Do more as a caring dad for a disabled child and your marriage gets better: new Polish research

A colleague in Poland, Eugene Kaniok, sends me the outcomes of his research on 243 Polish fathers of disabled children. Fathers means also carers of course, and it's usually mothers who do the most caring.

But this research looks at fathers' involvement: if they got interested in the child’s life, and involved in the child's care, education and rehabilitation then this was very significantly associated with an increase in satisfaction in their marriage. Less important, but still significant, involvement correlated with the level of fathers’ concentration on the needs of their child with disabilities, the level of fathers' cooperation with their wives, the number of years during which parents cared for a child with disabilities, time devoted by fathers daily for their child with disabilities, fathers’ self-esteem, fathers’ education, the level of disability of a child, the level of fathers’ skills in dealing with their child with disabilities and the level of fathers' knowledge about their child with disabilities.

My experience is that when families have a child with disabilities the mother is almost forced to take on responsibility for the care, and fathers can feel left out, or decide that they can't cope with what's happening to their family. It often, sadly, leads to marriage break-up. If this research relates to other families with disabled children across the world, it's a message to social workers and others helping families with disabled children. Work hard to get dad interested and doing things actively, and you'll strengthen the marriage and really benefit the child in their life too.

Far be it from me to give it a political tinge, but one thinks, looking at this research, of our Prime Minister's family. Whatever you think of his politics, he clearly did the business as a dad, and if this research is true for England, that's probably one of the reasons that he seems to have a strong marriage.

I've got this from the English abstract and talking to the writer. there are going to be papers published in English, and I'll try to draw attention to them when they come out. We should be looking at and learning from international research.

P. E. Kaniok. (2011). Poczucie powodzenia malzenstwa a udzial ojcow w opiece nad dzieckiem niepełnosprawnym i w jego wychowaniu [Fathers' marital satisfaction and their involvement with their child with disabilities], Opole, Opole University Publishing.

Does all practice in a religious social work agency have to reflect that religion?

An American Catholic archbishop has made a speech that raises issues that should be considered by Catholic social work agencies, agencies and social work practitioners with other religious or denominational commitments and anyone who is thinking about: 'what is the nature of social work'?

The main point he is making is that if you are going to call yourself a Catholic social agency or Catholic social worker your practice has to reflect and espouse your Catholic beliefs. Otherwise stop calling yourself a Catholic.

I think there are some problems with this point of view. To start with, I know some Catholic agencies that say: 'We are Catholics providing services for everyone'. I remember Catholic Social Services in Liverpool, when I was involved with them as saying this: I don't know what their policy is now. I also remember some children that I was responsible on behalf of local authority who were 'in care' (being 'looked after' in current jargon) in a children's home run by nuns from a Catholic children's agency; again, Catholics helping children in general rather than just Catholic children.

There are many care and aid agencies that operate with wider communities in this way. If they are going to do social work, they will have to accept different denominational and cultural beliefs and values and behave in a neutral way about these; thus not including their Catholic emphasis in everything that they do. The aim of a social agency is not to be 'useful to the Gospel' as the Archbishop puts it, in this way. They are useful to the Gospel by demonstrating that Christians care about everyone, whoever they are.

Archbishop Chaput's point, though, is a bit different. He is commenting on a situation that we have also experienced in the UK, and will probably be a worldwide issue. That is, if equalities legislation says you cannot discriminate against gay and lesbian people in an adoption and fostering service, you shouldn't run an adoption  and fostering service.

There is a practical problem here: how far does a Catholic go? Do Catholic social workers or agencies have nothing to do with a child care system that accepts decision-making on these grounds that are so anti-Catholic. In that case, Catholic people rule themselves out of engagement with increasingly wide swathes of social provision. Or do they accept that some of it goes on, but avoid direct involvement with it. You can almost see the Catholic working in a school, jumping back faced with a child of gay adoptive parents saying: 'Ugh, no! We cannot teach that person, they are contaminated'. Well no, most Catholics I know and most Christians, maintain a concern for others and do their job with others, even though they may not like the social trends reflected in some of the things that happen. So a Catholic agency or a Catholic social worker should not be saying: 'we don't go there'.

