Arts, Faculty of
Social Work, School of
DSpace
UBCV
Staton, James Arthur
Master of Social Work - MSW
University of British Columbia
This study examines what concepts about men’s behaviours child protection workers use when working with non-residential and non-custodial fathers. It is a qualitative study informed by Grounded Theory. Ten participants who were all child protection workers were presented with a scenario about a father who was seeking to have his children returned to his care and then asked to describe the decisions they would make in determining the father’s request. The data from the interviews were analysed using constant comparison analysis and produced three theoretical constructs relating to the participants’ concepts of men’s behaviours: the conceptual roots of men’s behaviours; the dichotomy of paternal behaviour; and accepting and excepting men’s behaviours in child protection. The findings indicated that the participants felt that their concepts and understanding of men’s behaviours as fathers came from their own experiences with their fathers and the cultural and societal norms with which they grew up. They believed that men are capable of being good parents and they are an important part of the family but there were some behaviours of men that concerned them. When it came to working with men in child protection, most participants stated that they make every effort to involve fathers and do consider them as a possible resource. There is a belief that fathers are capable of looking after their children but, as single fathers, they may need to be monitored and provided with supports. Demonstrating willingness to parent, some positive parenting skills and a willingness to be cooperative were considered acceptable behaviours. Behaviours that were considered exceptable were: a recent and extensive criminal history; extreme aggression; secrecy; and sexual abuse. However, with all these behaviours, there was a willingness to continue to work with the father to keep him involved in some capacity.
“WE DON’T LOOK AT THE NON-CUSTODIAL FATHER AS BEING A POSSIBILITY OR OPTION”: WORKING TOWARDS A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF HOW FATHERS ARE CONCEIVED IN CHILD PROTECTION by James Arthur Staton B.S.W., McGill University, 1993 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SOCIAL WORK in The Faculty of Graduate Studies (Social Work) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August, 2012 © James Arthur Staton, 2012 ii Abstract This study examines what concepts about men’s behaviours child protection workers use when working with non-residential and non-custodial fathers. It is a qualitative study informed by Grounded Theory. Ten participants who were all child protection workers were presented with a scenario about a father who was seeking to have his children returned to his care and then asked to describe the decisions they would make in determining the father’s request. The data from the interviews were analysed using constant comparison analysis and produced three theoretical constructs relating to the participants’ concepts of men’s behaviours: the conceptual roots of men’s behaviours; the dichotomy of paternal behaviour; and accepting and excepting men’s behaviours in child protection. The findings indicated that the participants felt that their concepts and understanding of men’s behaviours as fathers came from their own experiences with their fathers and the cultural and societal norms with which they grew up. They believed that men are capable of being good parents and they are an important part of the family but there were some behaviours of men that concerned them. When it came to working with men in child protection, most participants stated that they make every effort to involve fathers and do consider them as a possible resource. There is a belief that fathers are capable of looking after their children but, as single fathers, they may need to be monitored and provided with supports. Demonstrating willingness to parent, some positive parenting skills and a willingness to be cooperative were considered acceptable behaviours. Behaviours that were considered exceptable were: a recent and extensive criminal history; extreme aggression; secrecy; and sexual abuse. However, with all these iii behaviours, there was a willingness to continue to work with the father to keep him involved in some capacity. iv Preface This study is approved by the UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board certificate number H09-03152. v Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ..................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... v List of Tables ........................................................................................................................ viii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. ix Dedication ................................................................................................................................. x 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Historical views of families and fatherhood ................................................................ 2 1.2 Current perspectives on fathering ................................................................................ 5 1.3 Non-residential and non-custodial fathers .................................................................... 8 1.4 Mothers, fathers and child protection ......................................................................... 10 1.5 Assessing risk in child protection............................................................................... 15 1.6 Decision-making in child protection .......................................................................... 18 1.7 Engaging fathers in child protection services ............................................................ 21 2 Methods ........................................................................................................................... 24 2.1 Context of this study .................................................................................................. 24 2.2 Participant selection ................................................................................................... 25 2.3 Description of the sample population ........................................................................ 26 vi 2.4 Data-gathering methods ............................................................................................. 27 2.5 Evaluation criteria ...................................................................................................... 29 2.6 Data analysis .............................................................................................................. 32 3 Developing themes from the data ................................................................................. 36 3.1 Social construction of men’s behaviours as fathers ................................................... 37 3.2 The pedagogy of men’s behaviours as fathers ........................................................... 38 3.3 Definitions of a “good” father ................................................................................... 39 3.4 Men behaving badly .................................................................................................. 40 3.5 Disquieting behaviours in child protection ................................................................ 41 3.6 Working with men in child protection ....................................................................... 43 3.7 Men’s parenting abilities ........................................................................................... 44 3.8 Responding to men’s anger ....................................................................................... 45 4 Findings ........................................................................................................................... 47 4.1 The conceptual roots of men’s behaviours ................................................................ 47 4.2 The dichotomy of paternal behaviour ........................................................................ 51 4.3 Accepting and excepting men’s behaviours in child protection ................................ 54 5 Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 64 6 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 68 6.1 Implications for practice ............................................................................................ 68 vii 6.2 Strengths and limitations of this study....................................................................... 69 6.3 Implications for further research ............................................................................... 71 References ............................................................................................................................... 73 Appendices ............................................................................................................................. 84 Appendix A: Interview guide (original version) .................................................................. 84 Appendix B: Interview guide (revised version) ................................................................... 