constructions of identity at an individual, micro and community level can mediate the outcomes of looked after children.
Contact details
Ms Isabella McMurray, University of Bedfordshire, Luton, England.
Email: isabella.mcmurray@beds.ac.uk