This link is to the whole report
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmchilsch/111/11102.htm Summary
For those children who come into care, it will always be a distant second best to growing up happily and safely in their own family. Time in care is generally seen by professionals and the wider public as something to be avoided at all costs. Despite the dedication and perseverance of social workers and carers, the outcomes and experiences of young people who have been 'looked after' remain poor. Far from compensating for their often extremely difficult pre-care experiences, certain features of the care system itself in fact make it harder for young people to succeed: they are moved frequently and often suddenly, miss too much schooling, and are left to fend for themselves at too early an age.
The Government has acknowledged many of these problems and has sought to be comprehensive in its response. The Care Matters White Paper and the legislation that followed it (the Children and Young Persons Act 2008) have on the whole received a positive reception from children's services authorities, voluntary sector organisations and children themselves. We welcome the priority the Government has put on improving outcomes for looked-after children, and we do not doubt its commitment to achieving this. However, success will not flow automatically from new legislation or guidance. Previous programmes of substantial reform and investment have left outcomes for looked-after children still lagging unacceptably far behind those for other children. Inconsistency in practice and underperformance against current standards show that there are significant underlying challenges to implementation of the new raft of measures, challenges which we fear the Government has not done enough to address. We also believe that Care Matters represents a missed opportunity for certain sections of the care population. It is not clear that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and looked-after children who enter custody, will benefit equally from the new initiatives and the principles informing them.
Relationships
Stable, reliable bonds with key individuals are fundamental to children's security and development. In all circumstances, the care system should be supportive of rather than obstructive of good relationships. Children too rarely have the sort of relationship with their social worker that they want. High staff turnover, heavy workloads and an administrative burden all militate against relationships flourishing. Vacancy rates remain high and new recruits lack support. Social workers feel disempowered and when more experienced may seek moves away from frontline work. The same factors impinge on social workers' capacity to forge constructive relationships with families before problems escalate to the point where a care order might be sought.
Continuity in relationships with foster carers depends on preventing placement breakdowns and building long-term placements into care plans; the prospect of a placement breakdown should be treated with as much concern as the prospect of a child being removed from their birth family in the first place. The quality of support foster carers receive in terms of planned respite, input from other agencies, and access to advice at times of crisis is crucial to this. We believe that there is no justification for the vast inequities of payment and conditions in the foster care sector at present. Carers—including kinship carers—must be able to have a fair and transparent expectation of the support they will receive, wherever in the country and for whomever they foster. Stronger leadership at national government level, and a greater willingness to specify the support that carers and their families should be entitled to, would strengthen the efforts of local agencies to recruit foster carers.
Placements
These recruitment efforts are vital to increasing the supply of placements, which affects children's prospects for choice, individualisation and stability. Placements are already in short supply, their quality is not consistent, and parts of the Care Matters reform programme, such as post-18 fostering, will put even greater pressure on their availability. The Government has placed a new duty on local authorities to ensure a sufficient supply of placements locally, but has not paid enough attention to strengthening local authorities' hands in achieving it.
There should be no "cheap options" in the care system. From time to time in the evidence we took there surfaced a suspicion that decisions taken by local authorities are motivated in some circumstances by costs, and that children do not get all they are entitled to because of pressure on councils' resources. We do not share this suspicion of local authorities' motives, but we are concerned that it can exist. Any option for highly vulnerable children with complex needs—whether family support, long term foster care, kinship care, or supported independence—will only be successful with intensive support and substantial resourcing.
The performance framework
Improvement in the care system must be underpinned by a performance framework that emphasises the most important things: quality of decision-making, of relationships, and of children's experiences of care. We believe that quality assessment and children's satisfaction are undervalued by the current performance regime. Processes and outcomes are both important, but if what we are primarily concerned about is how happy children are in care, then the Government must be prepared to be innovative in finding new ways to assess quality of care. Pilots of new initiatives such as social pedagogy or independent social work practices promise innovative ways of tackling some of the deficiencies in the care system, but it will ultimately be much more important to ensure that the basics of the system are implemented consistently and enforced rigorously. We seek reassurance that the inspection regime will be a sufficient and effective tool to achieve this. It is not clear what sanctions are available against authorities which fail in their duty as parents, nor what incentives are in place to encourage them to fulfil this duty.