The Archbishop is quoted as saying: 'Catholic ministries “have the duty to faithfully embody Catholic beliefs on marriage, the family, social justice, sexuality, abortion and other important issues. And if the state refuses to allow those Catholic ministries to be faithful in their services through legal or financial bullying,” he added, “then as a matter of integrity, they should end their services.”

There's a broader ethical point: if you agree to provide services to the public, you have to accept that the society in which that public lives may not agree with you about many of the things you believe, and a public service means an equal service for all the public, not the ones you happen to agree with. If they don't agree, and the law, which enacts the general settlement in a society about an issue, supports them, a Christian should not just take their bat and ball home. To me, then, this stance is not Christian, and so therefore cannot be very Catholic.

More important, it is not and can never be social work. The whole point about social work is that it is concerned with achieving more solidarity and resilience in social relationships among all peoples. An agency or a practitioner that says: 'We don't do these kinds of social relationships' cannot be a social work agency or practitioner because their social preferences detract from general social engagement.

Of course, any agency can decide on an admissions policy that limits the range of people and issues that that they deal with. I know several Jewish agencies that focus on providing services for Jewish people in their area only and several Muslim and Hindu agencies whose style, presentation and policy means that they are only likely to attract clients from their particular community. but they don't say: 'We're not going to have anything to do with the way in which most of society wants to play ball'. You're cutting yourself off from that society, and with a good deal of arrogance too.

A bit of Christan humility means taking part in society, and not rejecting fundamental principles about how that society is run, such as equality with people who you don't like and don't agree with. I don't want to see Christians of any kind (or any other religion) cutting themselves off in this kind of way. What does a Catholic social worker who is committed to equality and who wants to work in adoption and fostering, a vital and valued service, do? Catholic agencies are closed to them, does it mean all practice in this area is closed to them, too? I suppose the Archbishop would say that in their professional practice they are not pursuing a 'Christian ministry'. Yes, but can't a valuable social agency do the same thing?

The account of the speech by Archbishop Chaput: : http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/archbishop-chaput-warns-about-catholic-institutions-losing-religious-identity/

Child and alligator protection in America

It's different all over the world: American child protection social workers responding to a report of seven neglected children found a large alligator in the room with them. I've had dangerous dogs and multiple cats, but in England we don't usually get alligators. Apparently both the children and the alligator were taken into custody (but the alligator separately - its aquarium was filthy, who knows about the children - the newspaper doesn't say).

Read the news report here: http://www.sunherald.com/2011/05/10/3100717/gator-found-in-home-with-7-kids.html

Adult services in the EU: some unusual central Europe perspectives

I've been involved with the editing of an interesting new book, based on a conference, on social work in adult services in the EU, with mainly a central Europe perspective. There is interesting stuff on helping Roma communities, disability policy and unemployment policy in Poland, papers on services on homelessness in Denmark, chronic drug abuse in Germany, alternative punishment, family problems and older people in Slovakia.

There's a good policy paper on trends in general social services policy, stuff on social work skills, two papers on palliative care from the UK and I wrote a piece on where personalisation is at. Two fascinating papers give you a history of child care during the communist period and after in Poland, as a prelude to looking at recruiting adults to provide foster care and at the transition of care leavers into adulthood. While a UK social worker would distinguish those from adult services abd call them child care, they make the point that understanding the needs of the adults who provide child care in the community is also important and that children inc are become adults and you have to work at making the transition work.

A lovely paper on working with odler people in Poland through the University of the Third Age makes the point that educational initiatives are an important community resource of older people. the perspective of central European social pedagogy emphasisies thatperspective.

Also a bit unusual, there an interesting paper from the owner of a private care home and private domiciliary care in the UK; you don't often see an emphasis on commercial decision-making as an element in decisions about social care.

