Justin Rogers

Civic crowdfunding for research purposes has been an emerging trend in scientific fields over the past few years. This paper presents findings from a mixed methods analysis of 152 social science research projects that campaigned for crowdfunding. A total of US$583,074 was raised through the support of 6,663 backers among the 150 successfully funded projects. This study offers specific lessons for social work researchers engaging in crowdfunding campaigns. The data show that projects supported by endorsers and initiated by faculties were able to solicit more backers and funds. Another key finding is that the campaigns that had videos for promotional purposes were the most successful but video length does not affect backers' consideration. The paper presents the potential ethical challenges for social work researchers in this crowdfunding arena. In what may first appear to be a democratic and emancipatory space, decisions are actually made about what topics are worthy of financing by people who have access to the online platforms and the disposable income to back the project. Nevertheless, these platforms offer a route to research funding for academics, practitioners and service user groups in a context where funding from research councils and foundations is increasingly limited and competitive.

This article presents findings from research into how young people growing up in foster care in the UK manage the relationships in their social networks and gain access to social capital. It is a concept that highlights the value of relationships and is relevant to young people in care as they have usually experienced disruptions to their social and family life. Qualitative methods were used and the findings show that despite experiencing disruption to their social networks, the young people demonstrated that they were able to maintain access to their social capital. They achieved this in two ways. Firstly, they preserved their relationships, often through what can be seen as ordinary practices but in the extraordinary context of being in foster care. Secondly, they engaged in creative practices of memorialisation to preserve relationships that had ended or had been significantly impaired due to their experience of separation and movement. The article highlights implications for policy and practice, including the need to recognise the value of young people’s personal possessions. Furthermore, it stresses the need to support them to maintain their relationships across their networks as this facilitates their access to social capital.

This paper presents findings from a study that explored the experiences of young people living in foster care in the United Kingdom (UK). Previous research highlights that children and young people in foster care experience stigma. Qualitative methods were chosen to explore how the young people in this study experience and manage stigma in their day to day lives.

Findings provide valuable insights into how the participants cope with the challenges of stigma. There were two key ways they did this; 1) by carefully managing the disclosure of their ‘in care’ status; 2) by drawing support from their social relationships. Furthermore, the participants particularly valued support from their peers who were also living in foster care, as it enabled them to form an in-group, which presented them with a valuable sense of belonging.

These findings have implications for practice and this paper proposes two ways to better support young people in foster care to cope with stigma. Firstly, by valuing the importance of friendship groups and enabling young people to maintain their existing friendships. Secondly, by developing more opportunities that bring fostered young people together, which enables them to interact with their peers without the pressure of managing stigma.