87 viii List of Tables Table 2.1 Theoretical constructs, themes and text-based categories………………35 ix Acknowledgements I give a special thanks to my thesis advisor, Dr. Sheila Marshall, for her patience, feedback and encouragement and for giving me the freedom to run wild with my ideas before gently bringing me back down to earth. I also thank the members of my Thesis Committee, Drs. Grant Charles and Shafik Dharamsi, for their invaluable suggestions and feedback. To all my professors and fellow students who made this a memorable experience, I offer my gratitude. I offer a special thanks to my supervisor, Siu May Lui, at Vancouver Family Preservation Services for her patience, support and understanding. Without the flexibility she allowed me to have, this would have been a much more difficult task. Also I give my thanks to the director of our program, Cheryl Mixon and Family Services of Greater Vancouver for giving me the time and opportunity to do this. I thank all my colleagues at work for their interest and encouragement. I would like to thank the Ministry of Children and Family Development for their support of this study and allowing me to interview child protection workers. I would like to offer a very special thanks to the participants who took time out of their very busy schedules to meet with me. Without their participation and informative interviews, this study would never have happened. And last but not least, I give my loving thanks to my life-partner Josh who supported me emotionally and financially. I can now give him the answer to the question he has been waiting three years to hear: It’s done. x Dedication To my father who left this world far too soon 1 1 Introduction When a report is made to child protective services, it is the role of the protection worker to investigate the allegation to determine if the children’s safety and well-being is at risk. If it is determined that there are child protection concerns, the worker has a choice of responses from providing support services to removing the children and placing them in foster care or other alternative care situations. If the children are placed in care, the goal of the worker is to provide support to the family to resolve the concerns and return the children home. If this is not possible, the children are either made permanent wards of the government or alternate care situations, such as a relative, are explored. With the rising costs of care, the limited resources and the consequences of foster care on the children, alternate care placements have been the preferred course for child protection services (Foster, 2007). This has led to more child protection workers exploring the role fathers can assume in taking responsibility for their children’s care as noted in the study done by Brown, Strega, Dominelli, Walmsley and Callahan (2009) in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. However, child protection still tends to focus on mothers’ roles in raising children and they are the ones who are considered responsible for the child protection concerns (Strega, Fleet, Brown, Dominelli, Callahan & Walmsley, 2008). In the process of assessing fathers to take on this responsibility, there is a gap in knowledge about the decision making process protection workers use to determine whether the children should be placed with the fathers especially if they are the non-residential and non-custodial parents. 2 My research was conducted in the large Canadian city of Vancouver, British Columbia where the regional child protection service contracted a local not-for-profit agency to provide a service to support families referred by them. All the families have child protection concerns and the goal of the agency service is to support families in maintaining their children at home or having the children, who had been placed in care, returned to them. I have had the opportunity to work with several fathers who have been referred to this service. Listening to the stories of these fathers, I heard their passion, determination and dedication to make a positive contribution to their children’s well- being. I also heard the challenges of working with the child protection services to show them they are able to look after their children. It is my hope this research will develop a better understanding of the criteria and assumptions protection workers use when making decisions about fathers’ involvement with their children especially if the fathers are non- residential and non-custodial. By doing this, child protection workers might gain a better understanding of how their beliefs and experiences influence their decision-making processes leading to a system that is less stressful for, more inclusive of and more open to fathers’ involvement with their children (Strega, Brown, Callahan, Dominelli & Walmsley, 2009). This would allow fathers to spend their energy looking after their children and the children will have to spend less time in care. 1.1 Historical views of families and fatherhood The composition, function and concept of the family taken from an historical perspective are not as simple and clear-cut as one would expect. How these have been recorded through time has been influenced by the views and beliefs of the person writing them and the society the writer lived in. The descriptions of families and the roles each 3 member played reflected the purpose the writer had for writing the account and were generally focussed on what was observed publically which may have been different from what occurred privately (Featherstone, 2009). The change of family roles over time, including that of fathers, has not been homogeneous and there was not a linear, progressive development to the modern day understanding of the roles, responsibilities, abilities and contributions to the family in general and child development specifically. Our view of fatherhood and fathering is derived from a contribution of not just one history, but a combination of many histories (Featherstone, 2009; LaRossa, 1997). It is outside the scope of this thesis to explore the many histories of fatherhood and fathering. I feel, however, that it is important to understand how some of these histories have led to the social construction of what it means, in general, to be a father in modern North American society. Griswold (1993) wrote from his perspective about the changes in fatherhood from an American point-of-view. His account began in the 1800’s where colonization, industrialization and the western exploration and settlement, changed the concept of family life, of children and the roles and responsibilities of parents. Attitudes about children began to shift from the idea they had to be controlled and stifled to one of individualism where their accomplishments were praised and encouraged. There were also economic changes associated with the growth of industrialization requiring fathers to spend more time away from the family. The role of the father was becoming defined as the breadwinner leaving the mother to care for the children and run the household creating a gendered domestic division of labour in the family. This division of labour was more acute for the working class where low wages meant fathers had to work long hours sometimes at two or three jobs just to maintain a marginal 4 standard of living. This, however, did not hold true for all families as the wealthier families employed people to take care of the domestic chores giving the family more time to spend together. Sadly, most of those employed were the low-paid working class. As industrialization grew, so too did the gap in domestic labour. The beginning of the twentieth century saw a growing manufacturing industry producing everything from cars to refrigerators quickly and cheaply. This was the beginning of the age of consumerism and it was putting pressure on the breadwinning father to earn enough money to satisfy the demands for all the latest gadgets and conveniences (Griswold, 1993). Fathers’ roles were being defined as the breadwinner of the family with the occasional opportunity to play or do homework with his children when he could manage a short break from work (LaRossa, 1997). This left mothers responsible for the care of the children and managing the household. These divided roles were reinforced during World War Two, when men, many of whom were fathers, went to war. At home, women were left with full responsibility for the children as well as filling the position in the labour market left vacant by the men. However, with the prolonged absence of men from their families, there became a realization that fathers made important contributions to the family (Griswold, 1993). Following the war, men returned home and back into the labour market. For most women, this meant a return to their domestic responsibilities at home. With the prosperity of the post-war economy, it was possible for most families, especially middle-class ones, to live comfortably on a single income, which most often was supplied by the father, while the mother stayed at home with the children. The male as breadwinner role was re-established (Featherstone, 2009; Griswold, 1993) and enhanced, after the insight of the absent father during the war, as the head of the 5 household. Besides supporting the family financially, fathers were expected to share child-rearing responsibilities as disciplinarians, role models, homework helpers and playmates as part of their role of socializing the children (Daniel & Taylor, 2001). Even with this shift, the division of domestic labour remained. The ideal of the nuclear family with a stay-at-home mother and working father became the standard towards which all families should strive (Griswold, 1993). This ideal that was often perpetuated through newspapers, magazines and television, began to erode away in the 1960’s with the rise of feminism, a changing economy and a generation who challenged the status quo (Griswold, 1993). The role of the father as the head of the household was being challenged as a result of single female- headed households, out-of-wedlock births and families with both parents working. The expectations of fatherhood were changing and fathers struggled to define what it meant for them individually. One thing that did emerge from the challenge to redefine fatherhood was the recognition that it meant something different to each father (Griswold, 1993). 