Uncertain Family in Uncertain Times: What Do We Know About Families of Children Living Outside the Biological Family?

Uncertain family in uncertain times. What we know about family with children out-of-home? Annotation: This article has two chapters. The first chapter deals with statistical data about the development of the number of children in danger in relation to fertility. The next indicator is a study of families of children who live outside their family. I try to identify traits of families whose children were taken away. The second chapter is focused on the challenges this situation brings for social workers and for society. These challenges are formulated with Jan Fook’s critical social work method. Families whose children live outside their family have several common features and are divided into different groups. These groups need very different social work approaches. They are new challenges for our society. At the start of this small study, we searched among the current mass of statistical data and evaluations on how it goes in working with children in danger and on reducing the capacity of institutions that work with children in danger. All these data were infused with the claim that we live in a socially uncertain time and that youth leaving children’s homes are youth doomed to criminal behavior.

At present, according to all available economic statistics, the Czech Republic has never been doing as well. Politically sensitive services, such as healthcare, are not dependent on an individual’s income, but on the personnel possibilities of a given region. The boundary of “availability”—that is, convenience for easy access—is guaranteed by the state (Government Regulation No. 307/2012 Sb.).

From the perspective of social security, we are also very well. Overall, according to data from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, (hereinafter MPSV), the standard of living is rising. Living conditions and the amount of goods we can buy are improving (http://www.mpsv.cz/files/351b9b59c2e7d9f7947d1453597e7d0e).

So where do we get the claim of an uncertain time? We work with children in danger; this issue is close to us, and therefore we began searching among various available data and life stories. We tried to interpret specific stories as challenges for social work. In our analysis, we looked for qualitative variables and their interrelationships.

As a tool, we used Jan Fook’s method of deconstruction and reconstruction (Fook 2002:89-114).

Critical deconstruction – analysis and identification of strengths

Number of children in danger by age:

Source: MPSV

Number of children in danger relative to live births:

Source: ÚZIS (Institute of Health Information and Statistics)

Conclusion: The number of children in danger is increasing without any direct proportionality to birth rates. The highest-risk group is children aged 6 to 15. They may not be the most dangerous group, but they are the group that appears most often to us depending on how data are processed.

Main participants in the process

New research questions:

• What are we able to learn about families of children who are our clients?
• In statistics we track data on children, but what is behind the process when a child moves to substitute family care (hereinafter NRP), institutional care, or returns to the biological family?
• What role do social workers in child protection and legal-social offices (hereinafter OSPOD) play in these processes?

We limited these questions to data from Dětské centrum Čtyřlístek, which covers most of the Moravskoslezský Region. It is an institution established by the regional office and provides care for children from birth to age 18, including parent training in child care.

Targeted subquestions structuring the research sample of families and children were set as follows:

1. What is the structure of admitted and discharged children?
2. What is the structure of these children’s parents?
3. Where do children leave the facility to?

Again, we were interested in qualitative data alongside these quantitative values. More specifically, we looked for common characteristics for particular groups.

Research method

To identify family parameters and their internal relational and functional structure, we used a method of tracking qualitative variables. The research sample consisted of the children’s center documentation from 2011 to September 2015. This period was the last one in which we were still able to remember concrete children and thus obtain additional information to the documentation data. We were especially interested in family functioning and the parent-child relationship, childrearing, and family lifestyle.

Practically, this meant sorting children by reason for admission. This sorting proved to be strongly distorting. A subsequent division of child categories was by where they left the facility—to adoption, to NRP or another institutional care, or whether they returned to the biological family. This division proved useful for analyzing the parent-child relationship and the internal functioning of the family.

The methods we used for research inquiry among social workers will be described further.

Results

From the overall statistics, we sorted three basic groups of children and families:

1. Children going into adoption and their families.
2. Children going into some form of NRP or another institutional facility and their families.
3. Children returning to their biological family.

Data from Dětské centrum Čtyřlístek:

Note: By 2015 all newly born children intended for adoption are directed to early foster care.

Ad 1. Children going to adoption. These are children up to 1 year old. These children are placed for adoption due to parental disinterest—this disinterest is the wish to be relieved of parental responsibility and place the child in an adoptive family.