It’s published by College Publications in London: http://www.collegepublications.co.uk/other/?00018
and you can find it on Amazon UK or US by searching for the title: Social Work in Adult Services in the European Union. Selected Issues and Experiences.

I have been looking at a guide for housing staff on end-of-life care, and I'm struck by the numbers of specialised nurses that they have to work with: here's the listing in the guide: the district nurse, the Macmillan nurse, Marie Curie nursing service, community matrons, nurses in discharge planning teams.



Not mentioned, there are nurses in hospices (home care nurses and nursing at home services that some hospices run) nuses in the charitable chains of hospices (Sue Ryder homes and the Marie Curie hospices) (separately managed from their nursing service - why?) hospitals and care homes.



Is there scope for merging some of these functions, services and charities. Granted they would probably all say they have different objectives, values etc etc. But really how different is it all? And, in these hard times, would it not save a lot of money and improve efficiency to merge some of these specialist services or plan them differently? http://amplify.com/u/bwf92

Social work student Rahmani's art recalls her imprisonment in Iran

Anahita Rahmani, 53, now a social work student in Toronto, has created a sculpture based on her experience of imprisonment for eight years for political activity in Iran. Her husband died in another prison while she was inside.

Shahrzad Mojab, 55, a professor of women’s studies in Toronto has devised a project titled Words, Colour, Movement, involving two dozen people from Iran and Turkey who were political prisoners, of whom Rahmani is one. An exhibit of their work titled, Lines of Resistance: Prison Art from the Middle East, runs at Beit Zatoun Gallery, 612 Markham St., from April 9 to 17.

In Rahmani’s piece sculpted out of Plasticine, dark figures line up before firing squads and for floggings.

A picture and further details at: http://www.thestar.com/living/article/952898--from-prisoners-to-painters

International Wormen's Day: women's achievements in the Indian social sector

Samhita is a sort of charities aid organisation in India - you can look at its website for information about Indian voluntary organisations. It has an interesting feature acclaiming women contributors to social development, in recognition of International Women's Day. Among the women recognised are:

Sara Lizia D’Mello – Founder, Committed Communities Development Trust

She has been working in the social sector for the past 24 years, and founded Committed Communities Development Trust (CCDT) in 1990. It uses a rights-based approach working with marginalized communities living in the slums and Red-Light areas of Mumbai, engaging with people impacted by HIV/AIDS and with ensuing stigma, discrimination and deprivation. Children, especially orphan and vulnerable children, and women, including women in prostitution, have constituted the core of its integrated community development interventions.

Prema Gopalan – Founder, Swayam Shikshan Prayog

Prema completed her Masters in Social Work and her pre-doctoral study on women in the informal sector left her restless and she wanted to engage directly with such women. Swayam Shikshan Prayog partners with over 72,000 women in self-help groups or networks in three states in India Maharashtra, Tamilnadu and Gujarat. Scaling up its microfinance and enterprise strategy by partnering with women’s groups/federations, SSP expanded its operations to 1600 villages across six districts in Maharashtra promoting a women’s leadership to operate savings and credit and insurance businesses and act as information/service providers. 

Nikita Ketkar – Founder, Masoom
Nikita worked in different capacities as a Journalist, Lecturer and Social Worker. She started Masoom in 2008, an organisation focused on improving the night schools. Masoom is presently working in 10 night schools of Mumbai. Masoom plans to reach out to 210 night schools by 2020 impacting 20,000 night school students in Maharashtra.

Annabel Mehta – Honorary Treasurer, Apnalaya

Annabel was born and brought up in England, She completed her Diploma in Social Administration and came to India in 1966. Annabel has been closely involved with Apnalaya since early 1973. Apnalaya strives to achieve this through urban community development projects in Mumbai. Its role is one of empowerment: of encouraging ordinary men and women to believe in themselves and in their abilities to change their lives for the better.

My comment: These case histories ilustrate the importance of connecting women's economic and educational development with 'rescue' of marginalised groups.