The workforce
Three themes run through our conclusions. The first is the importance of the workforce; implementation of well-intentioned initiatives and guidance depends ultimately on the skills and capacity of staff and carers who deal with children day to day. An effective care system can only be achieved by recruiting enough of the right people, giving them access to the right training, paying them enough, backing them up with practical support, and placing them in structures that allow them to build relationships with children and influence things on the child's behalf. While the Government is seeking to address aspects of this through, for example, the Social Work Taskforce and Social Work Practices pilots, other aspects, such as delegation to foster carers, have been relatively neglected. Residential care in particular requires much greater focus on the level and type of staff qualifications so that the full potential of that type of care might be realised.
Corporate parenting
The second theme is how local authorities can come to approximate more closely the care of birth parents. Many of the things we wish would happen in the care system would follow naturally if the system and those who work within it were minded, and enabled, to act more like parents. Bureaucracy, misdirected aversion to risk, lack of autonomy and restricted resources limit the capacity of corporate parents to normalise children's experience of growing up in care. The Government's willingness to act as a "pushy parent" in ensuring that looked-after children have priority access to schools is welcome, but should not be restricted to the sphere of education; health services and housing are just as important, as are adult services when the young person is moving towards independence. A local authority that was truly acting like a parent would not contemplate allowing a vulnerable young person to strike out unsupported on their own even at age 18, much less if they were going to live, as many do, in substandard accommodation. Where the corporate parent bears some responsibility for things going wrong—such as when children in care become involved in criminal activity—it must be held to account and involved in putting things right every bit as much as the state expects of other parents. Good parenting entails making decisions that are based on the particular needs of each child, and so performance frameworks should be adjusted to focus on the quality and promptness of decision-making about individual children: making the right decision at the right time.
The voice of the child
Thirdly, there is the importance of the voice of the child. Only by setting more store by children's satisfaction with their care will we get closer to finding out how "cared about" they really feel, how stable and secure their lives seem, and whether they have both opportunities and the support and encouragement needed to take them. Initiatives that seek to give children—collectively and individually—more say about their care must be specific, robust and enforceable. The variation currently apparent in services leads us to believe that more independent support is needed for children to express their views and have them listened to.
The purpose of the care system
Large variations in care populations around the country seem to indicate that there is no consensus about the role of care in services for vulnerable children. We are convinced that in some respects the potential of the care system to make a positive difference to children's lives is dismissed too readily, but we are also concerned by how widely the quality of children's experiences in care varies, and how uneven are the experiences families have of support services prior to care. Children's services must have the tools to spot trouble in families at an early stage, and must be able to have confidence that the interventions at their disposal are of a high quality and will make a positive difference to families. We would like to envisage a care system that is seen not as a sanction against failing parents, nor as a catastrophe for children's future prospects, but as a way of supporting families that are under stress and not functioning well.
This shift in perception is only desirable if care is an integral part of a continuum of effective family support services, not an alternative to it. It is only justifiable if we are able to reassure parents that their child, when in care, will have stability and personalised attention rather than a life ruled by uncertainty and bureaucracy, will have access to all the health and therapeutic care that they need to enjoy life and develop into independent adults, will be protected from rather than exposed to risk of offending, and will not feel abandoned by children's services when they reach 16, or 18, or if they go into custody. There are some children in care who have all of this, and many more who have some of it, thanks to dedicated, compassionate carers and diligent local authorities. The question the Government must do more to answer is, how can we make sure that all looked-after children get all that they are entitled to expect from their time in care?
Monday, April 20, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Family courts to be opened to press from 27 April 2009
http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed34385
Jack Straw announces long-awaited regulations opening up family courts to media access
Jack Straw, The Secretary of State for Justice, has announced that the long-awaited regulations concerning the opening up of the family courts to the press will come into effect on 27 April.
Under the rules, media representatives who hold a UK Press Card will be able to attend all levels of court, including matters heard "in private" subject to the court’s ability to restrict access as follows:
At any stage of the proceedings the court may direct that persons within paragraph (3)(f) shall not attend the proceedings or any part of them, where satisfied that—
(a) this is necessary—
(i) in the interests of any child concerned in, or connected with, the proceedings;(ii) for the safety or protection of a party, a witness in the proceedings, or a person connected with such a party or witness; or(iii) for the orderly conduct of the proceedings; or
(b) justice will otherwise be impeded or prejudiced.