A year has now passed since our colleague Beatrice Godwin died. Beatrice was a committed social work practitioner and a dedicated scholar to the end. Her last article was published in this very journal in the last few days before she died. She was committed to social justice and worked tirelessly to promote the interests and rights of people living with dementia. Beatrice was a social worker by training and completed an MSc in Social Work Studies at the LSE. After qualifying she held a number of local authority posts and then became a training officer and a part-time lecturer. Beatrice's professional career culminated in her appointment in the newly created NHS post of assertive in-reach worker, a position she was very proud of. In this post she was involved in a non-medical consultation about the care of people with dementia in residential and nursing homes; and she formed a multi-agency working group with Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health NHS partnership, the local Social Services Department and the local police force in order to develop a Missing Persons' Procedure for people with dementia, which was used throughout the area. Beatrice also trained in Dementia Care Mapping. She went on to train many others in this technique and facilitated numerous training courses on person-centred care in dementia for support workers and nurses in residential and nursing homes in and around Bath and South Gloucestershire. The NHS post propelled Beatrice into research and she undertook a number of projects, one on the ethics of assistive technology use with people with dementia. Another project involved asking people with moderate to severe dementia about the potential new colour scheme for their specialist dementia residential home. Both projects involved finding imaginative ways to consult with people with communication difficulties. Beatrice disseminated the findings from these projects via journal articles, which I know are being used by a number of academics in their teaching, particularly in the training of student social workers. Her work had an impact in policy and has been cited in a Department of Health report (Changing times: Improving services for older people 2003-4). Beatrice was committed to lifelong learning like no other person I have ever met. She returned to postgraduate study when other people of her age may have been considering a relaxing retirement. I met Beatrice as a fellow postgrad and then went on to supervise her research with Professor Malcolm Johnson. In the time I knew her Beatrice was always warm, encouraging and supportive. She was an active member of our postgraduate community at Bath and was present at every social event and seminar that her health allowed. She was highly regarded by her postgraduate peers, whether young or old, from down the road in Bristol or the other side of the world. Her personable and approachable character undoubtedly helped her in her research, where she was able to capture the lived experiences of people with dementia. These experiences are not just saturated in suffering and sadness but also reflect moments of joy and strength against adversity. How she was able to capture such experiences in her work is evident in the book chapter she wrote entitled 'Achieving a good death in dementia'. Beatrice has left the academic community with a number of important articles and reports, which will continue to contribute to the field of dementia studies. Beatrice devoted years to undertaking her doctoral research to improve our understanding of how people with dementia can be better supported. In the weeks before she died Beatrice developed her PhD findings, with the support of Professor Fiona Poland, into an important article published in this journal. 'Bedlam and Bliss' highlighted, against common assumptions, that people living with dementia are active and creative in the ways they maintain and enact their sense of self in their everyday lives. Her commitment to research in this field cannot be questioned. Her final wish to donate her brain to medical research, which her family worked hard to arrange, is clear evidence of this! Beatrice was supported throughout her long illness by her loving husband Michael, and her daughters Ruth and Miriam. Beatrice's funeral took place one year ago, the ceremony being a reflection of her character and influence on so many people. Indeed, attendance was so high that for many it was standing room

This paper reflects on the methodological approach adopted during a study which explored the experiences of young people in foster care in the United Kingdom (UK). The study used a novel combination of visual methods, which included eco-maps and photo elicitation. The paper begins with a brief account of the context of foster care in the UK, and provides an overview of the theoretical framework that underpinned the study. The two main sections of the paper provide an overview of the two different visual research methods that were used, eco-maps and then photo elicitation. These sections include examples where these approaches have previously been used in research, as well as reflections on their application in this study. The challenges and the benefits of using visual research methods with children and young people in foster care are considered throughout. The paper concludes by arguing that these chosen methods were of value as they enabled the collection of important data that may otherwise have gone unobserved.

This paper is based on the development of a framework that conceptualises forms of power in social work research. Its aim is to encourage readers to critically reflect on potentially oppressive manifestations of power in social work research. The article draws on Lukes' model of power and Gould's subsequent framework which contributed to anti-racist teaching in social work education. Gould's framework is reinterpreted and applied to a differing context: social work research. The field of social work research is explored through this framework, highlighting potentially oppressive manifestations of power and suggesting anti-oppressive strategies. The model is then applied to social work education and specifically the teaching of research methods. The paper concludes by suggesting curriculum guidelines that promote the teaching of anti-oppressive social work research methods.

http://gu.com/p/4cc7f/stw

In response to the refugee crisis, the Fostering Network has called for more people to come forward to foster refugee children. A Christian faith group have also encouraged its community to foster and 9,000 people have apparently expressed an interest in fostering refugee children. A policy response is now needed that provides an increase in funding to local authority family placement teams so that social workers are able to recruit and assess more carers for unaccompanied refugee children.

Britain has a proud tradition of stepping up to meet the needs of refugee children. In 1938, it welcomed the first Kindertransport, a scheme that went on to rescue thousands of children from the Nazis, and in the 1970s people came forward to foster and adopt the orphaned children of the Vietnamese boat people. The current government is threatening this tradition by effectively tearing up the Dubs Amendment – which aimed to help unaccompanied minors in France come to the UK – and closing the child refugee scheme.

