Recording is a task often perceived by residential child care workers as boring or taking time away from the ‘real work’, direct engagement with young people. It is required by legislation and policy but has been undertheorized and treated as a technical/rational task. In this essay, Foucauldian and feminist perspectives are applied to shift recording, a routine aspect of residential practice, in order to problematize the positivist approach assumed in legislation and policy. The analysis suggests that (...) this approach represses emotional aspects of care and subjugates particular forms of knowledge, such as young people’s experiences. Recording inevitably involves ethical choices and treating it as technical/rational task obscures its ethical implications. This essay concludes that greater attention needs to be given to the ethical aspects of shift recording in order to challenge practice that oppresses young people by failing to recognize their individuality and silencing their voices. (shrink)

Despite the centrality of the term within the title, the meaning of ?care? in residential child care remains largely unexplored. Shifting discourses of residential child care have taken it from the private into the public domain. Using a care ethics perspective, we argue that public care needs to move beyond its current instrumental focus to articulate a broader ontological purpose, informed by what is required to promote children's growth and flourishing. This (...) depends upon the establishment of caring relationships enacted within the lifespaces shared by children and those caring for them. We explore some of the central features of caring in the lifespace and conclude that residential child care is best considered to be a practical/moral endeavour rather than the technical/rational one it has become. It requires morally active, reflexive practitioners and containing environments. (shrink)

Neoliberalism has ushered in a rise in managerialism, technocracy and bureaucratisation in residential child care where economy, efficiency, and effectiveness have been prioritised over the moral imperative to care. One implication has been the commodification of children who are traded in a culture of procurement and commissioning compounded by a climate of austerity, and where moral regulation has been replaced by contractual regulation. The impact of this upon the care that children receive has raised concern. (...) The impact upon frontline carers of intractable moral challenges which this climate presents in their role of caring each day is less well understood. The naming of an experience can provide an important starting place to understanding and challenging it. This article draws upon the phenomenon of ‘moral distress’, which is well documented in the medical field, and considers the transferability of this phenomenon from nursing to residential child care. It proposes that moral distress discourse may provide a language to residential child care workers through which their experience of the betrayal of the moral fabric of their work may be articulated. (shrink)

Christians care for orphans and children without parental care in different forms. However, in the Global South, care is primarily provided in orphanages or large residential settings. Despite good intentions, there are limitations to provide a nurturing family environment for the children in such care environment. With current knowledge of alternative child care and in light of the holistic ministry, this article suggests an approach for the church to care for orphans and (...) children at risk by focusing on the family and the local community. Additionally, simple steps to transition to holistic orphan care are offered. (shrink)

In this paper, we are going to address job satisfaction and perceived self-efficacy within the context of residential child-care. A joint report from the European Foundation for the Improvement on Living and Working Conditions and the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work revealed that managers in the field of health and education were the most concerned about the psychosocial risk of their employees, although concern is not automatically translated into tools to face the risk and (...) to manage it. So, measuring and improving employees’ job satisfaction and self-efficacy can be an important means for organizations to prevent the outcomes of psychosocial risk, and supporting high quality performance of workers. But profound changes are affecting the nature of work at large, and specifically social educator’s in the field of residential care with minors. Globalization, radical technological and communication developments, as well as the pressure to frame care as a commodity, are quickly changing procedures and praxis at work, and even the meaning of job itself. All these changes are highly demanding for this category of professionals, as much as the fact that the organizational setting is vanishing as a resource to sustain their professional attitudes and behaviours. Under these circumstances, job satisfaction and self-efficacy can be hard to experience, and isolating their precursors is essential to develop healthy and effective work environments. This paper means to highlight the process of supporting self-efficacy and job satisfaction in the educational work in residential youth care that is still underrepresented in research. It presents data emerging from two studies, study 1 involving 268 educators and study 2 involving 472 educators belonging to different Italian residential child-care services. Study 1 consists of a quantitative study including the following measures: attachment style, job satisfaction, work-related self-efficacy, and length of service. Study 2 consist of a qualitative exploration deepening the sources of educators’ work-satisfaction. Quantitative data support the identification of attachment style and length of service as antecedents of work-related self-efficacy. Qualitative data show the importance of relational issues in shaping the educators’ satisfaction at work. (shrink)

