Long-term foster carers and children s perspectives of CONTACT with birth families in Northern Ireland

Transcription

1 Long-term foster carers and children s perspectives of CONTACT with birth families in Northern Ireland

2 UK policy & practice context o Dramatic shift in attitude and practice in NI in relation to contact with birth families. o Contact is actively promoted in the UK and NI legislation. o Increase in contact. More frequent.

3 Activity 1 o What are the practices in your own areas? o Is contact worked out on a case-by-case basis? o or is there a generalised presumption that there has to be contact?

4 The study o Longitudinal study of 374 children (who were in care and under 5 years old in Northern Ireland in 31/03/2000). o Where do the children end up placed? How they are doing in their placements? How are the parents/carers coping with them? o Interviews with adoptive, birth and foster parents/carers in o Interviews with the children (9-13 year olds) & their current carers in 2009.

5 Interviews with foster carers & children o Interviews with foster parents of 55 children ( ) o 47 non-relative foster carers; o 7 relative foster carers; & o 1 foster carer with a child subject to a Residence Order. o Since then (as in 2007): 21 had been adopted; 24 had remained in non-relative foster care; 2 are subject of R.O; 5 remain in relative foster care; 2 are pre-adopted; & 1 has returned to their birth parents. o At present (2009) interviews with 14 children & their longterm foster parents: o 6 children in non-relative foster care & their foster parents; o 5 children in relative foster care & their foster parents; o 3 children under Residence Order & their foster parents.

6 Research methods o With parents: semi-structured interviews o With children: life story book

7 This is My Family. Tell us about your family. Look at all the possible family members on the pin board below and circle the ones that you have in your family. 2 If you have more than one of these family members, write the number here on their pin! If we ve forgotten someone, you can draw them here! Out of all the people that make up your family: Which person is the most important to you? And why?

8 Take the stickers and write on to them the names of people that you know. Then place the stickers onto the target, placing those that you feel the most closest to at the centre and working out to those that you do not feel so close to.

9 Things I do with my family. Here are some examples of activities that other children have told us that they do with their families. Do you do any of these things? Circle the ones that you do!

10 Three wishes 1 What would you do, if you had three wishes: 1) One for your family, 2) One in relation to where you live, and 3) One for yourself? and Why? 2 3 0

11 The life Ladder. The ladder on the right can be used to talk about life. Imagine that the top of the ladder, Number 10, is the best that things can be in life, and that the bottom, number 0 is the worst that things can get. Now, have a think about your life, and place the sticker on the rung that best matches your life right now. Why did you choose that rung? What would have to change for you to move further up the ladder?

12 Contact o With whom? o How often and how long? o How? o Face-to-face, phone or post-box contact? o Supervised or unsupervised? o Where? o Who is involved?

13 Foster Parents' experience of contact o Most of the children had some sort of regular faceto-face contact with birth relatives. o Children had contact with their mothers, siblings, fathers, grandparents, & previous foster carers. o The frequency of contact varied from once/twice a week to once/twice a year. o Contact was usually arranged by Social Services but many foster parents were expected to bring the child to contact.

14 Foster Parents' experience of contact o In many cases, contact tends to get reduced with time. o In relative foster care, arrangements seemed to be more informal, frequent & flexible. o In many cases, contact lasted 1-2 hours, and was supervised by social worker & in few cases, by foster parent. o Contact took place in a family centre, foster parents or birth family s home.

15 Foster Parents' perceptions of contact o Some felt contact did not benefit the child. o Some had a good relationship with birth family & found contact easier to manage; but others found it hard to deal with birth parents. o Some acknowledged children needed to have contact. o In some cases, it caused disagreements over parenting styles between foster parents and birth families. o Some got annoyed when parents failed to turn up. o Some found it difficult to supervise contact & others felt they were put in awkward situations.

16 o she s always been very good about contact arrangements, we ve always got on. She s been very good. There was a contact to take place and Louise genuinely was not well, she had a raging temperature and I rang to say, but it was OK. Louise s welfare comes first; she was very, very nice about it. o I would have more conflict with her mother really about, you know, if she didn t get seeing Maeve she would blame me, you know, because the social workers have deemed she s not well enough to see her. I would get a lot of conflict from her. o because she s my daughter and eh this is threatening behaviour I ll take David off you, you know so I say away you go you know. I would get that abuse if she was in bad temper, she could lose her temper with me and maybe something happening in her life that s annoying her and she s in a bad form over it and then she would take it out on me... But I ve got now where I go just go ahead. I call her bluff every time and that would be it.

17 Well Mark at Christmas Mark's mother bought him a playstation and I didn t feel that this was appropriate for Mark because of his learning disabilities and I d said to Mark look we ll put this out of the road and we ll keep this until a later stage where you can manage it and it seemed then that when Mark was going over the mother had been saying to him about the playstation game and Mark had said well Sharon put it out of the road until I m older and then the next thing came was a television set and Mark would be a child that would sit glued to a TV set all day if you let him and he needed to be encouraged to get out more because he has a very, very pale complexion, you know, and so he had got to the stage that he didn t want to go out he wanted to be sitting watching television all the time so I took the TV out of the room and I had informed the social workers that I did it and they totally agreed with what I had done, you know. But then the mother, I don t know whether it was Mark was the one bringing it up or whether it was the mother you know and Mark was coming back and saying my mummy says I have to get the TV...