UK Press Cards are available on application to any one working "professionally as a media worker who needs to identify himself or herself in public." The scheme was introduced by the Metropolitan Police in 1992 and is recognised by police force and other public bodies.
Announcing the changes, the Minister reiterated his views in why the reform was necessary
"Public confidence in the justice system is a necessary and vital part of a democratic society. I want to ensure that reforms to the family courts system increase their accountability to the public"
The changes are introduced by the following statutory instruments:
Family Proceedings Courts (Miscellaneous Amendments) Rules 2009
Family Proceedings (Amendment) (No.2) Rules 2009
Jack Straw announces long-awaited regulations opening up family courts to media access
Jack Straw, The Secretary of State for Justice, has announced that the long-awaited regulations concerning the opening up of the family courts to the press will come into effect on 27 April.
Under the rules, media representatives who hold a UK Press Card will be able to attend all levels of court, including matters heard "in private" subject to the court’s ability to restrict access as follows:
At any stage of the proceedings the court may direct that persons within paragraph (3)(f) shall not attend the proceedings or any part of them, where satisfied that—
(a) this is necessary—
(i) in the interests of any child concerned in, or connected with, the proceedings;(ii) for the safety or protection of a party, a witness in the proceedings, or a person connected with such a party or witness; or(iii) for the orderly conduct of the proceedings; or
(b) justice will otherwise be impeded or prejudiced.
UK Press Cards are available on application to any one working "professionally as a media worker who needs to identify himself or herself in public." The scheme was introduced by the Metropolitan Police in 1992 and is recognised by police force and other public bodies.
Announcing the changes, the Minister reiterated his views in why the reform was necessary
"Public confidence in the justice system is a necessary and vital part of a democratic society. I want to ensure that reforms to the family courts system increase their accountability to the public"
The changes are introduced by the following statutory instruments:
Family Proceedings Courts (Miscellaneous Amendments) Rules 2009
Family Proceedings (Amendment) (No.2) Rules 2009
The corrupt business of child protective services
From the legislative desk of Senator Nancy Schaefer 50th District of Georgia
November 16, 2007
THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICESBY: Nancy Schaefer
Senator, 50th DistrictMy introduction into child protective service cases was due to a grandmother in an adjoining state who called me with her tragic story. Her two granddaughters had been taken from her daughter who lived in my district. Her daughter was told wrongly that if she wanted to see her children again she should sign a paper and give up her children.
Frightened and young, the daughter did. I have since discovered that parents are often threatened into cooperation of permanent separation of their children.The children were taken to another county and placed in foster care. The foster parents were told wrongly that they could adopt the children. The grandmother then jumped through every hoop known to man in order to get her granddaughters. When the case finally came to court it was made evident by one of the foster parent’s children that the foster parents had, at any given time, 18 foster children and that the foster mother had an inappropriate relationship with the caseworker.In the courtroom, the juvenile judge, acted as though she was shocked and said the two girls would be removed quickly. They were not removed.
Finally, after much pressure being applied to the Department of Family and Children Services of Georgia (DFCS), the children were driven to South Georgia to meet their grandmother who gladly drove to meet them.After being with their grandmother two or three days, the judge, quite out of the blue, wrote up a new order to send the girls to their father, who previously had no interest in the case and who lived on the West Coast.
The father was in “adult entertainment”. His girlfriend worked as an “escort” and his brother, who also worked in the business, had a sexual charge brought against him.Within a couple of days the father was knocking on the grandmother’s door and took the girls kicking and screaming to California. The father developed an unusual relationship with the former foster parents and soon moved back to the southeast, and the foster parents began driving to the father’s residence and picking up the little girls for visits. The oldest child had told her mother and grandmother on two different occasions that the foster father molested her.To this day after five years, this loving, caring blood relative grandmother does not even have visitation privileges with the children.
