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Women with mental illness, substance-dependence or dual diagnosis are at increased risk of losing care of their children which leads to poorer outcomes for mothers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the service response to substance-dependent mothers, many of whom had a dual diagnosis, and reports outcomes for their infants from the perinatal period to the end of each infant's first year.

This was a longitudinal case study of 20 women substance-dependent women and their associated care. Semi-structured interviews were held with mothers recruited from a specialist alcohol and other drug obstetric service at infant age six weeks, six and 12 months. Structured interviews were also held with counsellors from the obstetric service at infant age six weeks. Child protection (CP) workers were interviewed at infant age six weeks, six and 12 months regarding mothers involved with the service.

By 12-month follow-up, CP services had been involved with 14 mothers and eight had lost the legal care of their infant. Mothers who retained legal care were more likely to have addressed their drug use and less likely to be in a domestically violent relationship. Domestic violence, homelessness and maternal recidivism to crime tipped the scales in favour of protection of the infant through removal from maternal care, essentially leaving mothers with minimal support for reunification and reduced incentive for treatment.

Reliance on mothers’ self-reports was a limitation of the study. The small sample size restricts generalisability of findings.

Key workers should engage women (and their partners) during the perinatal period to provide support, advocacy and case-management to enable substance-dependent mothers to safely parent.

This is one of few studies to report long-term outcomes for mother/infant dyads when substance-dependence and/or mental health are present that allows women to speak for themselves. The prospective design provides a contemporaneous account of events as they unfolded in situ.

This paper aims to explore the possibilities in using such national, statutory data sets for evaluating change and the challenges of understanding service patterns and outcomes in complex cases when only a limited view can be gained using existing data. The discussion also explores how methodologies can adapt to an evaluation in these circumstances.

This paper examines the use of data routinely collected by local authorities (LAs) as part of the evaluation of innovation. Issues entailed are discussed and illustrated through two case studies of evaluations conducted by the research team within the context of children’s social care in England.

The quantitative analysis of LA data can play an important role in evaluating innovation but researchers will need to address challenges related to: selection of a suitable methodology; identifying appropriate comparator data; accessing data and assessing its quality; and sustaining and increasing the value of analytic work beyond the end of the research. Examples are provided of how the two case studies experienced and addressed these challenges.

• Quasi-experimental methods can be beneficial tools for understanding the impact of innovation in children’s services, but researchers should also consider the complexity of children’s social care and the use of mixed and appropriate methods. • Those funding innovative practice should consider the additional burden on those working with data and the related data infrastructure if wishing to document and analyse innovation in a robust way. • Data, which may be assumed to be uniform may in fact not be when considered at a multi-area or national level, and further study of the data recording practice of social care professionals is required.

The paper discusses some common issues experienced in quasi-experimental approaches to the quantitative evaluation of children’s services, which have, until recently, been rarely used in the sector. There are important considerations, which are of relevance to researchers, service leads in children’s social care, data and performance leads and funders of innovation.

It proved difficult to recruit sufficient mothers to a prospective cohort study designed to explore the factors and characteristics of mothers whose children are the subject of the public care system as a result of their drinking, retaining or losing care of their children. In conducting interviews instead with social workers in six local authorities, the repurposed study aimed to explore their views of the barriers and facilitators to involving this “hard to reach” population of mothers in research at the beginning of care proceedings.

For this study, 36 semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with child and family social workers and social work managers located in six English local authorities. Transcripts were analysed using Nvivo and coded thematically.

Workforce issues and social work workload, court timescales and the additional burden that participating in research at a time of enormous stress for mothers were described as barriers to recruitment. Social workers suggested that the criteria for including participants could be widened to include mothers in pre-proceedings and that recruitment could take place via substance use services with whom mothers do not have an antagonistic relationship.

The perspective of social work practitioners and not mothers themselves on barriers to engagement in research is a limitation of the study. Innovative and flexible research design is needed to include the participation of mothers whose alcohol use has led to court proceedings in research.

Few studies have investigated the barriers and facilitators to engaging mothers in research at the point that care proceedings have been issued. The re-purposed study highlighted the particular stresses on mothers and social workers and made recommendations for alternative strategies for recruiting these mothers and representing their experience in research.

This paper aims to report on the findings of a qualitative study that explored the views of 53 service providers assisting Indigenous young people (known in Australia as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth) transitioning from out-of-home care (OOHC) in Australia.

A qualitative approach was adopted involving semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 53 representatives of state and territory government departments, non-government organisation service providers and Aboriginal community-controlled organisations (ACCOs) across Australia. The project was designed to gain the perspectives of those working within the system and their views on how it interacts with Indigenous care leavers. Interview questions aimed to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of the leaving care support systems available to this cohort, as well as the key challenges facing service providers in supporting them. Finally, the study aimed to make recommendations for policy development in this area and identify potential best practice service responses.

The study found that the OOHC service systems continue to fail Indigenous care leavers, their families and communities. Study findings revealed that Indigenous care-leavers face substantial challenges and that the support systems for those leaving OOHC are often culturally insensitive and ineffective. Many Indigenous OOHC leavers lacked the supports they needed to develop safe and ongoing relationships with their traditional Country, family and communities. To promote more positive transitions and outcomes, effective practice responses were identified, including culturally safe programmes and proportional funding for ACCOs to advance greater self-determination.

