The Problems of the Systems Responsible for Child Wellbeing Essay Example

Considering the purpose of the currently offered research, it is worth stating that it aims to address the problem of differences and similarities between the systems responsible for child wellbeing in the United Kingdom, the United States and Norway. In particular, the effectiveness of these systems of child welfare will be analyzed from the perspective of their capability to address the mental health problems of the children receiving support from their institutions.

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Correspondingly, in order to realize the aim of the current project, it is worth addressing the following research questions providing more exhaustive and detailed analysis in accordance with the aim of the project:

What is the level of research related to the child welfare systems in chosen countries and what is their legal background concerning the child wellbeing?

What are the similarities and differences in terminology related to child wellbeing and how does it reflect the mental health needs of children in the UK, the USA and Norway?

How do the chosen countries respective institutions react to the child mistreatment and how do they address the mental health problems of the children with previous experience of mistreatment?

It should also be mentioned that the currently offered thesis will not only focus specifically on the social aspects of the services provided by child welfare institutions in chosen countries, as the respective paragraphs of the paper will also address the psychiatric and psychological consequences of child maltreatment and the capability of the responsible institutions to address them adequately and effectively. What is more important in this regard, the current topic appears to be significantly under-researched particularly from the psychological perspective, taking into consideration the fact that limited amount of publications is currently addressing the capability of child welfare systems to maintain stable psychological condition of previously mistreated children. This surprising and unpleasant trend in scholarly publications is demonstrated even by the most developed countries in relation to providing effective child welfare services.

Thus, the following research will:

Review the scholarly publications associated with child welfare and protection systems in the UK, the USA and Norway along with related administrative and legal documents in these countries;

Interpret and further analyze the aggregate academic and administrative datasets available in the UK, the USA and Norway in order to figure out respective similarities and differences in defining and reacting to child maltreatment;

Consider the pros and cons of the aforementioned academic and administrative datasets in order to compare the British child welfare and protection policy with the same of the chosen countries.

Despite the fact that rather insufficient number of publications addressed the child welfare services provided by the respective institutions in the United Kingdom with the rest of the countries, increasing attention has been given to the significance of the value of various cross-national investigations and researches aiming to highlight the corresponding strengths and weaknesses in the child protection and welfare systems in chosen countries (Freymond and Cameron, 2006; Gilbert, Parton and Skivenes, 2011; Hetherington,et al., 1997; Stein and Munro, 2008). Such international comparative analyses related to child mistreatment hide great potential to benchmark practices and policies in chosen set of countries against each other. What is more important in this regard, such comparative approach is capable of significantly stimulating the introduction and further development of strategies protecting children from mistreatment and promote their physical and mental wellbeing (Freymond and Cameron, 2006; Hetherington, 1997; Munro et al., 2005).

Nevertheless, it is still worth remembering that the various forms of child abuse and neglect have been receiving considerably less attention in comparison to the overall international estimations of child wellbeing; moreover, even less attention has been given to the mental health issues of the children with previous experience of mistreatment. This appears to be more than significant gap due to the fact that the effects of mistreatment on children cannot be understated (OECD, 2011, p. 246). Administrative datasets related to children receiving care from respective child care providers appear to be convenient and inexpensive source for examining policy relevant questions on a longitudinal as well as cross-sectional basis (Yampolskaya and Banks, 2006, p.343); in addition, they also provide the large sets of data in order to conduct relatively accurate population-based estimations (Drake and JohnsonReid; English, Brandford and Coghlan, 2000; Fluke et al., 2000). From this perspective, it appears more than important to explore the overall role and contribution that the current administrative and academic sets of data can provide in order to understand variations in recognizing and reacting to different forms of mistreatment in different jurisdictions. This appears to be more than important due to the fact that there have been shifts in practice and policy in chosen countries during the recent years; thus, the aforementioned data hide potential to stimulate the exploration of the changes in reacting to child mistreatment along with associated mental consequences between different countries.

Considering the overall methodology of the research, it is worth stating that three countries, the United Kingdom, the United States and Norway were selected for the future thesis. The selection of these countries can be explained by the fact that the preliminary research explicitly demonstrated that the countries provide more than sufficient aggregate academic and administrative data to conduct respective comparisons. This is complemented by the fact that these countries appear to be the leading ones in addressing the child welfare problems and providing adequate child welfare services.