In this study, family- and center-based child care providers participated in day-long research workshops in which they first identified dimensions of an “ideal” caregiving situation and then, using a critical incident technique, explored the meaning and experience of “power” as caregivers. This article is devoted to examining the ways in which child care workers understand the notion of “powerfulness” and “powerlessness” in their work. Themes emerging from critical incidents are considered in light of feminist and caregiving (...) literatures. The article concludes by drawing implications from the project's findings for policy, advocacy, and conceptual development. (shrink)

This article explores staff work patterns in an Australian residential aged care facility and the implications for high‐quality care. Rarely available minute by minute, time and motion, and ethnographic data demonstrate that nurses and care staff engage in high degrees of multitasking and mental switching between residents. Mental switching occurs up to 18 times per hour (every 3 min); multitasking occurs on average for 37 min/h. Labor process theory is used to examine these outcomes and to (...) explore the concepts of high demand and high commitment as core components of work intensification. These conditions of work result in high levels of cognitive burden and stress on staff in managing the multitasking and mental switching, exacerbated by lack of knowledge about residents associated with labor force casualization. These new interpretations of data in relation to mental and manual labor can contribute to understanding, and, therefore, problem solving, in the aged care sector. (shrink)

This article examines baby farming as an urban neighborhood-based system of group child care in Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century and considers the dangers and abuses the practice of baby farming posed for parents, children, and baby farmers. It explores reformers' early efforts to regulate the city's baby farms. Finally, the essay also investigates the ways in which the residents of Philadelphia's poor neighborhoods monitored the child-care establishments in their communities that catered to working mothers.

Large differences in scientific productivity between male and female researchers have not yet been explained satisfactorily. This study finds that child care and lack of research collaboration are the two factors that cause significant gender differences in scientific publishing. Women with young children and women who do not collaborate in research with other scientists are clearly less productive than both their male and female colleagues.

In Spain, public preschool programs have continuously expanded in the past three decades. However, this education policy has done little to support increases in the proportion of women in the paid workforce. Preschool is not child care because the former does not address the care needed by children younger than three years old and offers programs with short hours and long holidays.

Even though female food acquisition is an area of considerable interest in hunter-gatherer research, the ecological determinants of women’s economic decisions in these populations are still poorly understood. The literature on female foraging behavior indicates that there is considerable variation within and across foraging societies in the amount of time that women spend foraging and in the amount and types of food that they acquire. It is possible that this heterogeneity reflects variation in the trade-offs between time spent in food (...) acquisition and child care activities that women face in different groups of hunter-gatherers. In this paper we discuss the fitness trade-offs between food acquisition and child care that Hiwi and Ache women foragers might face. Multiple regression analyses show that in both populations the daily food acquisition of a woman’s spouse is negatively related to female foraging effort. In addition, nursing mothers spend less time foraging and acquire less food than do nonnursing women. As the number of dependents that a woman has increases, however, women also increase foraging time and the amount of food they acquire. Some interesting exceptions to these general trends are as follows: (a) differences in foraging effort between nursing and nonnursing women are less pronounced when fruits and roots are in season than in other seasons of the year; (b) foraging return rates decrease for Ache women as their numbers of dependents increase; and (c) among Ache women, the positive effect of number of dependents on foraging behavior is less pronounced when fruits are in season than at other times of the year. Lastly, in the Hiwi sample we found that postreproductive women work considerably harder than women of reproductive age in the root season but not in other seasons of the year. We discuss how ecological variation in constraints, the number of health insults to children that Hiwi and Ache mothers can avoid, and the fitness benefits they can gain from spending time in food acquisition and child care might account for differences and similarities in the foraging behaviors of subgroups of Hiwi and Ache mothers across different seasons of the year. Valid tests of the explanations we propose will require considerable effort to measure the relationship between maternal food acquisition, child care, and adverse health outcomes in offspring. (shrink)