Case study: In March 2013, we accepted a newborn boy at one center because he had been abandoned by his mother in the maternity ward. The mother expressed interest in placing the child in NRP, but in line with §5 of Law 359/1999 on social and legal child protection, work was done with the mother in an effort to “awaken” her interest in the child. At 6 months, the boy was returned to his mother. In June 2014, we admitted another boy to another facility from intensive care after he had been hospitalized due to multiple injuries and a skull fracture. Because of standardized procedures and linked databases between facilities, it was established that it was the same child.

Ad 2. Children going to NRP and children’s home. This group of children and families comprises approximately 30–40% of the total number of discharged children. These are children usually placed in our facility at an age over one year.

From the perspective of parental care and parental competencies, this refers to parents who are aware that the number of children and a feigned interest in caregiving comes with certain economic advantages. They also have experience that as the child grows, responsibilities and the child’s demands on parental involvement grow as well. From a social perspective, these are families where parents are long-term unemployed, have never worked, and have always lived on social benefits. They usually live in hostels, mobile homes, or garden houses. If they live in an apartment, several persons or families live together. In cases where the child is placed in a facility for children requiring immediate assistance (hereinafter ZDVOP), placement into foster care is either welcomed by the parents, or other opportunistic motives are present. Overall, these parents completely lack parental competencies and have no interest in acquiring them. For children, they are more like a friend than a parent who raises them. In Polish literature this phenomenon is called when adults have children (Halińska, 2014: 38-41).

Matoušek describes this group of families as people oriented to the present, who attribute little importance to education, work, and personal development. He describes it as traits of a subculture of excluded people (Matoušek, Pazlarová, 2010: 40). This model is also described in the developmental system by Lorenz (1990), where he warns of risks that are the same both in the animal world and in cultural human groups. If a group isolates itself, after a certain time it is no longer able to be compatible with any other social group of the same kind. A child who leaves this subculture, after a stay in a children’s home or NRP, is expected to return to adulthood and no longer understands this subculture and does not belong there (Lorenz, 1990: 81-90). If a child enters NRP or a children’s home at an older age, the child more often retains the model of life of the original family.

This group also includes families who abuse or sexually abuse their children. These parents then undergo criminal-legal proceedings, and children are placed in NRP or another institutional setting. This group is not the focus of this study.

Case study 1: We admitted a child age 4 in ZDVOP mode at the parents’ request with the consent of the relevant OSPOD. Because the parents showed no interest in the child, institutional care was ordered and the court decided on placement into foster care. The parents accepted this decision by bringing all the toys the child still had at home and saying they did not want to meet the child again during his stay with foster parents. Case study 2: Regularly in spring and autumn, the mother arrives with her daughter and asks to place the child in ZDVOP mode. Officially, she justifies her request by saying she needs a short period of time to arrange her household. At the visit, when she realizes the child is already equipped with new clothing for another half year, she ends her request for the child’s stay and takes the child back into her care.

Ad 3. Children returning to biological family. This group of children and parents proved the most difficult to analyze and process afterwards. The complexity of categorization and processing is rooted above all in parental groups.

Table:

Source: own processing, data as of 30.5.2015

These families have common features:

• Usually there is marked substance abuse; in 90% of cases it involved one parent’s dependence on alcohol, and only about 10% in combination with hard drugs. We usually have minimal information on drug dependence. We most often encounter alcohol use during parent visits.
• They do not resist the child returning to the family and, to some extent, are willing to cooperate in changing their lives and mutual relationship.
• They are willing to cooperate with OSPOD.
• They have work experience.
• Children have minimal (usually no) daily routine—sleep time, mealtimes, shared meals, tooth brushing, and so on.

Different characteristics of families:

1. Families that took the initiative to return the child home:

• In the recent period before the child was removed, the parents were working.
• Children are used to a high standard (only branded clothing, modern phones, demands for electronics, and demands from parents for “special care for the child”); the child has to look “in.”
• They regularly visit the child or at least contact them by phone.
• They are willing to accept the condition of possible addiction treatment, and actively (according to their abilities) seek solutions; they need external motivation.
• Alcohol is not the cause of the child being removed; it is a means of escaping responsibilities.

2. Families where the return of the child to the family was initiated by OSPOD:

• They are aware of their failure and verbalize that they need change.
• They are interested in the child, but in terms of life standard comparison, children are not used to a high standard.
• They do not know how to handle their parental function.
• Returns of children to facilities are frequent; however, in 70% of these admissions, the reason is a parental request for help, and then they again fall into a passive role.
• Alcohol is a means of killing free time.
• Motivation alone is not enough to bring about change; they need support in carrying out change.