1.2 Current perspectives on fathering Over the past twenty years, there has been a growing volume of literature on what fathers contribute to the family and to their children’s development. Doucet (2006) interviewed 118 fathers and fourteen heterosexual couples where the father, for a variety of reasons, had decided to stay at home to care for the children. These fathers represented a cross section of social class as determined by education levels and income, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Using their narratives, she tried to capture the essence of 6 their descriptions of how they care for their children, their concepts of responsibility for them and the effect on men, masculinity and the female-male relationship. This is all in the context of fathers taking on a role which has traditionally been in a female-dominated sphere that has defined, in part, who they are, what they do and how they do it. She concluded that there are many similarities between mothers and fathers on how they nurture their children; however, there is a difference in how that nurturing is expressed. Many of the fathers in her study, in describing their interactions with their children, emphasized “…fun, playfulness, physical activities, sports, the outdoors, practicality in emotional responses, and the promotion of independence and risk taking with older children” (p. 218). Doucet (2006) found that fathers also take on community responsibilities that are an extension of their care-taking responsibilities at home. These include interactions between households and between households and social bodies such as schools, professionals and community organizations. They develop their own networks that exist alongside female-dominated networks but are distinctive in that they are created to meet their needs. There are times in filling community responsibilities when fathers have to become part of female-dominated networks. It is in these situations that gender differences become apparent with assumptions about how women and men should act in fulfilling their moral responsibilities. These include such things as playgroups attended by mothers, girls’ sleepovers and male-female friendships around children. It is in these areas that gendered assumptions and stereotypes about men are still strong. Daniel and Taylor (2001) reported similar findings suggesting that fathers who undertake the primary caregiving role do it differently than mothers and that fathers are often uneasy in 7 joining mother-dominated activities. Pleck (2010) in his study of the relevance of father’s contribution to child development concluded that good fathering is as important and relevant as good mothering but that it is not essential. However, for fathers, there are gender differences in the way they parent compared to mothers that are unique and uniquely masculine. Bouchard, Lee, Asgary and Pelletier’s (2007) study of French- speaking fathers’ motivation to be involved with their pre-school aged children living in a dual income family, concluded that fathers valued their contributions in supporting their children’s emotional development and educational endeavours more than their participation in physical care activities such as dressing or feeding them. They indicated their involvement was due to the value they placed on their role as a father rather than being coerced into it. They added that they found their partners to be a source of support which contributed to their motivation and feelings of capability and gratification. The above studies involved fathers who resided with and were caring for their children. Since the middle of the twentieth century, there have been an increasing number of fathers who do not live with their biological children (Cheadle, Amato, & King , 2010). This is due in a large part to the dramatic rise in the rate of divorces as well as an increase in non-marital births (Cheadle et al., 2010). Some fathers continue to have a close relationship and frequent contact with their children after the divorce while other fathers quickly disappear from their children’s lives. However, children have fewer emotional and social problems and behave better in school when there is a positive relationship with non-residential fathers (Amato & Dorius, 2010). The quality and quantity of father involvement in these situations depends on many factors and it is not the same for every father-child relationship (Cheadle et al., 2010). 8 1.3 Non-residential and non-custodial fathers Despite stereotypical beliefs about “deadbeat” dads who refuse to pay child support payments or take responsibility for their children, there are many who fulfil these obligations (Laakso & Adams, 2006). There seems to be a positive association between child financial support and child contact: the larger and more consistent the support payments the more father-child contact there is (Amato & Dorius, 2010; Amato, Meyers, & Emery, 2009; Cheadle et al., 2010; Manning, Stewart, & Smock, 2003). The complexity of the parental obligations also has an influence on the chances child support will be paid. Fathers who are not in a new relationship and do not have other children are more likely to contribute financially to their non-residential children and have more contact with them than fathers who have responsibilities for a new family and new biological children (Manning et al., 2003). There is a similar effect on father-child contact if the residential mother remarries or cohabitates with a new partner. There may be a reduction in contact if the father feels his paternal role has been assumed by her new partner and that it is not as necessary to be as actively involved (Amato & Dorius, 2010; Amato, et al., 2009; Manning et al., 2003). The mother may also discourage contact to reduce disruption in her new relationship (Amato et al., 2009). Geographical distance can be a determining factor in the amount of contact a father has with his non-residential children (Amato & Dorius, 2010; Cheadle et al., 2010). If distance is too great, it may not be feasible to maintain direct contact on a regular basis although with current forms of communications, it is becoming easier to maintain contact through the internet or social networking. Cheadle et al. (2010) concluded that fathers with a consistantly high level of contact not only paid child care payments but had older children where there was more 9 time to develop a close relationship, had children born in marriage, and had children with older and better educated mothers. Although the amount of contact is important, there is evidence that the quality of the contact has a greater influence on postive child development. Because of the limited time that some fathers have with their non-residential children they prefer to engage in fun activities such as going to movies or restaurants. They believe that their relationship is insecure and tend not to set rules or discipline out of concern of damaging the father- child relationship (Amato & Gilbreth, 1999). However, the parenting style which is considered to be in the best interest of the child is authoritative. This approach to parenting consists of setting and monitoring appropriate limits and boundaries in an emotionally supportive and warm manner (Amato & Dorius, 2010; Amato & Sobolewski, 2004; Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Children whose fathers engage them in this way were more capable of resolving internal and external problems, did better in school and had sociably acceptable moral values (Amato & Dorius, 2010; Amato & Gilbreth, 1999). These positve outcomes also carry through to adulthood where adult children have a positive view of their paternal relationship (Amato & Dorius, 2010). Even with the increase in father involvment in the care of their children, there still remains a gendered division of labour. As women continue to enter the workforce there has not been a corresponding increase in men assuming child care responsibilities (Daniel & Taylor, 1999) but in Canada, there are indications that gender roles have been converging. There has been a dramatic increase in women with partners and children under 16 years old at home in the workforce from 38% in 1976 to 57% in 1986 and 73% in 2005 (Government of Canada, 2006). During the period of 1986 to 2005, there was an 10 increase in the proportion of men and women doing daily household chores from 72% to 79% . This has been credited to an increase in men’s participation which has risen from 54% to 69% while women’s participation has remained relatively steady around 90%. Men’s participation in core hosehould tasks such as meal preparation and laundry has increased from 40% to 59% while there has been a decrease for women from 88% to 85%. In families, women’s participation remains higer than men but men are taking more responsibility in this area with an increase in participation rate from 54% to 71% between 1986 and 2005. Women’s increased attachment to the workforce may be responsible for these (Marshall, 2006). 1.4 Mothers, fathers and child protection The assumption that mothers have primary responsibility for their children is no more evident than in child protection. When a child comes to the attention of child protection services the focus is placed on the mother and it is her responsibility to ensure the children’s safety even if the father is present in the home. The father’s contribution to the situation, whether positive or negative, is minimized (Strega et al., 2008). If it is determined that the children’s safety and well-being are at risk and the mother is not able to protect them, child protection workers must find alternate care arrangements. Historically, this meant placing the children in foster care but in British Columbia in the early 2000’s, there was a shift in government policy to find ways to reduce the number of children in care. Child protection workers were given resources to explore the possibility of allowing children to safely remain at home and legislation changed to allow the worker to monitor this situation under a “supervision order”. In 2001, the newly elected Liberal government increased the emphasis on having children remain with their families (Foster, 11 2007). One possible option to keeping children with their family is placing them with their father. However, in the process of assessing fathers for this responsibility, there is a gap in knowledge about the decision-making process protection workers use to determine whether the children should be placed with their fathers especially if they are the non- residential and non-custodial parents. There does not seem to be a clear definition of the skills, abilities and characteristics child protection workers use to assess fathers (Daniel & Taylor, 2001). Recent studies have explored the attitude of social workers towards men in general and fathers specifically. A study in a child protection office in Great Britain identified child protection workers’ perception of men’s behaviour as negative and found that their common construction of men portrayed them as threatening, useless, not relevant and not involved. As a father, the workers found men no different than women when they both had challenges that prevented them from parenting their children and occasionally they found fathers better than mothers, if the mothers were not able to cope with domestic responsibilities (Scourfield, 2003, 2001). Child protection policies and procedures tend to support these attitudes as files are usually in the mothers’ names (Risley-Curtiss & Heffernan, 2003; Strega et al., 2008), and social workers generally focus on supporting and providing practical services for mothers but have historically not provided the