Sexual self-determination is considered a fundamental human right by most of us living in Western societies. While we must abide by laws regarding consent and coercion, in general we expect to be able to engage in sexual behaviour whenever, and with whomever, we choose. For older people with dementia living in residential aged care facilities (RACFs), however, the issue becomes more complex. Staff often struggle to balance residents' rights with their duty of care, and negative attitudes towards (...) older people's sexuality can lead to residents' sexual expression being overlooked, ignored, or even discouraged. In particular, questions as to whether residents with dementia are able to consent to sexual activity or physically intimate relationships pose a challenge to RACF staff, and current legislation does little to assist them. This paper will address these issues, and will argue that, while every effort should be made to ensure that no resident comes to harm, RACFs must respect the rights of residents with dementia to make decisions about their sexuality, intimacy and physical relationships. (shrink)

Background This article explores the Story Stem Assessment Profile (SSAP), a narrative-based measure, for the assessment of internal representations in children between the ages of 4 and 11 years old. Methods The findings draw upon two samples of children comprising of a sample of looked-after children at Five Rivers Child Care (FR) ( n = 42) and a community-based population ( n = 42). The FR group identified were suggested to have a higher level of need, as defined (...) by scores obtained from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Relationship Problems Questionnaire (RPQ). Results Using the SSAP, the findings indicate the instrument’s discriminant validity with strong differences being displayed between the two populations. Consistently children in the FR sample displayed more disorganized, avoidant and negative representations, whilst at the same time having significantly fewer representations characteristic of ‘secure’ attachment. Conclusion The SSAP is successful in differentiating between ‘low’ and ‘high’ cohorts of children aged 4–11 years. The study provides strong support for the measure as a way of capturing internal and attachment representations, with further research to explore possible changes in these representations at follow-up being promising and intriguing. Continued research efforts at FR will allow for improved clinical formulations, increased understanding and therefore positive outcomes relating to the children in their care. (shrink)

Intimacy contributes to our well-being and extends into older age, despite cognitive or physical impairment. However, the ability to enjoy intimacy and express sexuality is often compromised—or even controlled—when one moves into residential aged care. The aim of this study was to identify what factors influence senior residential aged care staff when they make decisions regarding resident intimate relationships and sexual expression. The study used vignette methodology and a postal survey to explore reactions to a fictionalised (...) case study of a couple—Norm and Carol—who develop a close, mutually satisfying relationship. Staff were first asked whether they would intervene in the relationship. Using an innovative approach, several variations to the case study were then presented to explore whether views about intervening changed according to varying contextual factors. Findings indicated that over 90% of respondents initially agreed that the relationship should continue, and only 10% indicated they would intervene. However, when the case study was varied, respondents indicated they were more likely to intervene, particularly if Norm was exhibiting distress in Carol’s presence (89%), but also if Norm was married and his wife was living in the community (40%). Other factors including level of cognitive impairment and family disapproval were also found to influence staff views. This study provides insight into how residential aged care staff make decisions regarding the intimacy and sexuality of older people living in residential aged care and how personal views and values likely guide practice in the absence of formal policies. (shrink)

People with dementia at times exhibit threatening and physically aggressive behavior toward care staff in residential aged care facilities (RACFs). Current clinical guidelines recommend judicious use of antipsychotic (AP) medications when there is an immediate risk of harm to care staff in RACFs and non-pharmacological interventions have failed to avert the threats. This article examines an account of how this recommendation can be ethically defensible: caregivers in RACFs may have a prima facie ethical justification, in certain (...) cases, to use APs as an act of self-defense. The author examines whether such uses of APs meet the three commonly invoked conditions of ethically permissible acts of self-defense—namely, the conditions of liability, proportionality, and necessity—and argues that such conditions obtain only in a restricted range of cases. The liability constraint can be satisfied if residents are the only ones who are causally responsible for the threats they pose. Further, the condition of proportionality obtains if there is sufficient objective ground to demonstrate that the harm of using the medications does not outweigh the good to be secured. Lastly, the necessity condition obtains when the medications are used at their lowest effective dosage and caregivers in RACFs can reasonably assume that, for the purpose of averting threats posed by residents, the use of APs is the only available course of action. Not meeting any of these fairly stringent conditions renders uses of APs as acts of self-defense in RACFs morally impermissible actions. -/- . (shrink)