The little girls are in my opinion permanently traumatized and the young mother of the girls was so traumatized with shock when the girls were first removed from her that she has not recovered.Throughout this case and through the process of dealing with multiple other mismanaged cases of the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS), I have worked with other desperate parents and children across the state because they have no rights and no one with whom to turn. I have witnessed ruthless behavior from many caseworkers, social workers, investigators, lawyers, judges, therapists, and others such as those who “pick up” the children. I have been stunned by what I have seen and heard from victims all over the state of Georgia.In this report, I am focusing on the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS). However, I believe Child Protective Services nationwide has become corrupt and that the entire system is broken almost beyond repair. I am convinced parents and families should be warned of the dangers.The Department of Child Protective Services, known as the Department of Family and Children Service (DFCS) in Georgia and other titles in other states, has become a “protected empire” built on taking children and separating families. This is not to say that there are not those children who do need to be removed from wretched situations and need protection.
This report is concerned with the children and parents caught up in “legal kidnapping,” ineffective policies, and DFCS who do does not remove a child or children when a child is enduring torment and abuse. (See Exhibit A and Exhibit B) In one county in my District, I arranged a meeting for thirty-seven families to speak freely and without fear. These poor parents and grandparents spoke of their painful, heart wrenching encounters with DFCS. Their suffering was overwhelming. They wept and cried. Some did not know where their children were and had not seen them in years. I had witnessed the “Gestapo” at work and I witnessed the deceitful conditions under which children were taken in the middle of the night, out of hospitals, off of school buses, and out of homes. In one county a private drug testing business was operating within the DFCS department that required many, many drug tests from parents and individuals for profit. In another county children were not removed when they were enduring the worst possible abuse.
Due to being exposed, several employees in a particular DFCS office were fired. However, they have now been rehired either in neighboring counties or in the same county again. According to the calls I am now receiving, the conditions in that county are returning to the same practices that they had before the light was shown on their deeds.Having worked with probably 300 cases statewide, I am convinced there is no responsibility and no accountability in the system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Yt-OzyD3g <-- click this to watch senator schaefers video.
November 16, 2007
THE CORRUPT BUSINESS OF CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICESBY: Nancy Schaefer
Senator, 50th DistrictMy introduction into child protective service cases was due to a grandmother in an adjoining state who called me with her tragic story. Her two granddaughters had been taken from her daughter who lived in my district. Her daughter was told wrongly that if she wanted to see her children again she should sign a paper and give up her children.
Frightened and young, the daughter did. I have since discovered that parents are often threatened into cooperation of permanent separation of their children.The children were taken to another county and placed in foster care. The foster parents were told wrongly that they could adopt the children. The grandmother then jumped through every hoop known to man in order to get her granddaughters. When the case finally came to court it was made evident by one of the foster parent’s children that the foster parents had, at any given time, 18 foster children and that the foster mother had an inappropriate relationship with the caseworker.In the courtroom, the juvenile judge, acted as though she was shocked and said the two girls would be removed quickly. They were not removed.
Finally, after much pressure being applied to the Department of Family and Children Services of Georgia (DFCS), the children were driven to South Georgia to meet their grandmother who gladly drove to meet them.After being with their grandmother two or three days, the judge, quite out of the blue, wrote up a new order to send the girls to their father, who previously had no interest in the case and who lived on the West Coast.
The father was in “adult entertainment”. His girlfriend worked as an “escort” and his brother, who also worked in the business, had a sexual charge brought against him.Within a couple of days the father was knocking on the grandmother’s door and took the girls kicking and screaming to California. The father developed an unusual relationship with the former foster parents and soon moved back to the southeast, and the foster parents began driving to the father’s residence and picking up the little girls for visits. The oldest child had told her mother and grandmother on two different occasions that the foster father molested her.To this day after five years, this loving, caring blood relative grandmother does not even have visitation privileges with the children.