This research is the first national study in Australia to examine the specific transition from care pathways and experiences of Indigenous young people. The findings add to the limited existing knowledge on Indigenous care leavers globally and should inform practice and policy innovations with this cohort in Australia and beyond.

Breast milk is considered as the most ideal food for infants during infancy owing to its diverse nutritional and therapeutic attributes. In the absence of breast milk, infants may be offered with cow's, buffalo's or goat's milk after modification to bring their composition nearer to human milk. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Risks associated with prolonged and exclusive breast feeding or unmodified cow's, buffalo's or goat's milk have been highlighted. In the absence of human milk, the suitability of modified cow's, buffalo's or goat's milk as a supplementary food for infants is also justified.

Breast milk is the most preferred food for infants owing to its numerous intrinsic therapeutic and nutritional attributes. Human milk is virtually impossible to mimic completely, and therefore, goat's milk is often preferred over cow's milk or buffalo's milk due to its better digestibility, higher biological value and less allergenic. An appropriate blending of protein, carbohydrate, fat, minerals and vitamins to cow's, buffalo's or goat's milk to result in modified milk, nutritionally adequate for infants is suggested.

Nutritional and therapeutic attributes of cow's, buffalo's or goat's milk must be suitably modified to meet the physiological needs as well as to confer protection to the infants.

Health improves the proficiency and output generated by individuals. It also raises physical as well as mental abilities, which are required for the growth and advancement of any economy. Many infant diseases have been recognised via contemporary technology in a bid to tackle these diseases. However, children within the African continent (Including Nigeria) die en masse from diseases. This has made the government of Nigeria allocate sizeable part of the nation's budget to healthcare system. The allocation to health is, however, yet to translate to improved health condition for Nigerians. It does not measure up to the World Health Organization's (WHO) standards for apportioning budget to the health sector. This study also analyses empirically the impact of healthcare expenses on the mortality level of infants as well as Nigeria's neonatal mortality level.

The paper focuses on Nigeria. Vector auto regression model techniques, unit root tests and cointegration test were carried out using time series date for the period between 1986 and 2016.

The outcome has revealed that expenditure on healthcare possesses a negative correlation with the mortality of infants and neonates. The study discovers that if the Nigerian government raises and maintains health expenditure specifically on activities focused on minimising infant mortality, it will translate to reduction in infant mortality in Nigeria.

This paper has contributed exhaustively to solution to poor expenditure on healthcare, especially child mortality, in Nigeria.

The reliability of a product is generally concerned with failures during its operating life. Accelerated (stress) burn‐in before shipment will reject poor quality products and avoid a high initial mortality rate in residual life. It is justified when the expected proportion of a product being defective is high in the infant stage and where early removal of defects will improve reliability in service. Studies economic designs of stress screening plans where every finished product is subject to burn‐in. Examines the optimal burn‐in time in minimizing total testing, manufacturing, quality and reliability costs. Discusses the effect of burn‐in stress level.

This paper seeks to address a gap in the literature relating to crisis brand management in emerging markets.

The study is based on secondary research and 15 qualitative depth interviews with mothers living in Beijing.

The study found that the Chinese infant milk powder incident significantly reduced confidence in domestic brands, altered perceptions of domestic brands, and had a profound effect on buying behaviour.

The study is based primarily on a consumer perspective and the findings cannot be generalised to a wider population with known levels of statistical significance because of the qualitative methodology and small sample size.

The paper concludes that while crisis brand management requires managers to undertake similar actions whether they work in an emerging or a developed market, the cultural environment may cause them to actually take different actions.

This paper makes an original contribution to knowledge regarding crisis brand management in an emerging market via insight provided by the 2008 Chinese infant milk powder incident.

Home visiting is a strategy widely implemented to support families following the birth of a baby. There is a broad consensus that home visiting programmes are successful. But there is little understanding of factors moderating this success. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between maternal involvement in a nurse home visiting programme, maternal depression, and adjustment to the parenting role.

A retrospective design was employed in which the medical records of 40 mothers who had been enroled in a nurse home visiting programme were examined. The number of nurse home visits from birth to six months, maternal depressive symptoms, Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) and responsivity scores were examined. Mothers had been selected for the programme if they had a history of mental illness, were in a violent relationship, or reported drug or alcohol problems.

A significant, positive relationship was found between maternal involvement, positive HOME environment and maternal responsivity scores. Furthermore, the mothers with the highest scores for HOME environment and responsivity to their infant ' s cues at six months were mothers experiencing deteriorating symptoms of depression. These mothers had the highest levels of involvement with the programme. Despite their mothers’ deteriorating mental health, infants whose mothers received the greatest number of visits from a nurse received the greatest benefit ameliorating their risk for developing poor attachment and impaired behavioural, emotional and cognitive development.

This is the first study to examine the relationship between changes in maternal depression and programme outcomes in a home visiting programme. It is one of the first explorations of the relationship between maternal involvement and programme outcomes in a targeted nurse home visiting programme to prevent child maltreatment. The findings from this study are critical to future home visiting programme development and evaluation.