In recent decades, many studies have examined gender-related differences in paid employment and the reconciliation of family and employment. Considering perceptions of time conflicts with regards to work at home and leisure activities, this article contributes to a more encompassing understanding of attitudes toward reconciliation problems. Special attention is given to the role of external child care services. The use of an original data set from 60 Swiss municipalities and hierarchical multiresponse regression models enable an analysis of the (...) various aspects of time conflicts simultaneously, and a consideration of how different policy contexts shape these attitudes. This study provides evidence that the communal provision of external child care is related to gender-specific perceptions of time conflicts. Most interestingly, men seem to be affected most strongly by communal policy conditions, whereby the provision of external child care is related to systematically higher levels of time conflicts. (shrink)

Considerable research on helpers-at-the-nest demonstrates the positive effects of firstborn daughters on a mother’s reproductive success and the survival of her children compared with women who have firstborn sons. This research is largely restricted to agricultural settings. In the present study we ask: “Does ‘daughter first’ improve mothers’ reproductive success in a hunting and gathering context?” Through an analysis of 84 postreproductive women in this population we find that the sex of the first- or second-born child has no effect (...) on a mother’s fertility or the survival of her offspring. We conclude that specific environmental and economic factors underlay the helpers-at-the-nest phenomenon. (shrink)

본 연구는 보육교사의 교직윤리 인식과 영유권리 존중의 관계를 알아보는데 목적이 있다. 연구대상은 159명의 서울 및 경기도에 근무하는 어린이집 교사였다. 연구도구로 조필수(2007)의 ‘보육교사의 교직윤리 인식’과 김진숙(2009)의 ‘영·유아권리존중 보육’을 평가도구로 사용하였다. 보육교사의 교직윤리 인식은 영·유아에 대한 윤리, 영·유아 가정에 대한 윤리, 동료 및 기관에 대한 윤리, 사회에 대한 윤리의 네 가지 영역에 대해, 영·유아권리존중은 일상적 양육 존중, 보육활동 존중, 아동 최선의 이익에 대해 측정하였다. 상관 분석 결과 연구결과를 보면 첫째, 보육교사의 교직윤리 인식과 영·유아권리 존중은 유의미한 정적 상관이 있는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째 보육교사의 (...) 교직윤리 인식에 따라 영·유아권리 존중에 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. (shrink)

Increasingly, both mothers and fathers are expected to play an equal role in child rearing. Nonetheless, we know little about how child care arrangements affect couples’ sexual intimacy and relationship quality. Research has focused on the effect of the division of paid labor and housework on couples’ relationships, finding that egalitarianism is problematic for sexual intimacy, relationship quality, and relationship stability. These findings, however, come almost universally from studies utilizing decades-old data that fail to examine the division (...) of child care. In this study, we update this work by utilizing data from the 2006 Marital and Relationship Study to examine how the division of child care affects the relationship quality and sexual intimacy of heterosexual couples in the United States. Results indicate that men’s performance of child care is generally associated with more satisfaction with the division of child care, more satisfying sexual relationships, and higher quality relationships. Importantly, we find that egalitarian child care arrangements have positive consequences for both men and women. These findings contribute to a growing body of research that challenges the costs of egalitarianism and indicates instead that egalitarianism is associated with higher quality, more intimate relationships than gender traditional arrangements. (shrink)

Objective: Symptom improvement is often examined as an indicator of a good outcome of accessing mental health services. However, there is little evidence of whether symptom improvement is associated with other indicators of a good outcome, such as a mutual agreement to end treatment. The aim of this study was to examine whether young people accessing mental health services who meaningfully improved were more likely to mutually agree to end treatment.Methods: Multilevel multinomial regression analysis controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and (...) referral source was conducted on N = 8,995 episodes of care [Female = 5,469, 61%; meanAge = 13.66 years] using anonymised administrative data from young people's mental health services.Results: Compared to young people with no change in mental health difficulties, those showing positive meaningful changes in mental health difficulties were less likely to have case closure due to non-mutual agreement. Similarly, they were less likely to transfer or end treatment for other reasons than by case closure due to mutual agreement.Conclusion: The findings suggest that young people accessing mental health services whose symptoms meaningfully improve are more likely to mutually agree to end treatment, adding to the evidence that symptom improvement may be appropriate to examine as an indicator of a good outcome of accessing mental health services. (shrink)

