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Self-contained child protection – possible ways to open up
178-194Views:99The aim of the research, based on a qualitative methodology, is to gain an understanding of
whether external/affiliated services are provided in child protection system targeting parents or
children and young people with child protection problems. The aim is to examine the extent of a
service focused and innovative approaches in child protection, where is the place and what is the
role of civil services. The study, which based on 15 expert interviews, argues that child protection
is currently characterised by many dysfunctions, as a self-contained and isolated sub-system of
social policy, which not only fails to deliver the basic objectives of child protection in practice, but
in many cases hides structural deficiencies and systemic anomalies. There is a need to explore
new ways of child protection, including the use of volunteering, the services of civil organizations
and broad partnerships. -
Enforcement of Community Approaches in Child Protection Practice: International Trends
70-86Views:32Child protection has changed in important ways on international level in recent years. Child protection as social institution adapts to and follows social change. Global competitions, mobility
of capital and workforce, acceleration of economic processes and interdependence of national
economies, and the economic crises of 2007 has their impact on the operation and workings of
welfare systems. This study examines the trends and tendencies in international child protection practice since the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, what type of child protection
orientations can be distinguished, what kind of characteristics can be described and which way
seems to emerge—as a common challenge—in general in the field of the state’s child protection
activities. The study draws attention to the importance of some topics in international discourse, such as complex needs of the clients, importance of partnerships, support of parenthood and a
range of professional skills and competences to achieve these goals. -
Child protection in light of the Theory of Change
154-165Views:39It is essential that the child’s individual needs determine the required services and how these can give adequate responses to children’s problems. In Hungary, the child protection system is driven by less established professional principles, service planning and provision are of an ad hoc nature, child protection services lack any conscious design. The present study is based upon main qualitative results obtained from the research subject of “Is the State a Good Parent?”. Our goal is to reveal how the child’s needs are met in the system of the Hungarian child protection services (institutional and foster care), in what way the system can serve best the interests of the child, what systemic flaws can be identified according to child protection experts opinion.
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Reification, child protection in lock-ups
34-46Views:30This paper examines how the child protection system can address the problems of children and young adults, compensate for childhood disadvantage and promote successful social integration. To what extent are the professional means available within the state structure to achieve all these goals - as declared in the Child Protection Act of 1997. The interpretation of solidarity as a value in child protection is clear, since child protection aims to improve the situation of families affected by child protection problems and to promote their healthy personal development. The study, based on interviews with professionals and experts and a short case study, draws attention to the shortcomings and limitations of the system.
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Family perspectives for young people growing up in child protection care
1-21Views:14The study examines the factors of family perspectives among vulnerable youths – children and youth living in alternative care – with qualitative method. The target group is children who live in the Hungarian child protection system as juveniles. Children and young people experiencing different family substitute arenas may result in various family perspectives. These family perspectives are examined within a theoretical framework of family sociology and human ecology.We used a complex approach to describe the experiences and changes of these structural and family-replacer dimensions together with their impacts on the family perspective. We have found that the family perspectives of the young people are diverse and their narratives about their visions of the future are often linked to dominant family and life events previously experienced in family milieus and forms of care. At the same time, the complexity of life events and the diversity of future plans are not necessarily reflected in the institutional background and the professional-young relationships that could support young people’s autonomy. Based on the interviews, the family and community levels of the human ecology model can also be a significant factor in young people’s family perspectives, so cooperation between family and community, institutional actors can be one of the keys to providing adequate support for young people. In order to realize future plans for family perspectives, professionals need to focus more on individual needs and the diversity and variability of family perspectives.
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The Child maltreatment in statistics
123-137Views:29This paper reviews the data of the official statistical bureau on child maltreatment within the confines of a time series analysis. The results point to the fact that child mishandling happens mostly within families. However, this analysis of these statistical data can only call for further research.
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On the margin of child protection: Negative life events impact on the adolescents and youth health behavior
80-108Views:105The paper studies how negative life events affect risk behaviour of children and young people. Calculations on the database of the ‘Hungarian youth 2012’ research suggest that negative life events are strong predictors of different types of risk behaviour like alcohol, drug abuse and suicide. According to the data people who have experienced several and more serious negative life events, more likely refuse and turn away from the norms of the adult society than those whose life proves to be less stressful. To place these results into child protection context, the study calls attention to the fact that the Hungarian child protection system does not treat each group in the fragmented society equally, although, on the basis of the incidence of threat it should. Another important message of this paper is to highlight that in addition to scientific values large-scale sociological research studies have professional and practical values as well. To support it, from the questions of the well-known Holmes-Rahe scale the authors re-developed an exploration scale (Reduced Life Events Scale). The application of the Reduced Life Event Scale (or the original Holmes-Rahe scale) allows experts to focus more on the studied issues in the process of planning services, prevention and case work. The tool might propose solutions to use the insufficient resources in a more targeted way.
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The role of a children group for the participant, underprivileged children in the family care system 1995–2005
113-135Views:20The aim of this paper is to analyse the methods and effects of a children group, which existed
from 1995 till 2005. The relevance of this group is, that the beginning of this period preludes the
constitution of the Hungarian child protection law. After the transmission period the emerging
social service system provided (or at least tried) supports and services. Those families whose
children were involved in this child group were dealing with unemployment, poverty, lack of
proper housing, abuse, deviance and addictions. The significance of this group that the given
service was easily ductile to the needs of the children and families. -
Investigation of working conditions and risk factors for burnout of social and pedagogical professionals
3-29Views:39The study scrutinizes the relationship between professional working conditions and burnout among Hungarian social and pedagogical professionals. Despite the fact that burnout and occupational well-being have been extensively researched abroad among professional helpers – primarily health care workers –, no quantitative survey has been conducted in Hungary so far in the target group we examined. Another added value of our study is that, besides work and organizational factors revealed by previous burnout studies, it points to the role of client- and fieldwork-related difficulties in the prevalence of burnout symptoms. In our exploratory, crosssectional survey, 261 social and pedagogical specialists participated from Baranya County. Our results suggest that job and task matching problems, and difficulties related to the fieldwork and clients lead to emotional exhaustion of professionals and decreased work efficiency. Deficiencies related to work motivation cause loss of efficiency as well. The results also indicate that out of the three occupational groups involved in the research, professionals working in the field of child protection are most at risk for emotional exhaustion, and the symptom of depersonalization is most relevant to child protection and family and child welfare workers. In addition, we have shown that longer professional experience can be considered a protective factor in burnout symptoms. Our results can make an important contribution to the establishment of individual and organizational level training, support, development, monitoring and evaluation programs and/or policy-level guidelines and interventions that can improve the working conditions of professionals and reduce their risk of emotional, mental and physical strain.
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My healthy life: a health and skill developing program in the child care services
109-122Views:81We present a health education and skill development program for two groups (N=30) of 7-14 years old children in this paper. The target group of our program were children in the family care system. In their case, primer prevention regarding a healthy lifestyle is an important goal. Their families often have difficult life circumstances thus the “social culture” of their (Wessely 2003) may endanger their healthy personality development. The program aimed the development of their physical, psychic and mental health, focusing on the holistic understanding of the concept of health according to the bio-psychosocial health paradigm. As a result of the program, we experienced positive outcomes among the children like higher level cooperation skills, more cognitive knowledge about health, development of their communication, improved self expression and expression of emotions. In the group of adolescent children we experienced the improvement of tolerance, empathy, adaptation and problem solving skills. We consider their wish for further education, the forming of their future plans and life goals as a great result.
