"Looking After Children":

Authors

  • Louise Legault Child Welfare League of Canada & Centre for Research on Community Services, University of Ottawa, Ontario
  • Robert Flynn School of Psychology & Centre for Research on Community Services, University of Ottawa, Ontario
  • Sibylle Artz School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria, British Columbia
  • Shannon Balla Child Welfare League of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
  • Peter Dudding Child Welfare League of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
  • Victoria Norgaard Child Welfare League of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
  • Shirley Cole Department of Health and Social Services, Government of Prince Edward Island
  • Hayat Ghazai Services to Children and Adults of Prescott-Russell, Ontario & Centre for Research on Community Services, University of Ottawa, Ontario
  • Raymond Lemay Services to Children and Adults of Prescott-Russell, Ontario
  • Susan Petrick Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies, Toronto, Ontario
  • Gail Vandermeulen Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies, Toronto, Ontario
  • Marie-Andrée Poirier École de service social, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec
  • Marie-Claude Simard Projet SOCEN, Institut de recherche pour le développement social des jeunes, Montreal, Quebec

Keywords:

looking after children, children-in-care, foster care, resilience, outcome monitoring

Abstract

Recent research findings suggest that there are many positive outcomes and much resilience among children in care. These findings are based on a program evaluation of the Looking After Children approach, which emphasizes the promotion of positive outcomes of children in care, the importance of good parenting, and strong partnerships among care­givers. The Looking After Children philosophy is operationalized in the Assessment and Action Record (AAR). In a second Canadian adaptation of the AARs, Flynn and Ghazal (2001) retain many monitoring questions from the original British assessments while adding many measures from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (Statistics Canada & Human Resources Development Canada, 1997). The use of questions from this national survey provides a means to compare children in care with a representative Canadian sample of children. This ability to compare developmental outcomes of children in care with those of their peers in the general population allows for a more accurate assessment of the degree to which children in care have attained positive outcomes despite adversity. This paper presents an historical overview of the implementation of the Looking After Children approach in Canada. Preliminary lessons learned from research findings, outcome monitoring, and implementation are also presented.

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Published

2004-03-01

How to Cite

Legault, L. ., Flynn, R., Artz, S. ., Balla, S. ., Dudding, P. ., Norgaard, V. ., Cole, S. ., Ghazai, H. ., Lemay, R. ., Petrick, S. ., Vandermeulen, G. ., Poirier, M.-A. ., & Simard, M.-C. . (2004). "Looking After Children":. Journal of Child and Youth Care Work, 19, 159–169. Retrieved from http://acycpjournal.pitt.edu/ojs/jcycw/article/view/381

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Section

Articles