“My Whole Family Is Not Really My Family”—Secure Care Shadows on Family and Family Practices Among Young Adults and Their Family Members

This study based in Sweden explores family practices and family displays among young adults with a history of secure care, which limits and restricts contacts and therefore causes fundamental changes in relationships. Almost 10 years after institutional placement, narrations of 11 young adults and 11 nominated family members reveal ongoing struggles between imagined and lived realities of family. These struggles are revealed by memories and emotions evoked by the context of secure care and show how deeply the secure care penetrated their family lives. By using the metaphor of shadows, shadows of recalled horror of secure care (reflecting family displacement) and the pressure to make family work (reflecting restricting practices in secure care where only (birth) family were considered as family and relations of (natural) importance) are discerned. We call for more attention to the perversity of secure care arrangements, at both policy and institutional levels.

Who Will Become Productive Adults? Longitudinal Patterns of Gainful Activities Among Serious Adolescent Offenders

The juvenile justice system is charged with the welfare of the children it serves, yet less is known about the prosocial behaviors of adolescent youthful offenders. This study identifies patterns of prosocial behavior for 7 years among serious adolescent offenders, the correlates of each pattern, and associated patterns of secure placement. Using 7 years of monthly data from the Pathways to Desistance Study ( N = 1,354), we used group-based trajectory models to identify longitudinal patterns of positive youth behaviors related to school and work among serious adolescent offenders and a joint trajectory model to assess the relationship between trajectories of institutional placement and positive youth behaviors. Four groups were identified that demonstrated a high, low, medium, and dips-then-rises likelihood of gainful activities throughout the study period. Gainful activities were negatively associated with risk for delinquency across multiple domains. Juvenile justice interventions should consider prosocial promise in addition to risk for delinquency.

A New Stage of the Caregiving Career: Informal Caregiving After Long-term Institutionalization

Background and Objectives The “unexpected career” of caregiving has previously been conceptualized in stages: community care through institutional placement/residence, ending with death of the care recipient. Transition programs such as Money Follows the Person (MFP) created a new stage of the caregiving career, caring for someone post–long-term institutionalization, about which little is known. Using Pearlin’s Caregiver Stress Process Model, this study explores effects on caregivers from the return of their loved ones to the community after a long-term institutional stay. Research Design and Methods Cross-sectional surveys of 656 caregivers of persons transitioned through Connecticut’s MFP program 2014–2018, completed 6 months posttransition. Results Regardless of the age/disability of the care recipient, and despite experiencing high caregiving intensity, caregivers experienced less burden, anxiety, and depression, and higher benefits of caregiving than demonstrated in literature for the general caregiving population. Most felt less stressed than before and during the participant’s institutional stay. Factors associated with worse outcomes included worry about safety, strained finances, missing work, and desiring additional services. Black and Hispanic caregivers experienced lower burden and anxiety and higher benefits of caregiving than White caregivers. Discussion and Implications By providing community supports to participants, transition programs can have broad ancillary benefits for caregivers and improve outcomes in the Pearlin model, lessening potentially deleterious effects of an unexpected return to intensive caregiving duties after institutional placement. Positive results for Black and Hispanic caregivers may reflect cultural expectations in caring for family that buffer the adverse effects of caregiving.

PROTECTION OF CHILDREN BEYOND CONTROL IN THE IR 4.0 ERA: THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) has undeniably affected the way of life of people, including children. The rapid development of the internet and digital technology coupled with unlimited, easy, and fast access make children highly susceptible to harm arising from the use of social media, films, or games. This situation may expose children who are beyond control to immense threats due to poor relationships with their parents and family members. The beyond control children may be found anywhere. They are the children who frequently disobey their parents’ orders and are notorious as “status offenders” at the international level. Despite the non-criminal nature of their misbehaviour, children who are beyond control are often treated like criminals through court proceedings and detention orders. Meanwhile, numerous international conventions and guidelines have been signed including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to protect the welfare of all children. However, to what extent do these conventions protect the children who are beyond control? What are the principles applicable to these children, and how are they protected? Thus, this study was done to analyse the extent of protection provided by international conventions for the rights of children who are beyond control and to suggest suitable programmes for the implementation of the international principles in the IR 4.0 era. This qualitative study employed the library research method for data collection. It analysed numerous documents including international conventions, statutes, books, journals, conference proceedings, and reports. This study found that the international conventions provide protection to the children who are beyond control through several principles including the best interest of the child, family and government responsibilities, institutional placement, prevention of delinquency, and diversion. These principles may be applied through diversionary programmes including counselling, family group conference, family and school programme, and mentoring programme.

Longitudinal Patterns of Secure Institutional Placement Among Serious Adolescent Offenders

This study identifies longitudinal patterns of institutional placement to understand experiences in the juvenile justice system. We used monthly calendar data from the Pathways to Desistance study ( N = 1,354), which focuses on understanding how serious adolescent offenders desist from antisocial activity. Youth between 14 and 18 years of age were followed for 7 years. We used group-based trajectory modeling to identify longitudinal patterns of institutional placement. We also examined bivariate and multivariate associations between our identified groups and demographic, legal, and extralegal factors. We chose the 4-group solution, which reflected a pattern of steady time in the community (33.3%), and three patterns of youth spending varying (22.5%), declining (24.4%), and steady high (18.8%) time in placement. Significant differences between groups suggest that youth from the most disadvantaged contexts and those who were most likely to have trouble in school and live in disorganized neighborhoods spent the most time in placement.

Telephone hotline for aging: Information needs, quality of service, and insights

This study examined the reasons for use and the utility of an aging-focused telephone hotline. The most common topic of inquiry was care, followed by referrals for institutional placement and financial queries. Advice from hotline professionals was reported to be useful and helpful. Yet the issue of the query was not resolved in half of the cases. Some queries may be addressed by enhancing hotline procedures, but others reflect general unmet needs that require wider systematic social changes in the information, system, and financial domains. Analysis of hotline calls can be useful for identifying areas, both for improvement for the hotline and for society.

UNACCOMPANIED AND SEPARATED FOREIGN CHILDREN IN THE CARE SYSTEM IN THE WESTERN CAPE – A SOCIO-LEGAL STUDY

This article reports on the findings of a study of foreign children accommodated in the care system in the Western Cape, based on fieldwork conducted in child and youth care centres. The objectives of the study were firstly to map and quantify the number and demographics of foreign children placed in all CYCCs across the Western Cape. Secondly, the study aimed to analyse the reasons for children's migration and the circumstances around their placement in residential care institutions in order to establish whether family reunification was possible or desirable. Thirdly, the study explores the sufficiency of efforts made to trace and reunify the children with their families, whether in South Africa or across borders, as the institutional placement of children should not only be a last resort but it should preferably be temporary whilst family-based solutions are sought. Lastly, the documentation status of the children in the study was examined. Recommendations emanating from the research conclude the study.