same for fathers (Milner, 1996, as cited in Daniel & Taylor, 2001). In court proceedings, fathers need to be notified but do not necessarily have to attend and may not be called upon even if they do attend (O'Hagan, 1997) unless they make themselves a party to the proceedings (Ryan, 2000). Noncustodial fathers have to apply for custody before the children can be placed with them even if there is not a possibility to return 12 them to the mother. There is also a noticeable absence of information about fathers in court reports (Davidson-Arad, Peled & Leichtentritt, 2008) as well as in child protection files (Huebner, Werner, Hartwig, White, & Shewa, 2008; Munro, 1998), that could lead to missing the positive contributions fathers are able to make (Daniel & Taylor, 1999), missing information about family functioning (Ryan, 2000) or missing fathers’ contribution to the protection concerns (O'Hagan, 1997) all of which has the potential of failing to protect children and mothers (Brown, Strega, et al., 2009; Strega et al, 2008). There may be minimal effort to find the father, especially if the mother is reluctant to give information about his location and if he is found, he is often not considered as a resource for the children (English, Brummel, & Martens, 2009; Franck, 2001). It is most likely fathers will be considered as a resource by child protection workers if they are the sole parent and are supported by an outside agency or professional (Brown, Callahan, et al., 2009). By choosing not to engage with men, child protection workers make their work of protecting children more difficult (Buckley, 1998, 2000; O'Hagan, 1997). Strega et al. (2008), collected and analyzed data from randomly chosen child protection files from a child protection agency in the mid-sized Canadian city of Victoria, British Columbia in the same region which I conducted my research. They found that protection workers considered fathers not relevant to mothers and children in 50% of the cases reviewed. They also found that 60% of the fathers were not contacted if the worker considered him a risk to the child and 50% were not contacted if he was considered a risk to the mother. More concerning was the finding that 38.8% of the fathers responsible for child maltreatment had unsupervised visits with their children. A study by Brown, Callahan, et al. (2009) based on the file reviews done by Strega et al. (2008), found 13 parenting capacity assessments were seldom given to fathers and they were seldom considered as a placement option even if the alternative meant seeking a permanent custody order for the children. The authors noted that the focus of child protection workers on the mother to break the cycle of maltreatment by protecting the children, or have them removed from her care if she did not, was creating “ghost fathers” who are essentially invisible in the child welfare system. Strega et al., (2009) interviewed a sampling of fathers who had at least one child involved in a child protection investigation. The researchers made an effort to select fathers whose sociodemographic characteristics corresponded to those of the fathers in the file reviews in the study done by Strega et al. (2008). Analyzing fathers’ narratives, they (Strega et al., 2009) noted that several themes emerged describing fathers’ perceptions of child protection workers. The workers were described as “ghosts” who were invisible in the daily lives of fathers and families but whose haunting influences were always present. There were the “Godly Ghosts” who could impose their authority on families sanctioned by legislation and procedures. They had the power to delve into every aspect of a person’s or family’s life with the ultimate ability to remove children. There were also the “Colonization Ghosts” with a history of racism, cultural genocide and abuse towards Aboriginal fathers and families. These families continue to be judged by white middle-class standards. Others were “Trickster Ghosts” who could be friendly, supportive and reassuring at times but at other times could be unsympathetic and punishing. Finally, there were the “Friendly Ghosts” who provide support, encouragement and availed fathers of all the services offered in the child welfare system. The fathers in this study felt that they needed to “look promising” (Callahan, Rutman, 14 Strega, & Dominelli, 2005), that is be deserving in the eyes of child protection workers to have their children returned to their care but always under the critical eye of the child protection “ghosts” (Strega et al., 2009). Dominelli, Strega, Walmsley, Callahan and Brown (2010) reanalyzed the same interview transcripts as Strega et al. (2009) concluding that fathers felt that the child welfare system made them unseen and assumed they were incapable of caring for their children. Consequently, some fathers found it necessary to define their lives to child protection workers in order to prove to them they could be good enough fathers to their children. They portrayed themselves as the “misrepresented dad”, the “survivor dad”, the “mothering father”, the “denied my identity dad” and the “good model dad”. The “misrepresented dad” felt child protection workers dismissed his ability to parent his children and they projected child protection concerns about the mother on him. An example would be the assumption that a father was involved in a criminal lifestyle because the mother was. Child protection workers set high, and sometimes unrealistic, expectations for these fathers and then labeled them as unfit fathers if they do not meet them. The “survivor dad” is one who had overcome personal tragedies or challenges to become a good father but was denied the opportunity to relate his story to the child protection worker. His role as a parent was often based on information from others such as the mother or other family members. He must fight to have his voice heard which in itself can be interpreted as being aggressive. The “mothering father” considered himself to be a better parent than the mother because of her inability to care for the children. Even when the children state they would rather be with him, it was not enough to convince the worker as the family had been deemed problematic based on the actions of 15 the mother. The “denied my identity dad” felt he needed to play a role defined by the standards of the child welfare system even if it was not who he truly was. These fathers who played the game were often viewed with suspicion that they were hiding something more sinister. The “citizen dad” was the dad who fit the ideal of a good father and seldom came in contact with the child welfare system but who was held up as a standard for fathers in the system to strive towards. 1.5 Assessing risk in child protection When a report is made that a child’s safety may be at risk, it is the responsibility of the child welfare service to investigate the allegation to determine if a risk to the child exists. First, the child protection worker needs to determine if the child is at risk and is need of protection. If it is found that the child is at risk, a plan is developed to ensure the child’s safety. Second, once the child is safe, there needs to be a determination whether this maltreatment could happen in the future. From this a plan can be developed to address the protection concerns and keep the child safe in the future. This can range from returning the child to the parents with supports and services to placing the child in foster care while the parents address the concerns to permanently removing the child from the parents’ care and placing the child in foster care or with a relative. To determine whether a child is at risk, most child protection services use a risk assessment instrument based on one of two models: actuarial and consensus-based (Barber, Shlonsky, Black, Goodman, & Trocme, 2008). There are some instruments in use today that have attempted to combine both approaches. In the actuarial model, there is a relationship between certain criteria and a specific outcome of interest that has been shown to be statistically significant. This involves analyzing significantly large sets of data over time to establish 16 a relationship, repeatedly testing that relationship and then using that information to predict the likelihood the outcome will occur in the general population when that criteria exists (Rycus & Hughes, 2003). In the case of child protection, the goal would be to establish the criteria related to child maltreatment and then develop an instrument that social workers can score mechanically and use the score to predict the possibility the child will be maltreated in the future (Barber et al., 2008). Consensus-based instruments, on the other hand, establish criteria through a consensus among experts in the field on what are the most relevant characteristics associated with the outcome under consideration. Social workers rate these characteristics using their professional judgment and attempt to predict that a certain outcome will occur. In child protection, the large body of professional literature has identified individual, familial and environmental characteristics that are related to child maltreatment. The presence of these characteristics, or a combination of them, increases the likelihood that maltreatment will occur in the future (Huges & Rycus, 2007). Even though both these models provide some consistency and structure around risk assessment, neither model has been shown to be particularly accurate in predicting future maltreatment although the actuarial model has been shown to be slightly more accurate (Knocke & Trocme, 2005). The model used by the child protection service where I will be conducted my study is a consensus-based model (Government of British Columbia, 1996). This allows for more input from the protection workers and is less rigid than other models. The initial part of the model requires the protection worker to ask a series of questions to determine if an investigation is required, the response time to start an investigation and whether the child is safe or unsafe. If it is determined that the child is unsafe, a plan must 17 be developed to ensure his or her safety. Once the child is safe, the protection worker must determine if the child is in need of protection and necessitates the continued involvement of the child protection services. This is done using the latter part of the British Columbia risk assessment tool that requires