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In 2018, significant legislative changes were made in child welfare in Ontario, Canada. As part of the changes, a Voluntary Youth Services Agreement was developed to allow young people between 16 and 17 years of age to obtain the necessary support services that they need to be able to further their independence, autonomy and agency in their lives. Yet, hearing directly from young people about the benefits and challenges of this program is limited. This study was intended to address these gaps. There were 15 young people (11 females and four males) who participated in a telephone interview about their views and experiences with the VYSA agreements. The majority spoke positively about the benefits of the programme and being able to continue their schooling, purchase clothing and obtain employment. They also believed that the programme allowed them more security and safety than being homeless. Some raised the challenges related to the amount of money that they received should be determined by the place that they reside in as some cities are more expensive than others. From a policy perspective, as the program continues, further changes may also be explored that examines the eligibility criteria where young people must be in need of protection before they can enter the program. In other words, moving from a deficit-based approach to a more child centred practice that includes hearing from young people in child welfare.

The monograph argues that American racism has two colours (white and black), not one; and that each racism dresses itself not in one clothing, but in four: (1) “Minimal” negative, when one race considers another race inferior to itself in degree, but not in nature; (2) “Maximal” negative, when one race regards another as inherently inferior; (3) “Minimal” positive, when one race elevates another race to a superior status in degree, but not in nature; and (4) “Maximal” positive, when one race believes that the other race is genetically superior. The monograph maintains that the needs of capitalism created black slavery; that black slavery produced white racism as a justification for black slavery; and that black racism is a backlash of white racism. The monograph concludes that the abolition of black slavery and the civil rights movement destroyed the social and political ground for white and black racism, while the modern development of capitalism is demolishing their economic and intellectual ground.

As numerous scholars have noted, the law takes a strikingly incoherent approach to adolescent reproduction. States overwhelmingly allow a teenage girl to independently consent to pregnancy care and medical treatment for her child, and even to give up her child for adoption, all without notice to her parents, but require parental notice or consent for abortion. This chapter argues that this oft-noted contradiction in the law on teenage reproductive decision-making is in fact not as contradictory as it first appears. A closer look at the law’s apparently conflicting approaches to teenage abortion and teenage childbirth exposes common ground that scholars have overlooked. The chapter compares the full spectrum of minors’ reproductive rights and unmasks deep similarities in the law on adolescent reproduction – in particular an undercurrent of desire to punish (female) teenage sexuality, whether pregnant girls choose abortion or childbirth. It demonstrates that in practice, the law undermines adolescents’ reproductive rights, whichever path of pregnancy resolution they choose. At the same time that the law thwarts adolescents’ access to abortion care, it also fails to protect adolescents’ rights as parents. The analysis shows that these two superficially conflicting sets of rules in fact work in tandem to enforce a traditional gender script – that self-sacrificing mothers should give birth and give up their infants to better circumstances, no matter the emotional costs to themselves. This chapter also suggests novel policy solutions to the difficulties posed by adolescent reproduction by urging reforms that look to third parties other than parents or the State to better support adolescent decision-making relating to pregnancy and parenting.

This article explores the neglected issue of the overrepresentation in the child protection system of children from ethnic, cultural, religious, racial, and linguistic minorities. It focuses on the accommodation of children’s diverse backgrounds within the s 31(2) threshold and s1 “best interests” stages of intervention under the Children Act 1989. First, it introduces the ethnic child protection penalty as a new tool for capturing the complex nature of overrepresentation of these children. Second, it proposes a framework for understanding the judicial approach in higher court decisions on the current extent and nature of accommodation. Third, it employs the penalty concept to help explain why case law analysis reveals difficulties with the current factor-based approach, whereas empirical research suggests generally satisfactory accommodation in practice. It concludes by proposing a contextualized framework for decision-making in relation to child protection.