The little girls are in my opinion permanently traumatized and the young mother of the girls was so traumatized with shock when the girls were first removed from her that she has not recovered.Throughout this case and through the process of dealing with multiple other mismanaged cases of the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS), I have worked with other desperate parents and children across the state because they have no rights and no one with whom to turn. I have witnessed ruthless behavior from many caseworkers, social workers, investigators, lawyers, judges, therapists, and others such as those who “pick up” the children. I have been stunned by what I have seen and heard from victims all over the state of Georgia.In this report, I am focusing on the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS). However, I believe Child Protective Services nationwide has become corrupt and that the entire system is broken almost beyond repair. I am convinced parents and families should be warned of the dangers.The Department of Child Protective Services, known as the Department of Family and Children Service (DFCS) in Georgia and other titles in other states, has become a “protected empire” built on taking children and separating families. This is not to say that there are not those children who do need to be removed from wretched situations and need protection.
This report is concerned with the children and parents caught up in “legal kidnapping,” ineffective policies, and DFCS who do does not remove a child or children when a child is enduring torment and abuse. (See Exhibit A and Exhibit B) In one county in my District, I arranged a meeting for thirty-seven families to speak freely and without fear. These poor parents and grandparents spoke of their painful, heart wrenching encounters with DFCS. Their suffering was overwhelming. They wept and cried. Some did not know where their children were and had not seen them in years. I had witnessed the “Gestapo” at work and I witnessed the deceitful conditions under which children were taken in the middle of the night, out of hospitals, off of school buses, and out of homes. In one county a private drug testing business was operating within the DFCS department that required many, many drug tests from parents and individuals for profit. In another county children were not removed when they were enduring the worst possible abuse.
Due to being exposed, several employees in a particular DFCS office were fired. However, they have now been rehired either in neighboring counties or in the same county again. According to the calls I am now receiving, the conditions in that county are returning to the same practices that they had before the light was shown on their deeds.Having worked with probably 300 cases statewide, I am convinced there is no responsibility and no accountability in the system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Yt-OzyD3g <-- click this to watch senator schaefers video.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
False Allegations- epetition response. From UK Gov
Thursday 9 April 2009
FalseAllegation - epetition response
We received a petition asking:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to introduce a new offence of ‘Making a False Allegation’, punishable by a MINIMUM (not maximum) sentence of one year in prison and a recommendation that any sentence passed down should more closely match what the falsely accused person may have faced had they been wrongly found guilty.”
Details of Petition:
“If (for example) A makes a false allegation of rape against B, B can be sentenced to up to 8 years in prison if found guilty, but if A is found guilty of making that false allegation, they will generally receive less than a year and even this is often suspended so they don’t actually end up in prison. Technically the false accuser can be found guilty of Perverting the Course of Justice (maximum sentence of LIFE) but judges simply don’t hand down very large sentences for false accusers despite being allowed to. Having a MINIMUM sentence of a year with a recommendation that any sentence passed down should more closely match what the falsely accused person may have faced had they been wrongly found guilty should deter more people from making false allegations and properly punish those who flout the law. Murder already carries a MINIMUM sentence of LIFE so minimum sentences are clearly allowed in law.”
· Read the petition· Petitions homepage
Read the Government’s response
Thank you for your e-petition asking for the creation of a new offence of “making a false allegation”, punishable with a minimum sentence of one year in prison and a sentence more closely matching what the falsely accused person may have received had they been found guilty.
It is a serious matter for anyone to make a false allegation that a criminal offence has been committed, and there are a range of offences to deal with those who might seek to pursue such allegations, including the offences of perverting the course of justice, wasting police time and perjury. The latter carries a maximum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment, and the courts have consistently held that a custodial sentence is appropriate for deliberate perjury in the face of the court. The decision to investigate a possible offence against the administration of justice is a matter for the police. Within these parameters, sentencing decisions in individual cases are a matter for the courts, who will make their decision based on the facts of the offence and the offender, taking into account any aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
There are also other important safeguards in the criminal justice system against the conviction of the innocent, including the presumption of innocence, the high standard of proof whereby it is for the prosecution to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, the right to legal representation, and the right to call any witnesses to challenge and test evidence through cross-examination. In order to ensure that anyone who is wrongly convicted can have this injustice righted, there is also the right to seek leave to appeal against conviction or sentence.
We are not planning to make the suggested legislative changes. The police have a responsibility to make detailed investigations where allegations are made of serious offences. If their investigation results in what the police regard as sufficient evidence, they will refer the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for a decision as to whether the case meets the evidential and public interest tests for prosecution. Before the police decide to refer a case and when the CPS considers it, both authorities have to consider the nature of the evidence before them, and they will take account of any indications that false allegations may have been made against the individual accused of the crime.