This paper presents findings from a doctoral study that explored the experiences of young people living in foster care in the United Kingdom (UK). In 2014 there were over 93,000 children and young people living in public care across the UK,with 79% of them placed in a foster care setting.The concept of social capital underpinned the theoretical framework of the study. Social capital is a concept that has previously been utilised in childhood studies and it is described as a useful heuristic to examine practices and processes in social networks (Holland 2007; Morrow 1999). The concept has particular usefulness for understanding experiences of young people in foster care, as their social networks have been disrupted, at an early age, because of their entry into public care. This disruption is often compounded by placement instability and multiple moves during their time in care. Qualitative methods were chosen to examine the practices that young people in foster care engage in with people in their social networks. The data was collected across two qualitative interviews with ten participants, which resulted in a total of twenty interviews. These twenty interviews gathered rich, descriptive and contextualised data and produced over twenty three hours of recorded conversations and over four hundred pages of transcription. Task based visual methods were also utilised, which produced valuable data to analyse with eco-maps and over eighty photographs. During the thematic data analysis the concept of stigma emerged as a key theme. The stigma of being ‘in care’ significantly impacted on these participant’s relationships with people in their networks, which subsequently affected their ability to access social capital. Previous studies have already highlighted that young people growing up in foster care experience stigma (Ridge & Millar 2000; Schofield et al 2000). This study makes an important contribution to this existing literature, with findings that provide insights into the ways young people cope with the challenges of stigma. For example, findings show how the support of friends played a crucial role in enabling these young people to be able to manage their stigmatised ‘in care’ identity. Findings also demonstrate how the participants in this study particularly valued support from other fostered young people, as it enabled them to form an in-group that provided them with a sense of belonging.In light of these findings this paper proposes two key ways to better support young people in foster care who are experiencing stigma. Firstly, by recognising and valuing the importance of friendship groups and enabling young people to maintain their existing friendships across their social networks. Secondly, by developing more opportunities that bring fostered young people together, which enables them to interact with their peers without the pressure of managing stigma.

This paper presents findings from my doctoral research that explores the social networks of young people in foster care, within the United Kingdom (UK). The research draws on the theory of social capital as well as Goffman’s seminal work on stigma. This qualitative project is based on a total of twenty interviews with young people in foster care aged between twelve to fourteen years old. Each participant was interviewed on two separate occasions. Visual methods were employed, which included photo-elicitation techniques and an eco-mapping exercise.

During the first interview the eco-maps were completed with the participants and then they were left with digital cameras with the brief to take photographs, over the following two weeks, of things that were important to them.

The methods served as a useful way to empower the participants as it enabled them to be active in the data collection. This promoted a partnership approach to the research with the young people acting as photo-researchers. This paper considers the benefits of the methods used and presents some of the important data that was collected, which I argue without these visual methods, may have gone unobserved.

"There are 87000 children and young people in public care in the United Kingdom (UK), with over 70% being placed in foster care (The Fostering Network, 2011). The reasons that children and young people enter in to public care are complex; they include child abuse and/or neglect and/or issues relating to their parent's mental health or substance abuse difficulties (Biehal et al., 2010; Schofield, 2000; Sinclair, 2005). For most children and young people in the UK who enter foster care, they are placed outside of their birth/ kinship family. This can mean moving to a different area and also changing schools, which can significantly disrupt a child's social networks.
This project examines these disrupted social networks through the application of the concept of social capital, as understood by Bourdieu (1986). The data was gathered across two in-depth qualitative interviews, with a total of ten young people in foster care aged between twelve and fourteen years old. Task based visual methods were employed, which included both eco-mapping and photo elicitation techniques.
This doctoral research project is still a work in progress and this paper focuses on one aspect of the preliminary findings. The paper highlights the ways that young people in foster care are actively engaged in practices to preserve relationships across their disrupted social networks. Even in the context where a young person's physical contact with their family and friends was disrupted, supervised or stopped, they were still finding ways to actively manage these relationships, in order to preserve social capital.
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"Preserving social capital: the opportunities and challenges that web 2.0 creates for young people in foster care.

