Zoekresultaten

Safeguarding young people in care

Over the last decade, many (European) countries have created special committees or conducted special investigations into the occurrence of sexual abuse in residential and/or foster care. Many of these studies concluded that children and young people in care are at a greater risk of being sexually abused, compared to youth growing up at home. However, the extent and scope of sexual abuse which has historically occurred in residential and/or foster care remains contested and is highly controversial. Although a broad range of factors are involved, one issue that is of crucial importance in the prevention of sexual abuse is paying attention to the healthy sexual development of children and young people in care. This sounds easy, but it isn’t easy at all. Ideas about relationships, intimacy and healthy sexual development differ between people and countries. It’s a sensitive subject that many professionals working in care find difficult to talk about. As most professionals working in care in Europe graduate from schools of Social Work, social work education should prepare (future) professionals to address this issue. Although some authors have addressed this issue, in general, social work education does not pay sufficient attention to the subject. This project aims to help (future) professionals build competencies on this specific subject by providing the following products:1. An international summer school on the subject of sex and sexuality, for social work students.2. An online course on the subject of sex and sexuality for professionals working in residential care or working with foster parents.3. A website with materials for European lecturers who teach future social workers on the subject of sex and sexuality.4. A reflection instrument as a tool for on-the-job training on the subject.These products are based on a set of practice based core competencies that professionals should develop in order to be able to provide care and upbringing on the theme of sex and sexuality. Next to that five central themes were used to order the development of modules.

A Behaviorally Informed Financial Education Program for the Financially Vulnerable: Design and Effectiveness

Financially vulnerable consumers are often associated with suboptimal financial behaviors. Evaluated financial education programs so far show difficulties to effectively reach this target population. In our attempt to solve this problem, we built a behaviorally informed financial education program incorporating insights from both motivational and behavioral change theories. In a quasi-experimental field study among Dutch financially vulnerable people, we compared this program with both a control group and a traditional program group. In comparison with the control group, we found robust positive effects of the behaviorally informed program on financial skills and knowledge and self-reported financial behavior, but not on other outcomes. Additionally, we did not find evidence that the behaviorally informed program performed better than the traditional program. Finally, we discuss the findings and limitations of this study in light of the financial education literature and provide implications for policymaking and directions for future research.

On the bright side

This study explored what contributes to successful family foster care from the perspective of young people by asking them about their most positive memory of family foster care. Forty-four Dutch adolescents and young adults (aged 16–28) participated in this study and shared their most positive memory in a short interview. Their answers were qualitatively analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, supplemented with an analysis of the structure of their memories. The thematic analysis resulted in the themes Belongingness, Receiving support, Normal family life, It is better than before, and Seeing yourself grow. The structural analysis showed that young people both shared memories related to specific events, as well as memories that portrayed how they felt for a prolonged period of time. In addition, young people were inclined to share negative memories alongside the positive memories. These results highlight that, in order to build a sense of belonging, it is important that of foster parents create a normal family environment for foster children and provide continuous support. Moreover, the negative memories shared by participants are discussed in light of a bias resulting from earlier traumatic experiences. Accepted Version. Published Version Article at Sage: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1359104520978691

Social exclusion of young homeless people:. The State of Affairs in the Netherlands. A preliminary study for the European research

This is the report on the situation in the Netherlands in the field of youth, young homeless people and unaccompanied minor aliens. The report describes risk factors for children and young people in relation to social exclusion and homelessness. This report forms the first part of the international comparative study ‘CSEYHP’. MOVISIE carries out this three-year study by order of the European Union. The cooperative partners are three universities in: England, the Czech Republic and Portugal. The objectives of ‘Combating Youth Homelessness’ are as follows: 1. to understand the life trajectories of different homeless youth populations in different national contexts; 2. to develop the concepts of risk and social exclusion in relation to the experience of young homeless people and to the reinsertion process; 3. to test how different methods of working contribute to the reinsertion process for young people; 4. to investigate the roles of and relationships between the young person, trusted adults, lead professionals, peer mentors and family members in the delivery of these programmes across all four countries. When preparing the national reports, the three partner countries the Czech Republic, England and Portugal use the same format as used in the Dutch report. Based on the four national reports, England will prepare a comparative report, in which the four national situations will be compared.

Safeguarding young people in care

Competencies for supporting a healthy sexual development of young people in care

This report describes the results of the interviews that were held with professionals, policy makers, and researchers (working in the field of sexuality and/or residential and foster care) in three countries in order to answer the following question: ‘Which competencies (i.e. knowledge, skills, and attitude) do professionals working in care need in order to support healthy sexual development of young people in care? Chapter 3 describes the characteristics of young people growing up in care. Young people in care are generally more vulnerable than their peers living in normal families since they have grown up in unsafe family environments. They are often insecurely attached, have a lack of positive role models and positive sexual experiences, have not grown up with clear norms and values concerning sexuality, have low self-esteem and little knowledge about (healthy) sexuality. This set of characteristics makes them more likely to cross their own boundaries and that of others and to make unhealthy choices with regard to sexuality. Therefore, young people in care have special needs with regard to sexuality that professionals working in care should know about and act upon. To meet the special needs of young people in care, professionals should create a safe environment and be there for the young people, in order to make them feel safe and secure again. In addition, they should act as positive role models, set boundaries, help young people to gain self-confidence, and give them space to have positive sexual experiences and to discover their own norms and values. Professionals working in care should provide sexual education that supports young people in their knowledge, skills, and attitudes concerning sexual development and teaches them to make wise and responsible decisions for themselves. Professionals need to put aside prejudices about boys and girls and treat them equally. Chapter 4 describes opportunities to start a conversation with young people in care about sex, intimacy and relationship and what professionals should teach foster parents. Opportunities to start a conversation with young people in care are: 1. When one of the boys or girls spontaneously starts to talk about sexuality; 2. When young people have discussions about boyfriends, girlfriends, or sex. 3. When young people watch clips on social media in which sexuality plays a role. Important topics to discuss are: healthy sexual behaviour, relationships, wishes, boundaries, making your own decisions, changing behaviour after regretting something, norms and values, and social media. Professionals working in foster care should teach foster parents that: 1. It is their task to speak about this topic with their foster child; 2. They should already start talking about this topic to toddlers; 3. It is normal to have difficulties talking about this topic; 4. They should not only speak about the risks of sex but also about sexual pleasure, desire, love, and respect. Chapter 5 describes the personal characteristics and general competencies that professionals working in care should have in order to support the sexual development of young people in care. These are: 1. Have a high degree of self-awareness concerning their own limits, norms and values, and how this influences the way they work, 2. Know that norms and values are dependent on time and culture, 3. Treat children, young people, and parents with respect, 4. Have a good sense of professional judgment, 5. Feel responsible for one’s actions, 6. Have knowledge about trauma theory. Chapter 6 describes what organisations can do to support healthy sexual development of young people in care. Organisations can do the following on the organizational level: 1. Provide structural resources for training and reflection, 2. Create a safe environment and reflective culture, 3. Create diversity among team members, 4. Create access to experts on the topic of sexuality, 5. Pay attention to competencies during hiring processes, 6. Have organisational and institutional policies on the topic of sexuality, 7. Have organisational structures and tools to support relationships and conversations with young people.Chapter 7 describes factors at the professional, organisational, and societal level that may contribute to sexuality-related difficulties in both residential and foster care. Some of these factors are not specifically related to residential or foster care, such as low self-efficacy of professionals, insufficient time for reflection and negative media influences. Other factors are specifically related to residential care, such as having insufficient possibilities to experiment with sexuality (in residential care) and fear of foster parents being accused (in foster care).