In further analyses, I will focus primarily on parents from these last two groups and social workers.

Dominant phenomena

Jan Fook deals with dominant phenomena and calls them resistance—asking about the dominant phenomena that unfold in the entire story. One key phenomenon is the ability to cope with stressful situations (Fook, 2002:89).

Simona Hoskovcová, in her book Psychická odolnost předškolního dítěte, addresses very important skills of children that are called resilience. Their skills help them handle stressful and high-pressure situations in adulthood. She places particular emphasis, according to J. Rotter’s theory, on the skill of control over the course of events (locus of control). According to Rotter, there are two extreme groups of people. One group, who act from their own resources and positive self-evaluation, perceive life obstacles as a challenge to overcome. This group is called “people with an internal locus of control” (Hoskovcová, 2006:47). At the other end of the spectrum are people who do not process stressful situations; she calls them people with “learned helplessness.” They passively wait for the problem to resolve on its own or for someone to come and solve their life. People dependent on addictive substances function similarly.

In our study overview, these are the parent groups:

Ad1. Parents who initiate the child’s return to the family. According to our information, these are parents who for a certain period manage their lives and care for their children without support; they have parental competencies. Because of a certain adverse situation—late salary payment, an unfavorable loan—they fall into prolonged stress, which secondarily may bring relationship conflict, and then they start handling problems with alcohol. Due to alcohol dependence, they move externally into a situation typical of families with learned helplessness and inadequate parental competence.

As another specific feature of these families, we found that, following marketing strategies and social expectations—especially that of peer groups, where what you have on your back matters—they try to give children branded clothing and mobile phones as the latest technological extras. They want, at all costs, to ensure their children are “in.”

This personally-parental demand for a high lifestyle for their children, together with lower household income, makes their lives very uncertain and stressful.

Ad.2 Parents whose child’s return is initiated by OSPOD. These families appear at first glance similar to the group above. Matoušek describes them as multi-problem families (Matoušek, Koláčková, Kodymová, 2005: 75). In outward expressions, these personalities are described by Hoskovcová as people lacking three basic characteristics: - Comprehensibility of the situation - Meaningfulness of the struggle - Manageability of the task

From the perspective of parental competence, their competencies are minimal; they cannot manage their parental role. Towards their children, they generally care and are concerned, but feel completely lost in the life situation before them.

Situation of the social worker

A social worker is one of the other dominant phenomena in the whole situation of helping families with children. Here arise situations such as workload, self-understanding (Heidegger, 1993:45), and expectations from superiors and control authorities.

Social workers’ skills also include their approach to difficulties—locus of control, but above all dispositional optimism and mastery experience in handling tasks (Hoskovcová, 2006:49).

A social worker’s personal attitude to life, personal priorities, and professional skills together with professional achievements give them a very strong position in the SPOD and family support system. I personally believe they must feel safe in their position and function expected by society. This personal safety is tied to access to the tools for performing their role.

We carried out a small survey among social workers at OSPOD offices in Opava, Bruntál, Frýdek-Místek, Havířov, and Karviná.

Forty-six percent of those asked responded. The questionnaire mapped personal attitudes to work, views on children in danger, time for personal life, and expectations of management.

Results

• Family and children in danger: The number of children in danger is increasing – Yes – 67%, No – 7%, stable – 26%
• Family poverty is increasing: Yes – 86%
• Poverty as a cause of an “inappropriate parent-child relationship” – 6.6%
• Social worker and employer: Increase in agenda – Yes - 100%
• Would you welcome telework with remote file access? Yes – 43%, No – 57%
• They already have the possibility to finish case files from home – yes - 8%, but all these respondents stated in the next question that this option has no benefit for their personal and professional life. A further 35% answered that they think remote access will not benefit their lives. None of the respondents think that such remote work would help their personal or professional life. In one case, a female employee would welcome working from home—for example, on Friday, when she works and handles administrative tasks at home and is not reachable and interrupted by phone calls at work.
• Another question mapped employer expectations: Do you have a service phone? Yes – 73%. Of that number, 83% of respondents stated that this service phone number is also available to their clients, and 50% of those respondents stated that this service phone must remain available after their working hours (employer requirement).
• Work and personal life: Question on personal overload: Yes – 80%, No – 14%, no answer – 6%; at the same time, however, they report having time for their family in 40% of cases, but only in 40% of cases have time for their hobbies and interests.

