Gary Clapton
University of Edinburgh, Social Work, Faculty Member
- I am a qualified social worker and have worked with children and families in Edinburgh and London. I have taught and... moreI am a qualified social worker and have worked with children and families in Edinburgh and London. I have taught and researched in academia since 2003. I have published widely, mainly on fathers and adoption. I have a particular critical interest in children and family social work. My research and publications have also included moral panics, social work education, and believe it or not, what it means to wait in general practice surgeries.edit
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The Code of Ethics of the Association of Professional Genealogists promotes the communication of coherent, clear, and well-organised information). It is not that simple when adoption features in a family’s history. This paper suggests... more
The Code of Ethics of the Association of Professional Genealogists promotes the communication of coherent, clear, and well-organised information). It is not that simple when adoption features in a family’s history. This paper suggests that standard approaches to family tree-construction will struggle to capture the complexities, gaps, and challenges posed by adoption. Firstly, the paper makes the case for family historians having an alertness to adoption by noting the number of people affected by adoption. It then goes on to look at the literature that argues that adoption involves erasures of birth families and makes ghosts of them. Adoption also creates possible selves and lives; the adopted person’s “could-have-beens” had there been no adoption, the biological child that the adoptive parents might have had and could not, the birth mother’s life with the child lost to adoption. These presences and possibilities haunt all involved in adoption, and writers have posited the existence of a “ghost kingdom”. This paper maps out a greater ghost world of adoption, paradoxically full of life, and because of access to birth records, a world that offers a much greater potential for materialisation. The paper avoids the traditional notions of ghosts as things to be shunned or as representatives of pathologies. Instead, it asks for respect for the “not-dead”/“not-past” of adoption and for family history researchers, a capacity to embrace the jumbled, the murky, and the disorganised. People everywhere are increasingly constructing their own family trees, with all the potential for pleasant surprise but also the shock that this might bring. Should genealogists overlook adoption’s ghosts then they overlook the opportunity to professionally map a rich and varied world of family knowledge and connections. The paper concludes with this observation coupled with a discussion of other associated ethical implications of family history work where adoption features.
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Since 1998, the Scottish Government has periodically issued guidance for child protection practice. This has grown from seventy-seven pages to two hundred and seventy pages in the latest draft iteration-The Draft National Guidance for... more
Since 1998, the Scottish Government has periodically issued guidance for child protection practice. This has grown from seventy-seven pages to two hundred and seventy pages in the latest draft iteration-The Draft National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland (2020). This review of the Draft Guidance takes a rare, because critical and problematising, look at a policy document intended to influence social work practice with children and families. The review points to omissions, questions inclusions and looks at the ways that the Draft Guidance seeks to claim our attention for some matters and not others. With a focus upon appearances and the author's impressions, close reading of text and language usage, the review offers strategies for critical reading of policy documents.
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The history of child protection in the UK has had little critical attention yet twenty-first century childhoods and child care practices in the UK have been significantly influenced by what has been termed as the ‘child protection... more
The history of child protection in the UK has had little critical attention yet twenty-first century childhoods and child care practices in the UK have been significantly influenced by what has been termed as the ‘child protection industry’. This paper argues that whilst statutory services have expanded then contracted, children’s charities have reemerged as the most influential voices that have shaped twenty-first century child protection policy and practice. A combination of the emphasis of risk to children and young people, and tragedies in which statutory services have had a part, has produced a ‘toxic’ culture of child protection in which Social Work with children and families seems to have lost its moral compass and its earlier emphasis on family support. Suspicion of parents and an emphasis on child rescue is now a dominant paradigm. Equally parents are suspicious of social workers.