“Only about 25 percent of the employees in child-care operations around the country have had professional training in dealing with children.”—_Newsweek_ This book is a proven, practical approach to providing that training at a minimum of expense and disruption of services. Written for trainers, it may profitably be used by any individual who wants to know more about positive methods for working with children. The information provided here has been used extensively to train child-care providers throughout (...) Illinois. Covered in detail are discipline, professionalism, child and adult communication, child development, observation, assessment, play, nutrition, health and safety, parent involvement and education, child abuse, developmental care, and organization of the environment. Illinois Governor James Thompson, former DCFS Director Gregory Coler, and DCFS Director Gordon Johnson have all endorsed these materials by continuing to recommend them for day-care training in Illinois. (shrink)

This article describes and interprets the impact, particularly on women and children, of pressure by multilateral organizations on contemporary Brazilian early child care and education policies. Based on an analysis of macro data and documents, the author argues that this pressure is old, existing prior to the introduction of the concept of globalization into the vocabulary of the media and the social sciences. A first wave of pressure dates from the 1970s, during the cold war, and the second, (...) beginning in the 1990s, resulted from the Washington Consensus. The central argument and supporting data presented in this article show that the early child care and education models put forward by multilateral organizations both perpetuate and are sustained by gender inequality and intersecting relations of class, race, and age domination. (shrink)

The practical and ethical issues associated with obtaining informed consent from children and young people living in residential state care for their participation in a research study are explored in this paper. Research involving the participation of these young people has received comparatively limited attention in the social sciences: this is due to several reasons including the challenging methodological and ethical issues associated with undertaking such research. These can be categorized as the practical issues of gaining direct contact (...) with these young people through gaining the consent of relevant gatekeepers and the process of gaining a favourable opinion from a research ethics committee. Whilst the principles of clarity and consistency of practice are key elements in the process of accessing consent to participate in research, flexibility and imagination are also important skills for the researcher when developing the appropriate protocols for research in an area of social policy which can be methodologically and ethically complex. (shrink)

This study analyzes the meaning employed mothers give to having others take care of their children. In-depth interviews with 31 employed mothers of preschoolers, toddlers, and infants revealed three interpretations of child care: custodial care, surrogate care, and coordinated care. These meanings mediated the tension between the dominant cultural construction of motherhood and the reality of their lives as both mothers and wage earners. Their perceptions of child care were constructed in accordance (...) with how they defined the relationship between “child rearing” and “child care,” the degree to which they acknowledged their child care providers' care of their children, and definitions of their own mothering. These microideologies of child care demonstrate that mothers are contesting the assumptions of the dominant cultural ideology of motherhood and are rethinking child care as a socialized activity. (shrink)

Using an analysis of child care books and parenting Web sites, this article asks if second-wave feminism’s vision of gender-neutral child rearing has been incorporated into contemporary advice on child rearing. The data suggest that while feminist understandings of gender have made significant inroads into popular advice, especially with regard to the social construction of gender, something akin to “a stalled revolution” has taken place. Children’s gender nonconformity is still viewed as problematic because it is linked (...) implicitly and explicitly to homosexuality. (shrink)

We argue that Aged Residential Care (ARC) facilities should be allowed to create and adopt an informed “No Chest Compression” (NCC) policy. Potential residents are informed before admission that staff will not provide chest compressions to a pulseless resident. All residents would receive standard choking care, and a fully discussed advance directive would be utilized to determine if the resident wanted a one-minute trial of rescue breaths (to clear their airway) or utilization of the automatic defibrillator in (...) case of arrest. The benefits of chest compressions for residents in ARC are dubious, and the burdens are high. For frail elderly people without a pulse, chest compressions are arguably unethical because the chance of benefit is minuscule, the procedure is violent, painful, and challenging to perform correctly, and procedures detract from a peaceful end of life. These burdens fall on residents, their families, ARC facilities providers, and society. We further argue that limitations on universal invasive resuscitation, such as advance directives, need to be more consistently sought and applied. The goals of an informed NCC policy are twofold: removing added suffering from a person’s end-of-life experience and increasing ARC residents’ understanding of the burdens of ineffective treatments for pulselessness. (shrink)

