This research focuses on dinner conversations in family-style group care. Children, who cannot live with their biological families anymore, are given shelter in these family-style group care settings. For the development of an attachment relationship between children and their Professional Foster Parents (PFPs), it is important that the children feel that they are listened to in order to get an affective and intimate relationship with the parents. In this conversation-analytic research we analysed PFPs’ involvement in multiple activities simultaneously, namely listening and eating, which is referred to as ‘multi-activity’. The analyses have shown systematic ways in which PFPs coordinate their involvement in the activities of ‘doing’ listening and eating, which are (i) when parents avert their gaze from the telling child, they break the social rule which states that hearers need to look at speakers during the telling. We found that when averting their gaze, PFPs do head nods and linguistic means or positioning their bodies in the direction of the telling child. This research contributes to knowledge about interaction between adolescents and PFPs. It further contributes to knowledge about how human beings are able to coordinate multiple activities simultaneously. This is the accepted version (post-print) of the article.
Out-of-home placed children or adolescents can be placed in family-style group care, a promising alternative youth care setting. It provides children and Professional Foster Parents (PFPs) with the opportunity to create a continuous relationship. This relationship, in turn, is an important factor in building and maintaining attachment. Scientific literature shows that sensitivity and responsivity are crucial interactional elements for building and maintaining an attachment relationship, but little knowledge is available on how those concepts are displayed in mundane interactions. Therefore this dissertation studies dinner conversations between experienced PFPs and adolescents in family-style group care to find out how sensitivity and responsivity unfold in these conversations. The data consist of 300 hours of videorecordings coming from six family-style group care settings. The method of Conversation Analysis was used to analyse the conversations in detail. On the basis of four studies a better understanding is gained into how the dyadic concepts sensitivity and responsivity are displayed in daily interactions between PFPs and adolescents in family-style group care. The analysis of these specific phenomena disclose the PFPadolescent interaction from different perspectives: the verbal and non-verbal actions of both PFPs and adolescents and how PFPs and adolescents align. In short, this dissertation provides a detailed analysis of interaction and improves the understanding of the dyadic concepts sensitivity and responsivity. It reveals that adolescents are active participants in interactions and shows that PFPs are inventive in their conversations with the adolescents.
PurposeSexuality and relationships education (SRE) often do not accommodate the needs of vulnerable young people in child and youth social care, (school) social work, and residential or foster care, leaving professionals in these fields a vital role in delivering SRE to these young people. This scoping review examines what competencies professionals need to facilitate adequate guidance and education about sexuality and relationships in their work with vulnerable children and young people.MethodsWe conducted a systematic literature search in five databases – PsychINFO, Eric, Medline, CINAHL and Social Services Abstracts – for articles published between 1991 and 2021 on March 6, 2021, using a set of predefined search strings. Articles on sexuality and relationship education (SRE) or sexual health, related to competencies of (future) professionals and published in English were included.ResultsOur review revealed a range of competencies that professionals may need, such as providing basic prevention, dealing with children struggling with their sexual orientation, handling disclosure of sexual abuse or dealing with problematic sexualized behavior (often combinations of the above), but also supporting young people in exploring positive aspects of relationships and sexuality.ConclusionSRE is an integral part of the work of professionals in child and youth social care. Wider organizational and educational commitment is needed for implementation of SRE to facilitate a safe environment for diverse young people.
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