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Research Interests: Psychology and Yesterday
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Contemporary Fathering: Theory, Policy and Practice, Brid Featherstone, Bristol, Policy Press, 2009, pp. viii + 224, ISBN 9 781861 349873 (pbk), 21.99 * European Perspectives on Men and Masculinities, Jeff Hearn and Keith Pringle, with members of CROME, Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan, 2006, pp. ...more
Research Interests: Sociology and Social Work
Since 1998, the Scottish Government has periodically issued guidance for child protection practice. This has grown from seventy-seven pages to two hundred and seventy pages in the latest draft iteration – The Draft National Guidance for... more
Since 1998, the Scottish Government has periodically issued guidance for child protection practice. This has grown from seventy-seven pages to two hundred and seventy pages in the latest draft iteration – The Draft National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland (2020). This review of the Draft Guidance takes a rare, because critical and problematising, look at a policy document intended to influence social work practice with children and families. The review points to omissions, questions inclusions and looks at the ways that the Draft Guidance seeks to claim our attention for some matters and not others. With a focus upon appearances and the author's impressions, close reading of text and language usage, the review offers strategies for critical reading of policy documents.
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This paper reports on survey work and group discussion by a Scottish parent-led support group (Parents Advocacy and Rights – PAR) that supports parents with children in the care system. A previous paper has been published discussing an... more
This paper reports on survey work and group discussion by a Scottish parent-led support group (Parents Advocacy and Rights – PAR) that supports parents with children in the care system. A previous paper has been published discussing an overview of the survey results ( www.pfan.uk/uncovering-the-pain/ ). The present paper delves further into parents’ particular experiences of contact. The responses are preceded by a critical retrospective of the concept of contact. Our retrospective covers the language of contact, contact’s origins, continuing confusions of meaning and the lack of appreciation of the parental experience and points to the artificiality of contact, the impracticalities of contact arrangements and the toll taken by these. We conclude by pointing out that we are in the fourth decade of recommendations about contact between parents and children in state care. We make the observations that there is a continuing failure to empathise with parents’ experience of deprivation a...
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This paper begins with a precis and discussion of what we know of reunions between adopted adults and their families of birth. There then follows insights from a study of the long-term outcomes of reunions and what the emergent... more
This paper begins with a precis and discussion of what we know of reunions between adopted adults and their families of birth. There then follows insights from a study of the long-term outcomes of reunions and what the emergent relationships suggest about the nature of kinship. It goes on to the subject of donor conception, specifically what we might be able to ‘read across’ from the challenges that adoption can pose relating to identity and what we mean when we talk about family and kinship. The paper concludes: ‘An end to secrecy, openness, acknowledgement of feelings of loss, and respect for biological connections have been essential for the well-being and stability of adopted people and their families. So too are these actions vital for donor-conceived people’.
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The history of adoption in the UK can be divided into two approximate eras: prior to 1980, ‘relinquished’ babies were placed with childless couples; post-1980, adoption was increasingly seen as an alternative permanence option for... more
The history of adoption in the UK can be divided into two approximate eras: prior to 1980, ‘relinquished’ babies were placed with childless couples; post-1980, adoption was increasingly seen as an alternative permanence option for children in care. This article explores the changes and continuities in the experiences of one group of people in the adoption process over these two periods: birth fathers. In the light of the dearth of research on this group, the authors compare their own studies of birth fathers from each era to identify constants and changes in birth father experiences and what can be learned for future adoption practice. The findings show that contemporary birth fathers are likely to be older, more vulnerable and more likely to have parented their child. It is suggested that while there is greater acknowledgement of the significance of fathers and today’s birth fathers have more legal rights than their predecessors (though not complete parity with mothers) and have mo...
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This article charts the UK history of contact in fostering and adoption as it relates to looked after children and their birth relatives. It builds on a recent publication in this journal by one of the authors based on her research on the... more
This article charts the UK history of contact in fostering and adoption as it relates to looked after children and their birth relatives. It builds on a recent publication in this journal by one of the authors based on her research on the use of social media by children in care. Here we look at previous practices relating to the question of whether or not contact ought to be ‘allowed’ in which words such as ‘access’ were used, betokening the child as object. We also come up to date with reference to contemporary efforts to recast contact as ‘family time’ that is significant in the child’s continuation of understanding of self. Other words in the lexicon are problematised, including ‘contact’ itself. Attention is also devoted to the social work profession's conception and management of contact. We argue that a critical history of contact reveals the various ways that formal and informal power operates to both regulate and discipline those involved, most centrally the child and bi...