The relatively recent shift of family caregiving to the public market of service work raises questions about how to theorize paid caregiving. This article examines how to conceptualize child rearing when it is transferred to a paid worker. The gendered character of commodified caregiving is complicated by structural locations of race and class that define the employer-employee relationship. Previous discussions of paid child care work as emotionally meaningful work have been criticized as idealizations that mask the exploitative (...) nature of the work. Yet, emotional meaning is not simply a cover-up or an idealization of the labor; rather, it is an integral component of the work of caregiving, the practice of which is distorted by societal assumptions about gender and race. To better understand paid child care work, the significance of emotional meaning, as well as gender, race, and ethnic dimensions of paid child care work need to be explored. (shrink)

Although the majority of young children now spend time in nonparental child care, we know relatively little about who provides this care and how its costs are distributed among parents, government, and other family members. In this article we use data from a survey of New York City families with children younger than six to estimate the contribution of parental expenditures, government assistance, and the market value of “donated” caregiving time by family, friends, and relatives. We conclude (...) that uncompensated caregivers provide a substantial share of child care that is “invisible” in conventional economic measures. (shrink)

Based on four years of participant-observation field research and focused interviews with men and women child care workers, the author analyzes how the marking of men workers and their experiences doing child care work show how deeply feminized the work of child care is. When men choose to do child care work, they become suspect. This suspicion manifests in restriction of men's access to children in child care centers. Restricted access (...) of men workers to children implies men's desire for access to children is pathological. In these and other ways, the organization of child care and the accountability of persons to sex category systematically push men away from nurturing responsibilities and bind these responsibilities to women workers. (shrink)

The moral value of law can take many forms. It is instrumentally valuable when it coordinates interaction, provides moral advice and leadership, models the virtues, and motivates us to be moral. It is intrinsically valuable when it constitutes the collective moral conscience of citizens, embodies an ideal form of communal life, and expresses the moral integrity of the community. We analyse all of these potential values of law and assess their moral significance. In doing so, we are careful to distinguish (...) between the general concept of law and the actual law of any particular legal system. We argue that, although in principle law does have the potential to help us to be moral in each of the ways noted, many actual legal systems are conducive to great immorality and injustice. Being moral and living well under such regimes is likely to be much harder than it would be otherwise, even in the absence of any legal system. (shrink)

Faring poorly by international standards, out-of-home childcare in Canada is often described as ‘in crisis’. This study addresses how national childcare movement actors, who are overwhelmingly women, have discursively constructed their collective identity during two contrasting political climates. Data comprise publically available media releases produced in 2005 and 2008 by the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, a national grassroots childcare social movement organization. Guided by Fairclough's overarching framework for critical discourse analysis and Koller's approach to analysing collective (...) identity through CDA, the discursive mechanisms of CCAAC movement actors have employed in relation to their collective identity construction are identified and explored. Finally, whether or not these mechanisms may have been strategic is explored. (shrink)

In the current landscape, child care is increasingly being seen as a place for early education, and systems are largely bundling child care in the Early Care and Education sphere through funding and quality measures. As states define school readiness and quality, they often miss critical elements, such as equitable access to quality and cultural traditions. This article provides a summary of the various definitions and structures of child care. It also discusses how (...) the current child care policy conversation can and ought to be infused with a framework grounded in the context of institutional racism and trauma. Models and examples will explore the differences between state government regulations, and how those differ than the regulation and structure of child care in Indian Country. (shrink)

