EXPLORING ADOLESCENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN DECISION MAKING IN RELATED FOSTER CARE PLACEMENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Since the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted in 1989, children have a right to express their views and participate in matters concerning them.  This aspect of participation is also encompassed in legislation in South Africa.  The country has adopted a developmental social work approach after becoming a democratic nation in 1994 to guide social work service delivery on all levels. The purpose of this paper is to explore the participatory decision making experiences that adolescents have relating to their foster care placements. Against this background, the theoretical premise of the paper is based on the principles of participatory decision making. A qualitative research study was conducted in which thirty-five adolescents in related foster care placements across South Africa were interviewed.  The responses of adolescents indicate that these young people in foster placements feel they are not sufficiently included in the decision making aspects related to welfare service delivery to them. This presents a challenge to developmental social work, which aims to be democratic, inclusive, and participatory. The paper concludes with discussing the implications of these findings for foster care in South Africa and recommends that adolescents should be taken seriously in matters concerning them

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE IN CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES: DO WE HAVE TIME FOR THIS?

South Africa is experiencing a high incidence of child abuse and neglect.  The care and protection of children require of social workers to deliver child protection services including compiling reports for Children’s Court hearings. This paper focuses on how the Family Assessment for Least Developed Countries (FA-LDC) instrument can be used as evidenced-based practice to assist social workers in statutory investigations. Findings indicate that this instrument directed information gathering more effectively for the finalisation of investigations. The paper concludes by indicating how the utilisation of assessment instruments can assist social workers in dealing with high caseload

IS THE DEVELOPMENTAL SOCIAL WELFARE APPROACH TO CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES WORKING? VOICES OF CHILDREN, FAMILIES AND SOCIAL WORKERS IN EASTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA

Decades of research have highlighted the challenges facing child protection services in a developmental approach. The aim of the article is to explore whether the developmental social welfare approach contributes to an improvement of child protection services. A descriptive case study design was applied in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa. The findings revealed limited knowledge among social work practitioners about the implementation of the developmental social welfare approach. The findings also revealed an overwhelmed child protection system that lacks coordinated and integrated services. It is recommended that child protection services be divided into prevention, early intervention and statutory services

Development of a training programme for state prosecutors to address re-victimization of the sexually abused child during forensic procedures

In this study the researcher developed a training programme for state prosecutors to address re-victimization of the sexually abused child during forensic procedures. The study commenced with a literature study focusing on the following aspects: Person-centred approach as scientific foundation for the work with sexually abused children during forensic procedures. Sexual abuse and the long-term effects thereof. Addressing re-victimization of the sexually abused child during forensic procedures. After finalizing the literature study, the researcher did the empirical study, which was a combined qualitative-quantitative study. The researcher started with the qualitative study, where prosecutors dealing with sexual abuse cases were interviewed to determine their training needs. After their training needs were determined a training programme was compiled. This training programme formed part of the quantitative study and was implemented during a training session for prosecutors at the Justice College in Pretoria. The programme was also evaluated making use of a pre- and post-test questionnaire to determine whether there was a knowledge improvement after the presentation of the programme.Thesis (DPhil (Social Work))--University of Pretoria, 2007.Social Work and Criminologyunrestricte

AN ANALYSIS OF POLICIES AND LEGISLATION RELATING TO CHILD PARTICIPATION BY CHILDREN IN ALTERNATIVE CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Worldwide, children in the care of the state constitute one of the most vulnerable groups in society. They are often not heard, or their views not respected in matters concerning them. This is incongruent with the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959) as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989). Guided by a conceptual framework of child participation theory, this article analyses South African legislation and policies to determine how and when child participation is being promoted. Findings indicate that providing information to children on how to participate meaningfully is the key for effective child participation and that practical guidelines should be developed

A descriptive study of chiropractors' opinions and practices regarding office-based health product sales

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although the sale of non-prescription health products is ubiquitous, the views of health professionals, such as chiropractors, regarding the sale of such products are not well known. Practitioner opinion is important to understand and inform professional practice. The purpose of this study was to describe chiropractors' perspectives and practices on the sale of health care products from practitioners' offices.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Chiropractors were invited to provide written comments about health product sales at the end of a fixed choice, mailed survey. Respondents' comments were analyzed using qualitative description. Ethics approval was received from the Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board at the University of Calgary.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>One hundred seven of the 265 respondents (response rate of 51%) provided written comments. Approximately 30 pages of double-spaced, typed text were gathered. Respondents did not consistently endorse or condemn health product sales, and engaged in the practice to greater and lesser extents. While some were opposed to health products sales, some accepted the practice with a degree of ambivalence whereas others clearly embraced it. Some respondents acknowledged a professional conflict of interest in such sales and marketing, and described strategies used to mitigate it. Others provided a range of justifications for the practice. Personal integrity and professional standards were discussed and a need for monitoring identified.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A wide range of opinions and practices were described and this is consistent with resulting variation in practice. In light of this, standards that facilitate consistency in practice may benefit professionals and the public alike.</p

Reality Check: A Linguistic Analysis-Based Redefinition of Quarterly Earnings Surprise

The media and financial community often rely on “earnings surprise” – the difference between company performance and the average of financial analysts’ forecasts – to summarize the manner in which earnings reports provide the market with new, unexpected information. Prior studies have found such a metric to exhibit a host of flaws, however, suggesting there may be a place for an alternative way to think about how quarterly earnings and investor expectations interact. In this study, I seek to shift the focus from numerical earnings figures to linguistic analyses of textual statements from both investors and management. I define an alternative metric called the “Reality Check” as the difference between the management sentiment as expressed on earnings conference calls and investor sentiment as expressed on Twitter – each of which has been found in prior studies to correlate with stock market moves. Using a sample of over 4,500 earnings reports from 490 companies, I test whether this metric can predict market reactions to earnings, finding it to have statistically significant predictive power for both short-term stock returns and stock price movements in the 15-day window before and after earnings. Despite this finding, the metric exhibits worse predictive power than traditional consensus-based earnings surprise when modeled independently and only adds a slight amount of predictive power when modeled together. This suggests that significant improvements would be required before such a metric could merit a place next to consensus-based forecasts when evaluating earnings reports