RE: Couples working with children: safeguarding issues

[<F.Schultz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 I am not sure exactly what you are looking for, but in California we
have "foster family agency" homes in which a adult couple works with a
child or children in out of home care under the intensive supervision
and case management of a social worker.  The child lives in their home.
We use these agency homes for children with more challenging placement
needs than our usual foster families are prepared to deal with.  We pay
the agency, which provides the recruitment, training and extra
supervision for these families, rather than working directly with the
family.

We also have "therapeutic foster families" in which WE  have specially
trained and recruited foster parents with special, but short term
training in child development and parenting psychology who are foster
parents to children we have designated as having very special needs: a
behavioral or handicapping physical condition, or both.  We contract
with a community mental health agency to help us recruit the parents and
to provide special support for these families.  We pay a supplemental
stipend to the foster parents to help them deal with the challenges
above the usual foster care rates per month. The goal is to give the
challenged child a therapeutic "milieu" in a family prepared for some
challenges, with extra resources to deal with them - mental health and
public health nursing.  The parents are not "therapists" but provide a
home environment and attachment support which supports the goals of the
mental and physical health care the child is receiving.

In contradistinction, these "family" homes are different from "group
homes" in which there is no putative "parent/couple" environment,
although there is supposed to be a therapeutic program or regime of
special benefit to the child we have placed there, often behavior
modification programs - intended to bring a child's behavior under
sufficient control/tolerability to return to a home setting and stay
there.  Only children who are not able to be cared for safely in a
family home-like environment are placed in these group home settings.
We have several levels of care/risk for group homes, and use a
multidisciplinary placement committee including mental health clinicians
to make the placement decision where higher level group care is being
considered.  

Do these categories of care (for family homes)represent some of what
you are looking for information about?

Freya J. Schultz
Staff Analyst
Santa Barbara County Social Services
234 Camino del Remedio
Santa Barbara, CA 93110
805-681-4626
Fax 681-4403
email f.schultz@sbcsocialserv.org

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
[mailto:owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu] On Behalf Of
Hollows, Anne E
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 4:27 AM
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
Subject: Couples working with children: safeguarding issues


I have been asked by a national church organisation to establish whether
there is any research/policy guidance on the suitability of couples
(married or otherwise) working with groups of children and young people
where a thrid party is not present.

Dr Anne Hollows
Health and Social Care Research Institute Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield UK