Permanency

This paper considers the history of 'permanency planning', a concept which has become central to Western child welfare systems. Permanency planning developed in the US in the 1970s in response to foster care 'drift', whereby increasing numbers of children removed from their families for reasons of child protection were remaining in temporary out-of-home placements for long periods and experiencing multiple moves. A range of ideological perspectives on the relationships between child, family and state have subsequently influenced permanency planning models in different jurisdictions. This paper uses Fox Harding's four-fold classification of value perspectives in child welfare to better understand the underlying values and beliefs inherent in the main approaches to permanency in child care, the principles of which derive from seventeenth-century English common law doctrines. The paper also considers the implications for permanency policies and practice in the Australian state of Victoria where legislation prioritising adoption from out-of-home care was recently introduced.

The policy, legal and service configuration of a child and family welfare system reflects the historically predominant ideological perspectives relating to children, families, community and state. Examination of parliamentary debates provides a window on the discourses relating to policy and legislative change in a jurisdiction. This article presents a document analysis of parliamentary debates in the Australian state of Victoria using Applied Thematic Analysis to investigate the key issues and ideas that informed consideration of the Bills associated with the 1989 introduction of Permanent Care Orders—a special form of guardianship preferred to adoption for children drifting in out-of-home care. Four primary themes were identified: the rhetoric of rights; the ‘hierarchy of family’ debate; child protection is everybody’s business; and the politics of influence. Interpreted using Fox Harding’s typology of ideological perspectives in Western child welfare, these findings reinforce that different views about family formation emerge at times of social transition, in turn, influencing the political discourse that shapes the policy and legislative approach to child and family welfare. Permanency planning policies supporting children’s connections to their biological families were established in Victoria in the 1980s, but now appear to be shifting to more paternalist protectionist and laissez-faire orientations.

El artículo sintetiza una investigación realizada en la Escuela de Trabajo  Social de la Universidad de Costa  Rica  sobre  la  permanencia  de  la  población  estudiantil  en  la  carrera  durante  el  periodo  2002-2008.  La investigación fue descriptiva: se recogió información demográfica, académica y socioeconómica de la población y se realizó un seguimiento de cohortes de estudiantes, utilizando como base la información que la Universidad tiene  almacenada  en  el  Sistema  de  Aplicaciones  Estudiantiles.  El  estudio  permite  mostrar  la  importancia  de acercarse  a  la  permanencia  como  proceso  macro  que  vive  cada  estudiante  desde  su  primer  contacto  con  la Universidad hasta la obtención de un título. Se logran dilucidar aspectos por los cuales el estudiantado obtiene los títulos  de  bachillerato  y  licenciatura  en  el  tiempo  estipulado.  Se  concluye  que  tiene n  mayor  probabilidad  de lograrlo  quienes  ingresaron a  la  universidad  y  a la  carrera  en  el  mismo  año,  a  una  edad  entre  17  y 18  años, quienes habitan en zonas cercanas a la Sede Rodrigo Facio, estudiaron en colegios académicos, contaron con beca  por  condición  socioeconómica  y  beneficios  complementarios,  matricularon  solamente  cursos  de  Trabajo Social, aprobaron más de 15 créditos por ciclo lectivo regular y llevaron cursos en el tercer ciclo lectivo. Además, se logró revisar información de población que no continúa en la carrera, la cual corresponde a un 22% del grupo estudiado. La principal razón de no continuación se relaciona con haber ingresado a una carrera que no era de su interés.

Qualitative research methods have traditionally been criticised for lacking rigor, and impressionistic and biased results. Subsequently, as qualitative methods have been increasingly used in social work inquiry, efforts to address these criticisms have also increased. Applied thematic analysis provides structure and integrates reflexivity in qualitative research using textual data. In this article, we describe how applied thematic analysis was operationalised in a document analysis of the official records of parliamentary debates in the Australian State of Victoria relating to the introduction of Permanent Care Orders, an alternative to adoption for children residing out-of-home and unable to be safely reunified with their parents. We present this example to extend the knowledge base regarding applied thematic analysis and to demonstrate how step-by-step implementation of a purposeful methodology using trustworthy documentary data can effectively increase rigor and transparency, thereby reducing potential bias, in a qualitative analysis. First, we clarify key terms; then discuss the challenges of analysing textual data; consider the value of parliamentary debates as a textual data source; and provide a detailed description of the processes undertaken in the document analysis. Finally, we reflect on the application of applied thematic analysis in our study, highlighting its value in strengthening qualitative social work research using document analysis.

This article reports on a sample of young New Zealand children under two years of age entering care in 2005 (n = 228) and follows their progress over a five-year period. The study, the first of its kind in New Zealand, used a clinical data mining method to focus particularly on issues of stability,
continuity and permanency. In these areas the research findings were generally positive for this cohort of children. Most children had only one or two caregivers. Almost all were ethnically matched with their caregivers in both kinship and foster care, and permanency, or a stable, permanent living situation, was achieved for the majority of the children.

The focus this study was on the mechanism by which family care services influence sustainability of charitable children’s institutions in  Nyando Sub-County, Kisumu, Kenya.This study was guided by the following objectives: to assess the extent to which: kinship care influences sustainability of charitable children’s institutions; guardianship care influences sustainability of charitable children’s institutions; independent living care influences sustainability of charitable children’s institutions, and foster care influences sustainability of charitable children’s institutions. The theoretical underpinnings of this study were: theory of sustainability, ecological theory, theory of hierarchy of needs and structural functionalism. The current study adopted a cross-sectional research design. Respondents were sampled from a population of 160 beneficiaries of alternative family care services in 10 charitable children’s institutions within Nyando Sub-County of Kisumu County, Kenya. A sample size of 113 respondents was selected using Krejcie and Morgan’s formula. The sampling procedure entailed a stratified proportionate sampling for the four family care services offered by charitable children’s institutions. Data was collected and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive analyses comprised of the frequencies, means, standard deviations and percentages. Inferential analysis explained the relationship between the independent and dependent variable using correlation and linear regression analyses. The study established that family care services did not have a significant influence on sustainability of charitable children’s institutions. However, coefficients of linear regression had a negative direction suggesting that increase in family care services would likely decrease sustainability of charitable children’s institutions. When the hypotheses were tested, no significance was established hence, all the null hypotheses were accepted. It was established that there was no significant relationship between: kingship care and sustainability of charitable children’s institutions; guardianship care and sustainability of charitable children’s institutions; independent living care and sustainability of charitable children’s institutions and foster care and sustainability of charitable children’s institutions.These findings provide government departments of children’s services, management of charitable children’s institutions, Non Governmental Organizations and other stakeholders with empirical evidence of percieved ineffectiveness of current family care services. The empirical evidence  is not supportive of the migration to home based care. However, these results provide a basis for recommendations that will enhance sustainability of family care services. The experience by charitable children’s institutions in management of institutional care can be re-oriented, through project methodology to ensure the change to family care is implemented in a sustainable way. Future research could use a longitudinal design to capture the opinions of caregivers, placement project managers and government officials on drivers of sustainable alternative family care.