the protection worker to assess five areas of influence (factors that could contribute to protection concerns) with a total of 23 risk factors for all the areas. These are rated by the worker on a scale of zero to four with four being the most severe risk. These ratings are determined by using the guidelines of the assessment instrument as well as the protection worker’s own judgment based on their education, training and values. To complete the risk assessment tool the “social worker applies clinical judgment to weigh the relative levels of risk of future harm, carefully analysing their additive and interactive effects” (Government of British Columbia, 1996, p. 38) to develop a plan to reduce the risk of the child being maltreated in the future. As noted above, the conclusions reached in this model depend on the decisions made by the protection worker which can vary from worker to worker depending on their values, ideologies and experiences. There are expectations to complete these assessments in a short period of time to ensure the safety of the child and prevent any further harm to her or him. However, resources in child protection agencies have been decreasing over time (Munro, 2005). This includes the number of trained workers available to do this work resulting in larger caseloads (Gambrill, 2008) with less time to spend on each case (Munro, 2005). Protection workers have to process vast quantities of information in a very limited amount of time and come to decisions that can have profound effects on families (Munro, 1996). However, not all data gathered pertains directly to the child 18 protection concern and ideally workers would be able to divide the data into useful information and irrelevant noise. Useful information can enhance the decision-making process whereas noise is information that has no relevancy to the assessment and can raise uncertainty and errors in judgment (Rycus & Hughes, 2008). 1.6 Decision-making in child protection Most people believe that they solve problems using a rational decision-making process that maximizes the balance between the usefulness of an outcome and the probability it will occur (Tversky & Kahneman, 2000) However, they cannot do this with great efficiency especially while processing large amounts of information when there is a great degree of uncertainty about the outcome. People tend to simplify the task by using shortcuts, approximations or rules of thumb that are effective in their daily lives but can lead to errors and biases in child protection work (Crea, 2010; Munro, 2002; Taylor, 1982). The result is a dependency on intuitive judgement which involves some common decision-making strategies, or heuristics, people use to simplify this process which is often outside of their awareness (Gambrill, 2008). Tversky and Kahneman (1974, 1982, 2002) identified two of the most common heuristics as availability and representativeness. When using availability (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974, 1982), people will reference events and experiences that are easily remembered, similar in occurrence, rich, tangible, full of emotion and current when making decisions (Munro, 2002). The representativeness heuristic (Kahneman & Frederick, 2002; Tversky & Kahneman, 2002) is based on the understanding that people store and process information according to personal mental models or representations. We all make generalizations about how people will act in certain situations or why they act the way they do based on our 19 observations of life (Munro, 1998). If someone encounters a person, group or situation that corresponds to one of their mental models, they will assume that the person or group possess comparable traits and attributes or the situation will have a similar outcome (Kahneman & Frederick, 2002; Tversky & Kahneman, 2002) just as child protection workers use their own personal system of values and experiences to make their decisions (Buckley, 2000). These strategies are referred to as judgemental heuristics and are subject to predictability errors (Tversky & Kahneman, 2002) . The use of heuristics in child protection decisions can also lead to biases and errors in judgment. To meet time constraints and reduce their workload, protection workers may select information that most readily comes to mind but this may not be the most relevant or the most accurate. They also feel pressured into making choices with not enough relevant information (Munro, 1999) or with having defined the problem incorrectly (Gambrill, 2008). File material may not be accessed, even in their own files (Munro, 1998) because this can be a tedious, boring and time consuming task. Although verbal information is more salient than written reports, even it may be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Also information in reports may be distorted over time as each person involved in the case has a slightly different interpretation of the evidence that will eventually accumulate into larger errors (Gambrill, 2008). Current information may come from an upset neighbour or family member who emotionally recounts an incident in graphic detail because they want to get the parents into trouble or, on the other hand, they may recount only the negative incidents. This is the information that may be used even if it is vindictive and incorrect. If this results in the worker having a first impression that is negative, the worker is more inclined not to change his or her opinion of the 20 parents even if new, more positive information is brought forth (Munro, 2002). People tend to be slow at changing their minds especially if the evidence contradicts their beliefs and experiences (Munro, 1996, 1999). When workers’ beliefs are challenged with new information they may choose not to recognize the evidence by avoidance such as not confirming new information; forgetting by over-looking contrary evidence from certain individuals or not interviewing the children; rejecting new information because of the belief it comes from a person who lies; and reinterpreting the evidence so that it no longer seems important (Munro, 2002). As noted previously, in British Columbia, the initial child protection assessment uses a consensus based model (Government of British Columbia, 1996). The protection workers are required to decide whether a child is in need of protection based on criteria defined by experts who have determined what circumstances may predict a child being maltreated in the future (Baird, Wagner, Healy, & Johnson, 1999). However, once there has been a determination that the child is at risk, this tool is not designed to provide adequate information for making decisions on case planning, family functioning or addressing the more comprehensive areas of children’s well-being (Knocke & Trocme, 2005; Rycus & Hughes, 2008). Risk assessment tools are deficit based in that they assess what is missing in a child’s family life that puts her or him at risk. It does not assess the positives and strengths of the family or how these may mitigate the risk (Beckett, McKeigue, & Taylor, 2007; Rycus & Hughes, 2008). In British Columbia, there has been a trend to encourage more professionalism in child protection work with more reliance on protection workers’ judgment and less on formal risk assessments (Foster, 21 2007). This can be positive in that it gives protection workers the opportunity to assess the family strengths but it also opens up the possibility of more errors in judgment. 1.7 Engaging fathers in child protection services The literature has shown that there are many different histories of the changing roles of family members. The different perspectives on family life are grounded in culture, values, beliefs and experiences (Featherstone, 2009; Griswold, 1993; LaRossa, 1997) and every person has his or her own personal concepts of what defines family roles (Munro, 1998). This holds true for protection workers who must assess whether the roles a father plays are adequate enough to provide for the safety and well-being of his children (Buckley, 2000). However, family members have many roles that are not distinct and sometimes not well-defined. These roles interact, intersect and change over time. The father is first off a male whose roles in the family can be supportive ones of breadwinner, playmate, tutor and socializer (Doucet, 2007; Featherstone, 2009, 2010). The father role can also have more nefarious connotations such as abuser, traumatizer, ridiculer and tormentor. The latter ones are the ones that child protection workers are most interested in while the former, which are most often associated with positive parenting, have less weight (Callahan & Swift, 2007). When a non-residential and non-custodial father approaches child protection services to ask to have his children returned to his care, he may not be known to the child protection services because he was not identified or involved in the initial investigation (English et al., 2009; Franck, 2001). Since the children have become the legal responsibility of child protection services, it is the worker’s responsibility to ensure the 22 children are safe. The task for the worker then is to determine if it is safe for the children to live with their father but there may be little information available about him to do this (Davidson-Arad et al., 2008; Hueber et al., 2008, Munro, 1998). Unlike the initial protection investigation where there is a complaint about a specific concern that the worker can focus on, there may not be any identified protection concerns at this stage, meaning the worker may have to gather information on and assess all the protection possibilities. This can be a lengthy and time consuming task that the worker needs to fit into a schedule filled with urgent on-going investigations, court and report writing. As noted previously, workers will use shortcuts based on heuristics of availability and representativeness to make this task more manageable (Tversky & Kahneman 1974, 1982, 2002) but could these shortcuts be responsible for inaccurate and unfair decisions (Munro, 1999, 2002)? If a worker assumes that most men are aggressive and dangerous will the worker dismiss him as a father because he is assertive and speaks in a loud voice as he wants what is best for his children but feels his point-of-view is not being respected or heard? Or if the worker has experiences with fathers who do not participate in household chores or the care of the children, will that have a negative influence on the worker’s assessment of a man who has lived apart from his children for a period of time? I believe it is important to try to find answers to questions like these to better understand how decisions are made about fathers. The literature previously reviewed in this paper has indicated that protection workers held negative attitudes about men as men, as well as men as fathers. In Scourfield’s (2001, 2003) studies, workers attitudes referred to men’s behaviours in a negative way such as threatening, useless and irrelevant while considering men, as fathers, in a positive light only if they were able to parent better than 23 the mother. The literature on decision-making in child protection has focussed on the process workers use to assess risk but does not focus on fathers specifically. If decisions about fathers are being made based on biases and stereotypes (Munro, 1998) held by protection workers it is vital to understand the positive or negative contribution these views make in working with fathers. I have attempted to do this by conducting a study to answer my research question: What concepts about men’s behaviours do child protection workers use in working with non-residential and non-custodial fathers? 