This article gives an account of the cases in which the Children Act 1989 has been interpreted and applied by the highest courts in the UK, the appellate committee of the House of Lords until October 2009 when their jurisdiction was taken over by the new Supreme Court of the UK. It explains the reasoning behind those decisions and how they did, or did not, reflect the thinking of the original framers of the Act. It concludes that, by and large, the Act has stood up well to judicial scrutiny but that the Human Rights Act 1998 has brought new challenges to which it must respond.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

Research highlights that residential care experienced children and young people in Scotland have poorer educational outcomes than their peers within the wider population. Despite this, poor educational attainment is not inevitable, and further research is needed to increase the understanding of long-term trajectories. This paper aims to address a gap in contemporary literature that is of benefit to practitioners, academics and policymakers. Despite experiencing adversity, attachment, separation and loss, school attainment data on leaving care only reflects part of the educational journey.

Using a mixed methodology and social constructionist theoretical framework, a practitioner-led PhD study gathered data from questionnaires and qualitative information from 13 semi-structured interviews with young people who had experienced residential care in Scotland. Recruitment was through a gatekeeper within a national third-sector organisation. The educational trajectories for young people with experience of residential care in Scotland are complex. A lived experience perspective from a PhD study illustrates that statistical data only captures part of the journey and the author needs to reconsider how success is measured.

Of the 13 participants in the study, 12 achieved success educationally, although for the majority of those interviewed, attainment continued after leaving compulsory education. Barriers to greater success included placement uncertainty and movement, stigma, low expectations, pressure to not become a statistic, procedural obstacles and inconsistency or poor relationships.

Supportive relationships and stable placements can create circumstances conducive to effective learning, but evidence reflects that support is necessary throughout the life course if children, young people and adults with care experience are to reach their full academic potential.

Research into the educational outcomes for those with experience of residential care in Scotland is limited. This paper, from a PhD, provides lived experience accounts from a practitioner-led study.

Legal standards that allow teens to make health care decisions, or any important decisions, must account for the contingency and variability of minors’ capacity. Traditional law denied minors’ legal authority to make any decisions, giving all power to parents. This rule goes too far; the Supreme Court has held that minors have constitutionally protected autonomy-based rights, and modern views about adolescence are inconsistent with the rule. The question is how and where to draw lines.

Legal standards are based on minors’ evolving maturity, policy favoring decisions that follow medical advice, and policy supporting parental authority. This paper uses four hard cases to show how these considerations factor into legal rules.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the hostility many young women who are also mothers experience within their everyday lives.

The paper will draw on qualitative research, incorporating a narrative approach, to illustrate the hostility many young mothers experience on a daily basis. The research design included a focus group, semi-structure interviews and participant observations.

The paper reports the findings of a study that explored the experiences of young women who are also mothers. The author presents the findings that indicate that many young women, who are also young mothers, experience hostile reactions and interactions as part of their everyday lives.

The small sample size means that this study cannot be generalised, but it does contribute to the growing body of qualitative evidence in relation to young mothers.

The findings suggest that there needs to be more recognition and acknowledgement of the hostility young women experience. Such hostility could have deleterious consequences on the young women, their parenting ability and also on the children.

This paper documents the experiences of young women who are also mothers and how they experience hostility as a daily occurrence. The hostility ranged from verbal to non-verbal and how they felt they were being treated, inferences about their sexuality to stereotyping.

The topic of parent migration and its effects on the family environment has become a focus of moral dilemmas in East Europe for the last three decades. Children have been portrayed as social orphans and parents working abroad as neglectful parents. Today, with more evidence from research and experience, the impact of parental migration is much more comprehensive and nuanced, recognising its noxious or even harmful but also possibly empowering effects. This chapter reflects on the involvement of left-behind adolescents as co-researchers in a study of transnational families. It acknowledges the agentic role of children (often automatically labelled as victims of neglect), amplifies their voices to inform existing data on the impact of parents' departure to work abroad and identifies directions for intervention that might strengthen families.

The research is an integral part of CASTLE – Children Left Behind by Labour Migration, an ongoing project (June 2021–December 2023). ¹ This chapter presents the research collaboration experience with 12 co-researcher adolescents with previous left-behind experiences, originating from Moldova and currently residing in Romania. The co-researchers participated in all stages of the research process: training, design of data collection, recruitment of research participants, data analysis and dissemination of results. Taking co-researcher roles had an empowering effect on adolescents, who learnt how to express their views on the topic, voiced their experiences about the emotional costs of being left behind by their parents and reflected on sensitive issues like separation of family members and violence in the family.