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Child protection and child welfare: a global appraisal of cultures, policy and practice
- Authors:
- WELBOURNE Penelope, DIXON John, (eds.)
- Publisher:
- Jessica Kingsley
- Publication year:
- 2013
- Pagination:
- 240p.
- Place of publication:
- London
This book draws on the knowledge of child protection experts and social care professionals in a wide range of countries to provide a comparative international overview of child protection strategy and policy. Case studies are used to highlight the differences and similarities in approaches to child welfare and protection. The writers offer guidance for those working with children from immigrant communities living in these areas. Research findings provide practitioners and policy makers with useful information for developing their practice and to enable them to respond to culturally specific needs arising in the children they are working to protect. Countries discussed include: UK, Sweden, USA, Italy, Romania, Japan, India, Kazakhstan, Middle East, Ghana, Australia and New Zealand. The book is expected to be of interest to social workers, policy makers, child protection service workers, commissioners and managers across child and family welfare services, as well as researchers and academics in the field.
Social work with children and families in Ghana: negotiating tradition and modernity
- Author:
- LAIRD Siobhan E.
- Journal article citation:
- Child and Family Social Work, 16(4), November 2011, pp.434-443.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Social workers in Ghana are confronted with a different set of challenges to those in North America and Europe. Ghana is a poly-ethnic nation comprising a multitude of different indigenous cultural practices and a modern urban sector largely divorced from a rural population adhering to customary law. This study explores how Ghanaian practitioners negotiate the contradictions between child welfare legislation and customary law. Data were gathered from semi-structured interviews with 36 qualified social workers employed by the Department of Social Welfare and the transcripts were thematically analysed. The findings are discussed in the areas of: paternity and inheritance; maintenance of children; and custody of children. The study found that legislative provision normalises nuclear family forms and runs counter to customary law. Statutes which take no account of widely practiced family forms and traditions place social workers in an invidious position whereby they can neither sanction customary standards of behaviour nor implement legal provisions without contravening their code of practice to respect culture diversity. Recommendations are made for social changes to policy, practice and training in order to develop cultural competence in Ghanaian social work.
A discussion of perceptions of community facilitators from Swaziland, Kenya, Mozambique and Ghana: cultural practices and child protection
- Authors:
- MUROVE Tapfuma, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, 5(Supplement 1), June 2010, pp.55-62.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
This article highlights the importance of knowing some of the cultural practices that encourage child abuse or hinder effective implementation of community-based child protection responses. Data were collected from 287 community development facilitators from Swaziland, Ghana, Mozambique, and Kenya using open-ended qualitative interviews in which they were asked about harmful cultural practices which they thought had negative impacts on their child protection work in respective communities. The range of interviewees varied from home visitors, development workers, faith-based organisation employees, HIV-AIDS facilitators to child monitors and peer educators. Four general types of cultural practices were identified by interviewees as posing risks to children and challenges to child protection work: marriage practices, rites of passage or rituals, family secrets, and religious or spiritual practices. The authors conclude that an understanding of cultural practices is essential for the success of child protection responses in communities, especially with regard to child protection advocacy work that focuses upon harmful cultural practices. Community child protection interventions should deliberately target children who are especially vulnerable or isolated due to some harmful cultural practices. However, as cultural issues are sensitive, child protection interventions should commence by highlighting those positive aspects of people’s cultural practices, which can then become entry points for engaging with other practices that may be harmful to children. It is essential to train and empower community development facilitators so that they can engage cultural issues more effectively. Existing child protection interventions or responses need to be contextualised to various cultural environments of children.
The 1998 Children's Act: problems of enforcement in Ghana
- Author:
- LAIRD Siobhan
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 32(7), October 2002, pp.893-905.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
In Ghana during 1998 the Children's Act passed into law. This legislation was imitative of Britain's 1989 Children Act, to which it bears a close resemblance. However, due to the very different socio-economic and cultural context of Ghana, implementation of the 1998 Children's Act is problematic. This paper examines the similarity in the provisions between the British and Ghanaian Acts and explores the social, economic and cultural factors most immediately impacting on child welfare in Ghana. Consideration is then given to the criticisms of African scholars in relation to rights based approaches to intervention. Finally, alternative courses of action to protect children and maintain their welfare are considered which are more consonant with the specific socio-economic and cultural setting of Ghana.