24 2 Methods 2.1 Context of this study This is a qualitative study informed by Grounded Theory. Grounded Theory allows the researcher to learn about the topic being studied and provides a process to develop a theory to comprehend it (Charmaz, Constructing grounded theory, 2006), which in the case of this study is the concept about men’s behaviours that child protection workers use when interacting with non-residential and non-custodial fathers. The data for this study was gathered from child protection workers through individual interviews in a location that was convenient for the protection workers. The participants were recruited from child protection workers employed by the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) in the Metro Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada. My recruitment focussed on three areas within Metro Vancouver as defined by MCFD which were the City of Richmond and two areas of the City of Vancouver proper, Vancouver South and Vancouver North. Most of the child protection workers work on Intake, Family Services and Differential Response teams. The Intake team is responsible for investigating child protection reports to determine if there are child protection concerns. If the child or children identified in the report are in need of protection, the file is transferred to either a Family Service team or a Differential Response team for longer term involvement. The Differential Response team usually deals with cases where there are less serious protection concerns and have the potential of being closed within three months. The cases with more serious concerns go to the Family Service team where they can remain open from several months to several years. There 25 was one interview done in the Tri-Cities adjacent to the areas mentioned above. The offices in this area work on a generalist model where the protection workers carry a Family Service caseload but also do Intake on a rotating schedule. 2.2 Participant selection Before the recruitment process could begin, I had to seek permission to conduct this study from Quality Assurance at the Vancouver Coastal Regional office of the Ministry of Children and Family Development. This entailed submitting a brief summary of my research proposal focussing mostly on the research methods. I also forwarded a copy of my recruitment poster, consent form and interview guide (See Appendix A). Once the permission was granted, I sent an email to the Supervisors of all the Intake, Family Services, and Differential Response team offices in the three areas described above with the summary of my research proposal and the consent form attached. I requested the opportunity to present my proposal to each team during one of their weekly team meetings as a means of recruiting participants for this study. I received invitations to attend a meeting at the two Family Services Teams and the Intake Team in the Vancouver South area as well as a Family Service Team in the Vancouver North area. For the Supervisors that did not respond to the first email, I sent out a second one. From this, the Supervisor of the Intake Office from the Vancouver North area forwarded my email to all the child protection workers in that office. I was also invited to present to the Differential Team from the Vancouver South area at a joint team meeting with the co- located Family Service Team. There was no reply from any of the Supervisors in Richmond. There was also an offer from a colleague to speak to child protection workers in the Tri-cities area near Vancouver. 26 The final sample size was 10 participants. Although this is less than the 20 to 30 participants suggested for a Ground Theory study (Charmaz, 2006), I feel that it gave me a good representation of the population in terms of the type of offices and the female to male ratio of child protection workers in the area where this research was conducted. The participants were recruited using purposive sampling (Padgett, 2008) as they were able to provide information relevant for this study. Eight participants were recruited as a result of my presentations. Snowball sampling (Creswell, 2007) was used to recruit two participants who were referred by other people. There was one person who withdrew due to illness after agreeing to be interviewed but I was able to recruit another participant to replace that person. All of the participants were asked where they would like the interview to take place and they all decided to do them in their respective offices. One of the recruitment criteria was that I had not worked directly with the participant in the past two months which was the case for them all. 2.3 Description of the sample population All of the participants were currently delegated child protection workers. This means they were granted the legal authority to do child protection investigations in British Columbia under the Child, Family, and Community Services Act (Government of British Columbia, 1996). There were nine front line Child Protection Workers and one Supervisor, consisting of eight females and two males. Four of the participants were from Intake offices, five from Family Service offices and one from an office that used a generalist model. Five of the participants had a BSW, four had an MSW and one had a BA. The age range distribution in years was: one under 30; two between 30 and 39; three between 40 and 49; one between 50 and 59; and three who did not give an age. The 27 years of child protection experience was: three between four and five; three between six and ten; two between 11 and 15; one between 16 and 20; and one over 30. The self- identified cultural or ethnic backgrounds of the participants were: three Canadians, two of European heritage; two Caucasians of European heritage; two multi-racial; one American; and two African. 2.4 Data-gathering methods The foundation of qualitative research is the interview. Its goal is to engage the research participants in what in essence is close to everyday conversations as a means of developing an understanding of the research topic from their perspective. An interview differs from a conversation in that an interview uses an interview guide to maintain the focus on the subject being studied (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). For this study, I decided to do individual face-to-face interviews using a semi-structured interview guide where open-ended questions were asked to each participant in a sequence that was similar for each interview (Padgett, 2008). As the interviews were completed, they were analysed and the questions were adjusted or new questions added to reflect new relevant information (Padgett, 2008). (See Appendix A for original interview guide and Appendix B for revised interview guide). To elicit information I felt was important and to give some consistency and focus to the interview, I developed a fictitious scenario (See Appendices A & B) and asked questions about how the participant would advise a new colleague in making child protection decisions related to it. I chose to have the participants answer the questions 28 from a third-person perspective in order to encourage them to give some reflective thought to their answers and to generate some discussion. The scenario was about a father whose partner had undiagnosed schizophrenia which was becoming progressively worse over the years. Eventually she moved out with her three children, two from this current relationship and one from a previous relationship. The father had been trying to support the family but her schizophrenia was making that more difficult until she stopped contact altogether. She eventually ended up using drugs, living on the street and refusing treatment. The children were taken in to care by child protection services. The father was asking to have the children returned to his care. The information they had on him was positive in that he was stable and there were no reported child protection concerns about him or the family. The participants were told that a new worker had come to them for advice on how to proceed with the father’s request to have his children returned to his care. A series of questions followed about information the new worker had found and the participants were asked what advice they would give. The questions started out with some vague allegations about the father’s anger and then continued with questions that created more doubt and uncertainty about the father’s behaviours. The questions touched on behaviours child protection workers associated with men (Scourfield, 2001) such as anger and threatening behaviour as well as the issues of access, the ability to parent and same-sex relationships. Following the questions on the scenario, there were more general questions about: the influence of a protection worker’s values and beliefs on working with non-custodial and non-residential fathers; behaviours, actions or words associated with men; time to make well-informed decisions; dead-beat fathers; paternal traits of a good parent; and 29 challenges to engaging non-custodial and non-residential parents. The participants were given a copy of the scenario without the questions during the interview. The interviews all took place in MCFD offices as agreed to by each participant. Before the interviews began, a consent form was given to them and they were asked to read it, ask any questions about it and sign it if they agreed. Each participant signed the consent voluntarily and there were no participants rejected because they refused to sign. The interviews were audio recorded and were between 52 minutes and one hour and thirty-seven minutes in length. The interviews were then transcribed by a professional transcriber. 