There are a limited number of serious offences that attract minimum sentences, including murder; but offences relating to the making of false accusations are not included.
FalseAllegation - epetition response
We received a petition asking:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to introduce a new offence of ‘Making a False Allegation’, punishable by a MINIMUM (not maximum) sentence of one year in prison and a recommendation that any sentence passed down should more closely match what the falsely accused person may have faced had they been wrongly found guilty.”
Details of Petition:
“If (for example) A makes a false allegation of rape against B, B can be sentenced to up to 8 years in prison if found guilty, but if A is found guilty of making that false allegation, they will generally receive less than a year and even this is often suspended so they don’t actually end up in prison. Technically the false accuser can be found guilty of Perverting the Course of Justice (maximum sentence of LIFE) but judges simply don’t hand down very large sentences for false accusers despite being allowed to. Having a MINIMUM sentence of a year with a recommendation that any sentence passed down should more closely match what the falsely accused person may have faced had they been wrongly found guilty should deter more people from making false allegations and properly punish those who flout the law. Murder already carries a MINIMUM sentence of LIFE so minimum sentences are clearly allowed in law.”
· Read the petition· Petitions homepage
Read the Government’s response
Thank you for your e-petition asking for the creation of a new offence of “making a false allegation”, punishable with a minimum sentence of one year in prison and a sentence more closely matching what the falsely accused person may have received had they been found guilty.
It is a serious matter for anyone to make a false allegation that a criminal offence has been committed, and there are a range of offences to deal with those who might seek to pursue such allegations, including the offences of perverting the course of justice, wasting police time and perjury. The latter carries a maximum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment, and the courts have consistently held that a custodial sentence is appropriate for deliberate perjury in the face of the court. The decision to investigate a possible offence against the administration of justice is a matter for the police. Within these parameters, sentencing decisions in individual cases are a matter for the courts, who will make their decision based on the facts of the offence and the offender, taking into account any aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
There are also other important safeguards in the criminal justice system against the conviction of the innocent, including the presumption of innocence, the high standard of proof whereby it is for the prosecution to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, the right to legal representation, and the right to call any witnesses to challenge and test evidence through cross-examination. In order to ensure that anyone who is wrongly convicted can have this injustice righted, there is also the right to seek leave to appeal against conviction or sentence.
We are not planning to make the suggested legislative changes. The police have a responsibility to make detailed investigations where allegations are made of serious offences. If their investigation results in what the police regard as sufficient evidence, they will refer the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for a decision as to whether the case meets the evidential and public interest tests for prosecution. Before the police decide to refer a case and when the CPS considers it, both authorities have to consider the nature of the evidence before them, and they will take account of any indications that false allegations may have been made against the individual accused of the crime.
There are a limited number of serious offences that attract minimum sentences, including murder; but offences relating to the making of false accusations are not included.
Grandparents in children's lives.
Best leave kids with grandparents'
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1237937
Grandparents are positive force for distressed kids
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/09/content_10977350.htm
Grandparents found be a stabilizing source for kids, especially those in turmoil
http://www.examiner.com/x-5092-Denver-Family-Health-Examiner~y2009m3d7-Grandparents-found-be-a-stabilizing-source-for-kids-especially-those-in-turmoil
The season for grandparents.
http://gerwick.blogspot.com/2009/03/tis-season-for-grandparents.html
Grandparents mentor UA students
http://media.wildcat.arizona.edu/media/storage/paper997/news/2009/03/09/News/Grandparents.Mentor.Ua.Students-3665248.shtml
This is a cracker.
Scottish minister denounces 'chuck-it-away' society and urges darning of socks
http://grumpyspindoctor.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-roseanna-cunnigham-never-became-snp.html
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1237937
Grandparents are positive force for distressed kids
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/09/content_10977350.htm
Grandparents found be a stabilizing source for kids, especially those in turmoil
http://www.examiner.com/x-5092-Denver-Family-Health-Examiner~y2009m3d7-Grandparents-found-be-a-stabilizing-source-for-kids-especially-those-in-turmoil
The season for grandparents.
http://gerwick.blogspot.com/2009/03/tis-season-for-grandparents.html
Grandparents mentor UA students
http://media.wildcat.arizona.edu/media/storage/paper997/news/2009/03/09/News/Grandparents.Mentor.Ua.Students-3665248.shtml
This is a cracker.