18 when I arrived to lift the children that morning, right? It was after lunch on a Sunday, she absolutely REEKED of drink, COMPLETELY REEKED of drink, you know and I felt that Social Services had put me in a position where really I don't think it was fair, I think that was really was not for a foster carer to have to deal with, it was really up to a Social Worker to have been there to have dealt with a situation like that, do you know? I don't think the children should have been there in the first place, I think it was a very, very em.. negligent of the JUDGE, to you know make arrangements like that in the first instance never mind Social Services you know. So.. but em I felt that I was asked to do things that I shouldn't of been asked to do but.. I just went ahead and did what I was told, you know.

19 Activity 2 o In your jurisdictions, how is contact arranged? Do foster parents have any involvement or say? o What are foster parents perceptions in relation to contact?

20 Effects on children o Many reported a change in the children s behaviour before & after contact: He s unsettled, he s unruly, he s rude, he s difficult, he s em, eh, wound up. Em, just about everything you wouldn t want in a child. o Children were upset when parents failed to turn up. o Some children were excited and happy to see their parents; & it did not affect others at all seems to put it into two different worlds,... she goes to visit him and when its done he s put away in the box till the next time, she never mentions him.

21 o It often seemed to depend on the nature of the placement: Effects on children She knows that she s staying in this particular family, it s like you re just going to visit someone, even though it is her mother and she s quite happy What way did they affect her in the past? In the past she went from being totally horrendous, squealing in the back seat and banging her head in the car and we d have to get in and sit with her and console her and then maybe from a lighter point of view she d come home she d maybe be unsettled for a few days, a bit emotional, withdrawn and on her best access she still would have been unsettled but on her worst she would have been cross and angry with everybody, angry with us, full of temper and rage, unsettled at school, til they came to decision she was going to stay, until she was able to be told that, visits always would have knocked her completely off her routine for two or three days.

22 Activity 3 o Are children s views and feelings taken into account in your own areas in relation to contact? If so, how? Give examples you have come across. o At what age are children able to express their own views? At what age are they listened to?

23 James (non-rel.) James perspective o And do you see your birth mum much? o I only see her once a month, or a fortnight, aye. o And do you get on well with her? o Yeah.... o Which person would be the most important to you? o [Writes mum and foster mum ] o So both of them? o Aye. o And why are they important to you? o [Writes foster mum because looks after me, and other mum is part of my family ]

24 James (non-rel.) Foster mother s perspective o And how do you think contact affects him? Does it affect him in any way? o Not really. Glad to see mum, and very affectionate towards her. As I said, hugs and all. Mummy would give them money, and I mean she s the greatest mum at that particular time, you know. They are happy to see her, and yet the rest of the week or fortnight it s not mentioned. o And how do you find contact yourself? o Fine, fine. I would have a relationship with [mum], you know. We had the children before. I would know her and... chat away with her, just as I chat to you. And talk and ask me how they were. If there s any problems, I d say to her. Last week I had to separate them, because they were killing each other. James had a black eye, and you know, she d say, boys, and tell them off. But you know...

25 Anna (non-rel.) Anna s perspective o What would you wish for your family? o [Writes see my family more ] o See your family more... Would that be your family in Belfast? o In both. Because I used to get to see my family, my birth family, once a month, and now I only see them twice a year. o And you would like to see them more often. o Yeah. o Would that be your brothers and sisters? o Yeah. o Do you know why you can t see them more often, Anna? o No... cause it used to be social workers that took us out there, and then it was parents, like foster parents, out there,... and then they got far too busy, and then the social workers arrange a party for us twice a year.

26 The role of the social worker o Incidents where the social worker really made a difference in making contact better, and supporting the children and the families. o Incidents where Social Services put foster parents in difficult situations.

27 They were supervised and then against our wishes, social services decided that they should be unsupervised and Daniel has a lot of bad memories about being with his mother and he later on then refused to go to see her. He was made to go really and there was a lot of kicking and screaming in the car and being taken away by social workers and that and then one particular social worker came one day and said look, you know, I wouldn t do that and really gave the option from then on that he could go if he wanted and that s the way it is now. If Daniel at any time wants to go and see his mother he s to let me know and I ll arrange it for him.

28 o FM: there was three months in a row she hadn t turned up for them. o FF: And there was occasions where we had told the kids, no we were told to tell the kids that they were going. But we know now from experience not to tell them until near enough the car is at the door for them. o FM: And 15 minutes before hand we would get them ready just so as we know for definite that things is going ahead. But now their new social worker, she really good and everything s sent out to us, all the dates in advance and all the times and all and as I say if the mother doesn t phone in by ten o clock of the morning of the visit then she ll phone me and say no it s not going ahead.

29 I don t know how many different social workers I have had with James, they don t last, changing and chopping. The social worker would have got to know James and the next thing you know they re away. The first social worker he related great to her, she use to come out here and pick him up and take him on the visits, this used to be great trouble, there was no car seat to hold James in, she used to end up having to take somebody else out with her! But she was brilliant with him, then she left. We ve had different Social Workers, they don t usually get staying that long. We don t really need one now, no social worker comes out to visit us now, we only have a social worker who would arrange contact.

30 Activity 4 o What is the role of the social worker in relation to contact? o How do social workers manage and support contact in your own areas? Give examples from your own work or experience.

31 Summary o Children had a diversity of contact arrangements. In general, although contact was regular, it was more frequent at the start of the placement. o Some foster carers experienced difficulties with contact; and felt it had adverse effects on children. o In many cases, contact was less of a problem when the child was older and felt secure in the placement. o Some children refused to have contact, while others longed for more frequent contact. o It made a difference when the child was listened to, and their views were taken into account.

32 THANK YOU! Questions?