2.5 Evaluation criteria The truth may be out there but the question is whose truth is it? What one person believes is the truth in her or his reality may be quite different from another person’s concept of the same thing depending on the individual’s experiences, values and beliefs. This view of the truth and reality is a central concept in this study. This study is not about finding a universal truth about child protection workers’ concepts of men’s behaviours but about recognizing there are multi realities unique to each participant and then joining each of them to understand the subjective meanings of their experiences (Charmaz, 2003; Creswell, 2007). Recognizing that these realities are socially constructed, I have used a constructionist approach to collect and analyze the data as the participants and I share our experiences through this study allowing us to negotiate knowledge claims and truth (Angen, 2000). 30 However, if this study is looking at multiple realities and subjective truths, how can I convince people that the information reported is relevant and valid for their worldview? Kvale and Brinkmann (2009) wrote that the terms validity, reliability and generalization which are more commonly used in positivist approaches to research should not be rejected but should be reconceptualised in a way that is more relevant to an interview centred study. In their perspective, validity should not be a measurement of whether a research method investigates what it claims to be investigating but it should “depend on the quality of craftsmanship during an investigation, on continually checking, questioning, and theoretically interpreting the findings” (p. 247). They have outlined seven stages where validation should occur in order to craft a qualitative study to which I have strived to adhere. The first stage is thematizing where my thesis supervisor and my thesis committee have given me feedback on the soundness of the theoretical perspective I have presented in my thesis proposal. In the second stage, I have designed a study that I hope will open a dialogue about child protection workers’ experience working with men in a way that will be beneficial for fathers. Validating the interview is the third stage. Here I have used a semi-structured interview using open-ended questions that has allowed the participants to relate their experiences of working with men in their own words. This has also given me the opportunity to ask questions about the meaning of what they have said and to clarify the context in which that meaning is situated. Transcribing, which is the fourth stage, was done by a professional transcribing. To ensure an accurate translation possible from the audio-recording to the written word, I carefully listened to the recording while comparing it to the transcribed text and correcting it where necessary. 31 The fifth stage is analysing the data. I have described my data analysis in detail and maintained notes on the process of coding the information. I have also given the results of my analysis in the form of theoretical constructs, themes and text-bases categories as outlined in Table 2.1 to each of the participants to see if the connections make sense to them. For the validation stage, I have described the steps I have taken to make this study as open and transparent to the readers of the final report. I have discussed these steps with my thesis supervisor and obtained feedback from my thesis committee. In the final stage of reporting, I tried to accurately portray the dialogues I have had with the participants in answering the research question. I have used participants’ quotes to connect my results with their experiences. Since it is the interaction between the participant and the researcher where the social construction of knowledge is created (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009), I feel it is important for me to reflect on how my experiences and concepts influence this process. As mentioned previously, my interest in this subject has developed over several years influenced by my work as a Child Protection worker for MCFD and as a Family Counsellor for Vancouver Family Preservation and Reunification Services. I acknowledge that my interest in this subject stemmed from the stories as told by fathers I have worked with as a family counsellor. Many of them spoke of the frustrations they felt with the child protection workers with whom they were involved. These stories touched me and made me wonder why these fathers felt this way but I also realized that this was only one side of the story prompting me to develop this study. Consequently, I have approached this study with a slight bias towards fathers but curious to hear the stories of child protection workers. 32 I also need to acknowledge that I have worked with many of the participants and that there are others I know indirectly but have not worked with. As part of the research design, I decided that I would not interview anyone I was working with at the time. This was made clear during the recruitment process. I did this so that none of the participants would feel obliged to be interviewed because of our working relationship. However, I did find knowing some of the participants made the interview more relaxed and conversation-like where I felt comfortable challenging their views and they felt comfortable challenging my theoretical perspectives. 2.6 Data analysis To analysis study data, I used a constant comparative method commonly used in Grounded Theory. In this approach, data is continuously analyzed as interviews are completed and compared to similarities and differences in the other interviews (Padgett, 2008). The procedure I used to analysis the data was informed by the Ground Theory method used by Auerbach and Silverstein (2003) in their Haitian Fathers Study. In this method of coding the data, the raw text is analysed and reduced step-by-step allowing patterns to emerge that are relevant to the research question. The final outcome is a theoretical narrative that connects the subject being researched with the subjective experiences of the participants. After the first interview was transcribed, I began the analysis by creating a computer file with two columns. The left hand column contained the full interview and the right one was blank. I then read the interview line-by-line highlighting relevant text (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003) that I felt had meaning to the research question. In the 33 right-hand column, I made memos and notes that came to my mind while reading the text. I continued doing this through the rest of the interview. For the second step, I created a second file with two columns. With the two documents side-by-side, I took the first highlighted text and transferred it to the second document along with any notes or memos I had made. I continued reading the rest of the highlighted text until a came across another one I felt had a similar meaning or idea as the first one and transferred that to the second document. Once I had gone through the whole document, I took the second highlighted text and repeated the process. I did this until all the text had been transferred creating a file with repeating ideas (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003). If there were any text not transferred, I decided to place it with another relevant idea, eliminate it or, if I thought it was significant to the study, keep it as its own relevant idea. I repeated this process with the rest of the interviews creating ten files of repeating ideas, one for each interview. Once all the repeating ideas were grouped together, I named them using direct quotes I felt caught the essence of the repeating ideas, combined two quotes or paraphrased the idea. From there, I took the first repeating idea from the first file and moved it to a new file. I then went through the second file of repeating ideas until I came across an idea similar to the first one and moved it to the new file. I did this for all ten files. I then went back to the first file and took the next idea and again went through all the files placing any similar ideas with the first one. I did this until all the ideas were grouped together with similar ideas creating a master list of repeating ideas for the whole study. As I was doing this, I was evaluating the ideas as I compared them to ideas in 34 other interviews and, at times, this lead me to regroup and rename some ideas. This re- evaluation continued through the whole process up to writing the final paper. My next step in the analysis was to arrange the repeating ideas into larger groups that convey a common theme with an implicit idea or subject (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003). I started with the master list of repeating ideas and moved the first idea to a new file for the themes. I then went through the other ideas and moved ones that were identical or similar to the first to the new document. I did this for the rest of the repeating ideas. Following this, I returned to the top of the list, took the first remaining idea and repeated the same process. I continued this until all the ideas were grouped into common themes. If there were any ideas left over, I eliminated them, incorporated them in other themes or returned to the raw text to find other connected repeating ideas. While doing this step, I made notes about how the ideas related to each other and, using these, I named the themes. Once this was completed I used the same method to group themes with similar ideas into theoretical constructs. I used the body of literature I reviewed in the opening chapter to develop and name these theoretical constructs. Table 2.1 summarizes the results of my analysis. The headings are the theoretical constructs, the subheadings are the themes and these are followed by the text-based categories which are direct quotes from or paraphrased ideas of the participants. 