The overall analysis will be conducted according to the approach of hermeneutic phenomenology. It means that the sources and further interpretations provided by the author of the research will be the representation of his personal viewpoint regarding the used sources along with his personal analysis based on these interpretations. Identical definition of such first-person concept is offered by the philosophers and scholars (Rickman & Bleicher, 1982, p. 284). Complemented by the evidence from the respective legal and scholarly sources, the overall level of analysis will be more than adequate from methodological perspective. It provides both personal interpretation of the author of the project regarding the research questions along with the evidence from chosen publications supporting these interpretations.

It is still worth accepting the fact that offering the related information from the rest of the countries was not possible due to the following reasons. Firstly, even taking into consideration the fact that not only the chosen countries are capable of offering sufficient amount of needed data, it should be accepted that the majority of these pieces of data is not published. Secondly, due to a variety of objective reasons, it was also not possible to gather evidence from scholars and administrative workers associated with the research questions. Therefore, such limitations of the research emphasize the difficulties of creating such comparison on international level. Thus, the research will focus only on the aforementioned countries and the data provided by their respective institutions.

The literature review following the research questions and addressing them in full will be conducted based on the sources provided by the literature datasets, including ASSIA, ArticleFirst (OCLC), Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (CSA Illumina), Sociological Abstracts (CSA Illumina), Social Services Abstract (CSA Illumina) combined with the rest bibliographic sources. As for the datasets related to the research questions in the UK, the corresponding publications are provided by the Department of Education, including the documents published in a period from 1999 to 2016 like Referrals, Assessments and Children and Young People who are the subject of a Child Protection Plan, Children In Need in England, including their characteristics and further information on children who were the subject of a child protection plan, Children Looked After by Local Authorities in England (including adoption and care leavers) etc. In the United States, the documentation of the Childrens Bureau will be analyzed and the corresponding statistical publications offered by the Statistics Norway will be used in order to address the state of affairs in Norway.

In addition, 40 articles and publications will be selected in order to address the research questions and provide exhaustive and profound analysis of child welfare systems in chosen countries in accordance with the chosen inclusion criteria. They will be evaluated in accordance with the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP).

Indicative list of references

Archard, D. & Skivenes, M. (2009). Hearing the child. Child & Family Social Work, 14(4), 391-399. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2206.2008.00606.x

Bromfield, L. & Higgins, D. (2004). The limitations of using statutory child protection data for research into child maltreatment. Aust Social Work, 57(1), 19-30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0312-407x.2003.t01-1-00110.x

Gilbert, R., Kemp, A., Thoburn, J., Sidebotham, P., Radford, L., Glaser, D., & MacMillan, H. (2009). Recognising and responding to child maltreatment. The Lancet, 373(9658), 167-180. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(08)61707-9

Hetherington, R. (2006). Learning from difference: Comparing child welfare systems (pp. 27 - 50).

Holmes, L. & Thromund, J. The contribution to child welfare research of robust administrative data on children in need.

Kojan, B. (2011). Norwegian Child Welfare Services: A Successful Program for Protecting and Supporting Vulnerable Children and Parents?. Australian Social Work, 64(4), 443-458. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0312407x.2010.538069

Kosanovich, A. & Joseph, R. (2005). Child welfare consent decrees: Analysis of thirty- five court actions from 1995 to 2005. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America and American Bar Association.

Lister, R. (2006). An agenda for children: Investing in the future or promoting well-being in the present?. In J. Lewis, Children, changing families and welfare states. (1st ed.). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Lord Laming,. (2009). The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report. HCC 330. London: The Stationery Office.

McDermid, S. (2016). The nature and availability of child level data on children in need for use by Childrens Services practitioners and managers. Research, Policy And Planning, 26(3), 183 - 192.

Munro, E. & Manful, E. (2012). Safeguarding children: a comparison of Englands data with that of Australia, Norway and the United States. Department for Education.

Munro, E., Brown, R., & Manful, E. (2011). Safeguarding children statistics: the availability and comparability of data in the UK. London: Department for Education.

Noll, J.G., Trickett, P.K., Harris, W.W. and Putnam, T.W. (2009) e cumulative burden borne by offspring whose mothers were sexually abused as children: Descriptive results from a multigenerational study. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 24, 3, 424449.

Onyskiw, J. E. (2003) Domestic violence and childrens adjustment: A review of research. Journal of Emotional Abuse 3, 1/2, 1145.

Packard, T., Delgad...