Scottish minister denounces 'chuck-it-away' society and urges darning of socks
http://grumpyspindoctor.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-roseanna-cunnigham-never-became-snp.html
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Free Paringting Apart Workshops
These are ‘one-off’ workshops. They offer a mixture of information and exercises and give plenty of opportunities for participants to learn from each other and share experience.
Topics covered include: the impact of separation on children, including issues that may arise for them when parents live apart; what to say to children about the break up and about the other parent; how best to support children; and how best to manage communication with the other parent.
People seem to get a lot from the workshops and particularly appreciate the opportunity to talk with others in the same – or opposite! – situation.
Oxfordshire Family Mediation
125 London Road
Headington
Oxford
OX3 9HZ
Tel: 01865 741781
Fax: 01865 744393
Website: http://www.ofm.org.uk/
Topics covered include: the impact of separation on children, including issues that may arise for them when parents live apart; what to say to children about the break up and about the other parent; how best to support children; and how best to manage communication with the other parent.
People seem to get a lot from the workshops and particularly appreciate the opportunity to talk with others in the same – or opposite! – situation.
Oxfordshire Family Mediation
125 London Road
Headington
Oxford
OX3 9HZ
Tel: 01865 741781
Fax: 01865 744393
Website: http://www.ofm.org.uk/
The Great things about grandparents.
The Irish Times
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The great things about grandparents
PADRAIG O'MORAIN
Grandparents are a great source of stability, friendship and guidance for their grandchildren
WHEN WE think of grandparents’ involvement with their children, we often think of the experience as primarily being one that meets the grandparents’ needs. The doting grandparent seems to get more out of the transaction than the child. But there is now a whole body of information, including some very interesting new research from the UK, suggesting that the main beneficiaries are the children themselves.
This is especially so, it seems, where the parent with whom the children are living is a lone parent or where they live in stepfamilies.
A stepfamily is one in which only one of the parents is the biological parent. The UK research was in relation to adolescents.
In fact, the research suggests that schools, courts, social workers and other institutions should be very anxious indeed to promote the role of grandparents in relation to children.
Not only do grandparents provide friendship and guidance for their grandchildren but they can also be a continuous presence in the life of the child and thereby provide stability as parents are splitting up or changing partners.
Grandparents also operate as an influence on the behaviour of the parents, encouraging them to act in ways that are good for the children.
With people living longer and with the traditional family in decline (at least for now), grandparents are becoming more and more important in the lives of their grandchildren.
I suppose we might all assume that the children who benefit most from the involvement of grandparents are those who are living in lone-parent families. Not so. To my surprise, it is the children living in stepfamilies who are most likely to benefit from the ongoing involvement of grandparents, according to the research.
This has obvious implications for a society like ours in which the break up of marriages and the formation of new families is increasingly common.
It suggests that in stepfamilies the children are at greater risk of maladjustment or of having emotional difficulties than in lone-parent families. The antidote, if you like, is to ensure that the children’s biological grandparents remain involved with them.
From time to time we hear of the pain of grandparents excluded from involvement in the lives of their grandchildren following a marriage break-up.
What the research suggests is that such a situation is not just painful and unfair – it’s also plain stupid.
It removes from the grandchildren a support which could stand to them for the rest of their lives and without which they could suffer. As a general rule – perhaps too general – girls tend to have emotional difficulties where boys tend to have conduct difficulties. Of course, children in all sorts of families can have such difficulties. Therefore, in all sorts of families, involvement by grandparents should be encouraged but this is especially so in relation to children in stepfamilies and lone-parent families.
UK research also suggests that it is in the grandparents whom children confide most in the emotionally painful weeks after their parents separate.
Generally speaking, the grandchildren in such cases are more likely to be closer to their maternal than to their paternal grandparents. This presumably is because custody of the children almost always goes to the mother.