There are 87000 children and young people in public care in the United Kingdom the vast majority, over 70%, are placed in foster care settings (The Fostering Network 2011). The reasons that children and young people enter in to public care centre on concerns relating to abuse and neglect. These concerns may also be combined with parents who are experiencing mental health or substance misuse difficulties (Schofield 2000; I. Sinclair 2005; Biehal et al. 2010). 

For young people the move to foster care results in having to adjust to living within a different family and this can also mean living in a different area and attending a different school. These changes mean young people in foster care potentially experience disrupted social networks. This PhD project examines these social networks through the application of the concept of social capital, as understood by Pierre Bourdieu. The project has gathered in-depth qualitative data from interviews with ten young people in foster care aged between 12 and 14 years old. The data was gathered across two interviews with each participant, using visual task based methods, eco-maps and photo elicitation.

This presentation will report on the findings that relate to the complex practices around the young people’s use of web 2.0 technologies. The study found that young people in foster care are actively engaging with these developing methods of communication in order to preserve their social capital. Online social networking enables the young people to exercise agency in a constrained situation and maintain relationships with family and friends on their own terms. However, these developing methods of communication also present challenges for the young people, for example, the lack of physical contact online provides sad reminders of disrupted relationships. 

These practices also exist within a context of concerns about child protection and the privacy and safety risks of web 2.0 uses, and these concerns are dominant in the advice given to foster carers about internet use  (Falkirk Council 2010; Devon County Council 2012). Of course in foster care there are at times child protection concerns and good reasons why children are restricted from contact with dangerous and inappropriate people in their social network. However, with the integrative nature of web 2.0 and its increasing accessibility across society, practice approaches that attempt to restrict the access of children and young people present as an increasingly ineffective response. The findings of this study highlight the positive benefits that young people in foster care gain from engaging in web 2.0, for example in relation to their sense of identity and belonging. The young people, with support from carers, also presented as being able to relate to people in their networks on web 2.0 technologies in responsible ways, demonstrating an ability to accept boundaries from carers about who they were able to add as a 'friend’ online. Therefore, this paper argues that policy and practice responses to web 2.0 uses for children and young people in foster care wherever possible should recognise the potential benefits and take a supportive and advisory tone as opposed to being restrictive and authoritarian.

Biehal, N. et al., 2010. Belonging and Permanence: Outcomes in Long-term Foster Care and Adoption, London: British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF).

Devon County Council, 2012. Pc and internet advice for carers. Available at: http://www.devon.gov.uk/fostering-pcadvice.pdf [Accessed November 5, 2012].

Falkirk Council, 2010. Internet security guidelines for foster and short break carers. Available at: http://www.falkirk.gov.uk/services/social_work/children_and_family_services/fostering/internet_security_fosters.pdf [Accessed November 5, 2012].

Schofield, G., 2000. Growing Up in Foster Care, London: British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF).

Sinclair, I., 2005. Fostering Now: Messages from Research 1st American Paperback Ed., London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

The Fostering Network, 2011. Statistics on looked after children. Available at: http://www.fostering.net/about-fostering/statistics-looked-after-children [Accessed October 13, 2011].


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This series of posters shows a research project undertaken with a group of unaccompanied asylum seeking children who are placed in foster care with TACT in Bristol. As a result of war and human rights abuses in countries neighbouring Europe, there has been an increase in people entering the UK to seek asylum. Despite a large number of people in the UK wanting to welcome refugees, TACT's fostering service in the southwest had very few people coming forward to enquire about fostering refugee children who arrived in the country alone. TACT have also experienced some apprehension from their existing carers to offer placements to refugee children. The Social Workers at TACT felt that this was due to a barrier where people saw the refugee/asylum seeker status first and the child/young person second. This research aimed to shift perceptions and show that despite challenging life experiences these young people are adapting to their lives in the south west of England and thriving in their foster placements.