_What place do Anna Freud’s ideas have in the history of psychoanalysis? What can her writings teach us today about how to work therapeutically with children? Are her psychoanalytic ideas still relevant to those entrusted with the welfare of infants and young people? _ _Reading Anna Freud_ provides an accessible introduction to the writings of one of the most significant figures in the history of psychoanalysis. Each chapter introduces a number of her key papers, with clear summaries of the main (...) ideas, historical background, a discussion of the influence and contemporary relevance of her thinking, and recommendations for further reading. Areas covered include Anna Freud’s writings on: • The theory and practice of child analysis and 'developmental therapy' • The application of psychoanalytic thinking to education, paediatrics and the law • The assessment and diagnosis of childhood disorders • Psychoanalytic research and developmental psychopathology Nick Midgley draws on his extensive experience as a child psychotherapist and a teacher to bring Anna Freud's ideas to life. He illustrates the remarkable originality of her thinking, and shows how analytic ideas can be used not only in child psychotherapy, but also to inform the care of children in families, hospitals, classrooms, residential care and the court-room. __Reading Anna Freud__ will be of interest to child therapists, child analysts and psychoanalysts, as well as others working in the field of child and adolescent mental health, such as clinical psychologists, child psychiatrists and educational psychologists. It also has much to offer to those entrusted with the care of children in a wide range of settings - including teachers, nurses and social workers - for whom Anna Freud was always keen to demonstrate the value of a psychoanalytic approach. _Nick Midgley_ trained as a child and adolescent psychotherapist at the Anna Freud Centre, where he now works as a clinician and as Programme Director for the MSc in Developmental Psychology and Clinical Practice. Nick has written articles on a wide range of topics and is joint editor of _Minding the Child: Mentalization-based Interventions with Children, Young People and their Families_ and _Child Psychotherapy and Research: New Directions, Emerging Findings_. (shrink)

This article examines changes in employed African American mothers' use of relatives for child care. Data from nationally representative pooled cross sections show that the proportion of Black mothers relying on extended kin for care of their preschool-age children declined significantly between 1977 and 1994. Multivariate analyses reveal that the decline characterized all subgroups of employed African American mothers but was less pronounced for young, single, mothers living outside the South. Thus, by 1994, employed Black mothers who (...) most needed relatives' child care support received it, while those who could manage without such help did so. This change suggests that African Americans' use of kin-provided support responds to shifts in broader social and economic conditions that affect the balance of resources and needs within extended families. (shrink)

(2005). BOOK REVIEW of Time to Care: Redesigning Child Care to Promote Education, Support Families, and Build Communities. Educational Studies: Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 72-76.

Unlike other states, California retained a large proportion of the child care centers that had been established during World War II. In 1946, the California state government allocated state funds for child care in response to a vigorous child care campaign. The campaign, which was, in large part, a working mothers movement, was a “transformed maternalist” movement. It used maternalist rhetoric to defend state-subsidized child care that was criticized by more traditional maternalists. (...) Using resource mobilization theory, I explain the relatively high degree of political mobilization on the child care issue in California in terms of the greater availability of co-optable social resources, which California's relatively large wartime child care program provided, and the existence of movement entrepreneurs willing to mobilize these latent resources. Child care advocates were successful because they operated within a relatively favorable political opportunity structure since they did not have to contend with a strained state treasury or a mobilized countermovement and were able to garner the support of a wide variety of women's and social organizations and an influential social reformer. (shrink)

This study extends our understanding of the positive relationship between kin-based child care support and mothers’ ability to stay in the workforce by examining why and how women seek such help. Using 100 in-depth interviews with Korean mothers, I find that although child care provided by grandmothers helps mothers maintain their employment, a mother will ask for support only when she constructs strong career aspirations and generates agreement amongst family members that she deserves support. Both of (...) these center around the notion of who deserves to work as a mother. Mothers’ explanations of why they deserve support vary based on their educational backgrounds: less-educated mothers stress economic stability, whereas better-educated mothers emphasize the symbolic meaning of sustaining their high public status. Most mothers, however, feel the need to “prove” to themselves and to certain others that they deserve child care support. Based on these findings, I develop a theory of deservingness to explain how mothers account for their work and make decisions to seek child care support. (shrink)

Home-based service jobs have developed considerably across Western societies. In fact, chances are high that a working-class woman in France today will, at some point in her life, be a house cleaner, home-based child care provider, or home aide for the elderly. Going against political, scholarly, and everyday discourses that, saturated with the double prejudices of gender and class, treat all these home service occupations, which require little prior training, the same, this article illuminates the variability of the (...) forms of subordination experienced by women practicing these occupations in France. Comparing these jobs with the ensemble of low-skill jobs and with each other exposes what is specific to the particular form of subordination each job type entails, in terms of the extent of job supervision and the nature of the home where it is practiced, the presence or absence of relations with coworkers and/or a “public,” and the nature of this “public.” It mobilizes nationwide statistical data in a new way to shift attention to these numerous ordinary work situations, which are much less studied than those of the domestic workers of the wealthiest cities of the Western world. (shrink)