Closeness to paternal grandparents seems to be especially helpful to girls, less so to boys. And closeness to grandparents also tends to lessen the likelihood of depression. Grandparents care for their grandchildren, they play with them, they advise them and they befriend them. No wonder, therefore, that a relationship with grandparents is of such great importance to children.
Grandparents also occupy a unique role in relation to the child’s parents.
In the child’s eyes, the grandparent is more powerful than the parent because the grandparent is the parent’s parent.
At the same time, the grandparent may be inclined to indulge the child more than his or her own father or mother might do. Therefore, the child will see the grandparent as very much on his or her own side and, at the same time, see this person as an authority figure to be treated with respect.
The British study involving 1,500 secondary school children from England and Wales is published in the Journal of Family Psychology.
Padraig O’Morain is a counsellor. His book, That’s Men the best of the That’s Men column from The Irish Times , is published by Veritas
This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The great things about grandparents
PADRAIG O'MORAIN
Grandparents are a great source of stability, friendship and guidance for their grandchildren
WHEN WE think of grandparents’ involvement with their children, we often think of the experience as primarily being one that meets the grandparents’ needs. The doting grandparent seems to get more out of the transaction than the child. But there is now a whole body of information, including some very interesting new research from the UK, suggesting that the main beneficiaries are the children themselves.
This is especially so, it seems, where the parent with whom the children are living is a lone parent or where they live in stepfamilies.
A stepfamily is one in which only one of the parents is the biological parent. The UK research was in relation to adolescents.
In fact, the research suggests that schools, courts, social workers and other institutions should be very anxious indeed to promote the role of grandparents in relation to children.
Not only do grandparents provide friendship and guidance for their grandchildren but they can also be a continuous presence in the life of the child and thereby provide stability as parents are splitting up or changing partners.
Grandparents also operate as an influence on the behaviour of the parents, encouraging them to act in ways that are good for the children.
With people living longer and with the traditional family in decline (at least for now), grandparents are becoming more and more important in the lives of their grandchildren.
I suppose we might all assume that the children who benefit most from the involvement of grandparents are those who are living in lone-parent families. Not so. To my surprise, it is the children living in stepfamilies who are most likely to benefit from the ongoing involvement of grandparents, according to the research.
This has obvious implications for a society like ours in which the break up of marriages and the formation of new families is increasingly common.
It suggests that in stepfamilies the children are at greater risk of maladjustment or of having emotional difficulties than in lone-parent families. The antidote, if you like, is to ensure that the children’s biological grandparents remain involved with them.
From time to time we hear of the pain of grandparents excluded from involvement in the lives of their grandchildren following a marriage break-up.
What the research suggests is that such a situation is not just painful and unfair – it’s also plain stupid.
It removes from the grandchildren a support which could stand to them for the rest of their lives and without which they could suffer. As a general rule – perhaps too general – girls tend to have emotional difficulties where boys tend to have conduct difficulties. Of course, children in all sorts of families can have such difficulties. Therefore, in all sorts of families, involvement by grandparents should be encouraged but this is especially so in relation to children in stepfamilies and lone-parent families.
UK research also suggests that it is in the grandparents whom children confide most in the emotionally painful weeks after their parents separate.
Generally speaking, the grandchildren in such cases are more likely to be closer to their maternal than to their paternal grandparents. This presumably is because custody of the children almost always goes to the mother.
Closeness to paternal grandparents seems to be especially helpful to girls, less so to boys. And closeness to grandparents also tends to lessen the likelihood of depression. Grandparents care for their grandchildren, they play with them, they advise them and they befriend them. No wonder, therefore, that a relationship with grandparents is of such great importance to children.
Grandparents also occupy a unique role in relation to the child’s parents.
In the child’s eyes, the grandparent is more powerful than the parent because the grandparent is the parent’s parent.
At the same time, the grandparent may be inclined to indulge the child more than his or her own father or mother might do. Therefore, the child will see the grandparent as very much on his or her own side and, at the same time, see this person as an authority figure to be treated with respect.
The British study involving 1,500 secondary school children from England and Wales is published in the Journal of Family Psychology.
Padraig O’Morain is a counsellor. His book, That’s Men the best of the That’s Men column from The Irish Times , is published by Veritas
This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)