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This paper traces an awakened interest in Scottish fathers and fathering alongside a UK-wide increase in awareness of the value of the positive involvement of fathers and the importance of encouraging this in family services. It contrasts... more
This paper traces an awakened interest in Scottish fathers and fathering alongside a UK-wide increase in awareness of the value of the positive involvement of fathers and the importance of encouraging this in family services. It contrasts cultural stereotypes with historical and contemporary realities; and discusses efforts to shift attitudes and practices in Scottish central and local government that marginalise fathers. The paper concludes with a discussion of the obstacles to furthering inclusion of fathers in family policy and services.
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This article explores the neglected subject of birth certificates, their meaning and value. The author makes a case for enhanced attention to the birth certificate in general but especially in cases where information about the father has... more
This article explores the neglected subject of birth certificates, their meaning and value. The author makes a case for enhanced attention to the birth certificate in general but especially in cases where information about the father has not been entered. It is argued that rather than ‘father unknown’ being recorded, ‘father unregistered’ would be invariably more accurate. The conclusion addresses policy and practice implications for the various professions involved during the birth and registration process and also for children and family and adoption practitioners.
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In this paper we apply the lens of moral panic to analyse child protection social work in the UK. We suggest that many of the anxieties that beset social work are best understood as moral panics and discuss processes in which... more
In this paper we apply the lens of moral panic to analyse child protection social work in the UK. We suggest that many of the anxieties that beset social work are best understood as moral panics and discuss processes in which ‘claims-makers’ have introduced and amplified concerns into panics. We discuss two examples of anxieties over child endangerment: the first is concerned with the foundation of the NSPCC and its campaign for the Children’s Charter of 1889. The second is the contemporary 21st century anxiety over children and young people’s use of the Internet, exemplified in the activities of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and their ‘Children and Young Persons’ Global Online Charter’.
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An image-driven investigation into publicity and advice for child care careers that shows that a preponderance of the material features an absence of males.
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A‘whole family’ approach to family difficulties has been praised and recommended as the most helpful involvement that can be adopted by child welfare and protection agencies, yet this is more honoured in theory than in practice. More... more
A‘whole family’ approach to family difficulties has been praised and recommended as the most helpful involvement that can be adopted by child welfare and protection agencies, yet this is more honoured in theory than in practice. More often than not, in children and families work,
child protection takes precedence. This paper derives from research that set out to identify what families experience as challenges, the importance of agreeing ‘the problem’ and to what extent ‘problems’ or ‘challenges’ were resolved by a whole family approach. We identify what helped to resolve problems from the parents’ perspectives. We learn that practical, emotional and connecting support is important, as is the value base, flexibility, responsivity and relational style of practitioners in helping both individual family members and families as whole to move beyond complex sets of interplaying factors that inhibit a resilient family life. We also point to varying definitions of ‘referring problem’.
child protection takes precedence. This paper derives from research that set out to identify what families experience as challenges, the importance of agreeing ‘the problem’ and to what extent ‘problems’ or ‘challenges’ were resolved by a whole family approach. We identify what helped to resolve problems from the parents’ perspectives. We learn that practical, emotional and connecting support is important, as is the value base, flexibility, responsivity and relational style of practitioners in helping both individual family members and families as whole to move beyond complex sets of interplaying factors that inhibit a resilient family life. We also point to varying definitions of ‘referring problem’.
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This short book is the result of a year-long study of one of the most highly-charged events in the lives of adults affected by adoption. Reunions between adopted adults and birth families. The accounts in 10 Years After go beyond the... more
This short book is the result of a year-long study of one of
the most highly-charged events in the lives of adults affected by adoption. Reunions between adopted adults and birth families. The accounts in 10 Years After go beyond the first days and months of contact and are drawn from over twenty years ago so as to provide a glimpse of how people’s lives have settled and continued together (or not) after meeting with each other.
the most highly-charged events in the lives of adults affected by adoption. Reunions between adopted adults and birth families. The accounts in 10 Years After go beyond the first days and months of contact and are drawn from over twenty years ago so as to provide a glimpse of how people’s lives have settled and continued together (or not) after meeting with each other.