Survey results

OSPOD workers perceive their role in the social work system as highly overloaded, where in many cases the employer-employee relationship has also expanded into the private sphere (the necessity of telephone availability in free time for clients, completing files during free time). We believe that the increase in workload also brings the “desire” for the possibility of completing work from home, but none of those who have this option see a benefit.

Reconstruction - risks for social workers

An excessive tendency to meet the expectations of society, clients, and oneself. These expectations also include the three categories mentioned above, which are in a sense destabilizing: 1. The group of families whose children go into institutional care and NRP. By their attitude to life, they despise the social values we hold. Their basic message is that someone will take care of them. They affect us, social workers, by clearly stating the question: Why are you chasing this? Isn’t it better to let society support you? They do not need any help from a social worker. Their lifestyle and professed values are entirely consistent with the child leaving the family. 2. The group of families willing to care for their children but needing support—the groups that initiate the child’s return to the family. These families need a certain level of psychotherapy or other psychological help to reset their relationship to lifestyle, child-rearing influence on children, and addictive substances. They need a much greater level of support from social services—stabilizing household finances, work stability, and the like. Support from social services must necessarily be longer in time. It should begin with practicing rules of family internal functioning and regularity in the child’s routine. 3. The group of parents where the child’s return is initiated mainly by OSPOD. These are parents who primarily need psychotherapy to manage their parental role. Techniques for working with this type of family are very well described and discussed in the book Sociální práce v praxi: specifika různých cílových skupin a práce s nimi. In this book, the authors describe that work with such a family is more therapeutic than social. Therapeutic work is strongly focused on the internal climate of the family and self-conception of individuals and of the whole family. Again, work is needed here on introducing order and family rituals. 4. Overloaded social worker. It is easy to lose control over one’s own life. As a social worker and citizen, I am included in many demands. Risk arises where my personal values become replaced by social and professional values. Having a computer, service phone, remote access is a major employment benefit. At the same time, there is a high risk of a situation where I devote myself to work matters (because society, the client, the employer require it) at the expense of my personal life and my own life values. The risk of aggression rises sharply—towards oneself, a client, or colleagues. This is pressure to adopt the role demanded of a social worker by the employer and then by society (Payne, 2014)

Case study of social expectations of role: My friend’s daughter graduated from medical faculty, married a doctor, and moved to Sweden, where both work in a hospital. The woman is pregnant for the second time and strongly wishes to stay on maternity and parental leave for as long as possible. Her husband, however, cannot accept her wish because the social expectation is that both partners alternate parental leave. He himself evaluates this situation by saying that if he does not take parental leave, he will have to leave his job, as he would be committing a socially unacceptable act.

Conclusion

The results of the different perspectives on the situation of families with a child in danger, using the critical method, open an entire range of possible views on the whole situation. Above all, there is the perspective mentioned by Fook in his book—finding a solution that strengthens all involved parties, not one at the expense of another. If we strengthen only families in danger, we will likely do so at the expense of social workers’ personal lives, at the expense of the development of children in danger and their families. From our experience—experience from the internal workings of the institution—it follows that developing the personality of the frontline worker—in this case the social worker—leads to development in parents’ qualities, and to the following possible scenarios. Social workers set clear boundaries in interaction:

• Social worker – family receiving social service
• Social worker – demands of society
• Social worker – employer
• Social worker toward self and personal values

Family receiving social service and therapeutic help:

• Gaining the possibility to experience professional pride as a social worker while also setting clear limits regarding clear working hours
• Gaining the possibility to experience family pride and their own individuality
• Defending themselves against consumer marketing demands

Social workers will need new tools to help:

• Psychotherapeutic help for families
• New educational and diagnostic methods
• Groups for self-experience of social workers

The current era is not inherently worse, better, or uncertain. Through our personal and professional ways of life, we make it uncertain or certain, worse or better.

Author: Mgr. Petr Fabián The author is currently a doctoral student at Komenský University in Bratislava, at the Faculty of Education, Department of Social Work. He also works at Dětské centrum Čtyřlístek, which provides health and social services for children and families from birth to age 18 in the Moravskoslezský Region. He is concerned with the quality of social and health services, including elements affecting service provision. References:

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periodicals:

Halińska Maria; DZIECI DOROSŁYCH DZIECI, CHARAKTERY, magazyn posychologiczny, Kielce: Charaktery roč. 2014, č. 7, str. 38-41, ISSN 1427-695x,

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