35 Table 2.1 Theoretical constructs, themes and text-based categories I. THE CONCEPTUAL ROOTS OF MEN’S BEHAVIOURS A. Social construction of men’s behaviours as fathers 1. “We tend to move back to where our parents and how our parents respond to us.” 2. “And not feeling comfortable talking about some things with certain [people]…like similar to my father’s culture. I try not to work with men from that culture.” 3. “Men in our society are still saddled with a stereotype which doesn’t do them very many favours.” 4. “Even at an intake level when you’re phoning the parents, the language is, “I gotta phone mom.”” B. The pedagogy of men’s behaviours as fathers 1. “I definitely do not have any specific information about working with fathers, or men.” II. THE DICHOTOMY OF PATERNAL BEHAVIOUR A. Definitions of a “good” father 1. “And there’s nothing that says they’re not capable of parenting.” 2. “Dads tend to be more play based and moms tend to be more nurturing, care-taking based” B. Men behaving badly 1. “If it said domestic violence, usually we would think it’s a man towards a woman, unless it says otherwise there’s that assumption usually.” 2. “Same thing, they usually think [sexual abuse] is the dad towards the children. And if it’s it the mom, you’re kind of more like, eugh.” 3. “So unless I make the decision of deadbeat dad…” III. ACCEPTING AND EXCEPTING MEN IN CHILD PROTECTION A. Disquieting behaviours in child protection 1. You’d want to know more about him, so you’d be doing criminal records checks, you’d be doing other checks on him, whether there’s a history of drugs, alcohol 2. “If they’re a sexual predator or they’re into child porn…” 3. “Secrecy of any kind concerns me.” B. Working with men in child protection services 1. “[It] is not an agency that men tend to want to willingly engage with.” 2. “And there are other families that are just going to rub you the wrong way, you rub them the wrong way, and you’re ready to say, “You are done!”’ C. Men’s parenting abilities 1. “It’s hard to be single dad suddenly, and there’s not a lot out there for single dads, so you want to be able to provide them with the support they need.” D. Responding to men’s anger 1. Men get angry and they need to learn to deal with it but that does not make them bad guys 2. “I would maybe set up an interview with a father and be more cautious.” 100% 80% 90% 100% 100% 80% 90% 90% Note: N=10. The percentages refer to the percentage of participants in the sample whose text was categorized under that theme. 36 3 Developing themes from the data When we make choices, we discriminate based on our concepts of what is acceptable or unacceptable, right or wrong, moral or immoral according to our view of the word. The idea of discrimination is perceived as a negative quality people see in themselves and in others. It evokes thoughts such as racism or sexism which are based on learned beliefs, attitudes and values about others. However, to discriminate also means to distinguish by exploring differences and making choices based on good judgement (Discrimiate, n.d.). In this sense, child protection workers discriminate when they make choices about the people they work with. This is done through a process of accepting or excepting. In the case of this study, they must decide to accept the father as a possible option to care for his children or except him by excluding or rejecting him. These would be the extremes of a continuum with many fathers being accepted but with certain conditions (Saldana, 2009). Men are acceptable if their behaviours correspond to the concept child protection workers have of what traits are necessary to adequately look after children and keep them safe. On the other end of the continuum, men are exceptable if their behaviours do not meet these concepts. It should be noted that these concepts are also influenced by child protection policy, procedure and legislation which is outside the scope of this study. In this section, themes are presented as headings and the text-based categories (in italics) as subheadings. I will describe the themes and related text-based categories which have been derived from the data analysis and relevant to the research question. Also Table 2.1 shows how I have organized the themes into theoretical constructs which will be discussed later. 37 3.1 Social construction of men’s behaviours as fathers As Table 2.1 indicates, all the participants (100%) related that their knowledge about men in general and fathers in particular came from their experiences in their own families, influences of their culture and socially constructed stereotypes. “We tend to move back to where our parents and how our parents respond to us.” I think especially because my dad and mom are from different cultural backgrounds, my mom is fairly lenient, and my dad is a strict [dad's culture] man who has a lot of plans and expectations for me…But he has in many ways influenced the path I’ve taken… (Participant 4) I think you can’t help but be influenced by your family of origin. I think there’s like a thousand ways, right, in terms of what you’re willing to accept. I think the physical discipline piece is probably a really good example. So if you were physically disciplined, sometimes you can have stronger attitudes against it, and sometimes you can go, “Well, it’s not as huge a deal for me” and you might be able to tolerate a bit more in families. (Participant 6) “And not feeling comfortable talking about some things with certain [people]…like similar to my father’s culture. I try not to work with men from that culture.” I think, just the values that you’re raised with, different cultural values, different ideas around how parents should parent. I look at myself and I look at some of my other colleagues and it is different what they value. (Participant 6) And culture does. You know, like I’m [participant’s culture], so I’m very aware if I’m working with [culturally similar] families, you know, sort of the context… not all of them, but some of them, it’s very clearly defined in terms of the rules of what you do and what you don’t, and who has a certain level of authority. (Participant 7) 38 “Men in our society are still saddled with a stereotype which doesn’t do them very many favours.” And I think for a lot of new workers who come to the field, the challenges of learning this work aren’t the abundantly clear ones around administrative processes, it’s sort of challenging one’s values around what people consider to be normal, and what people consider to be… the whole notion of community standards. So it’s a very value-based assumption. (Participant 5) Because more fathers are coming to the plate, you know? I think it is just a societal change, not necessarily ministry, that in the past, you know, most often, the man becomes the bread-winner who works outside, and then the women are mostly home looking after the kids. Those are societal changes. (Participant 9) “Even at an intake level when you’re phoning the parents, the language is, “I gotta phone mom.”’ I think it’s something that our ministry needs to do a bit more in terms of practice, and policy and protocol, because I hate to say this. I still think that we’re very much female- centered in terms of our responses. I think that when we do investigations and intake, I still think we engage mothers way more than we engage fathers. (Participant 6) Historically we’ve worked with mothers, and historically our system has said that the first reaction is the mother and in our system the files are open in the mother’s name. So I think the historical practice does lead us to that, but more and more we are seeing fathers step up to the plate and fathers being responsive parents. (Participant 9) 3.2 The pedagogy of men’s behaviours as fathers Other sources of information about men’s behaviours as fathers would be from the material covered in course work for their degrees, professional development programs and workshops. Most of the participants (80%) stated that they never had courses in their 39 degrees specific to working with men and fathers or had been offered any training or workshops. Two (20%) stated that they had heard something about a workshop being offered but had not taken it. “I definitely do not have any specific information about working with fathers, or men.” Yeah. And we don’t focus a lot, I mean, even professional development–wise, I don’t think I’ve ever… I think there’s one opportunity that I’ve seen that focused on information around fathers. I didn’t go to it because I was doing something else, but I think that’s the only thing that I’ve ever seen (Participant 6) In my degree at UBC at BSW? No. There’s nothing. Even when I did my child welfare specialization, nope… Not that I remember. I mean maybe he brought it up once but it wasn’t a focus or anything. (Participant 7) 3.3 Definitions of a “good” father Almost all the participants (90%) described their concepts of men’s positive abilities as fathers. There were two main ideas about what constituted a “good father”: the ability to parent and form strong bonds and close relationships; and the ability to provide nurturing and emotional support. “And there’s nothing that says they’re not capable of parenting.” They’re the same, in my opinion. They’re the same traits, just nurturing, caring, spending time with your kids, valuing your children’s individuality, listening to your kids and just being there for them. It’s the same for each parent for me. …Honestly a good parent is a good parent regardless. (Participant 6) 40 Sure, attachment, comfort around him, children’s interactions with the dad, dad’s responses to the children’s verbal and non-verbal cues. You know, how attentive he is, what kind of activities they choose to participate in. (Participant 5) “Dads tend to be more play based and moms tend to be more nurturing, care- taking based.” Dads don’t tend to be the huggy, emotional… for the most part, most guys are not that kind of guy….I think it’s harder for the guy when you don’t have that because you have a different connection with your kids. I don’t think it’s bad or horrible for kids. I think it’s kind of bad that they miss out on some of that, but even some ladies; they’re not into the huggy-kissy. (Participant 1) But I think in real life we wouldn’t have the expectation. If dad was less sort of nurturing it wouldn’t worry us as much as if a mom wasn’t nurturing. I think just human nature that would bug us more if it was a mom who didn’t seem sort of emotionally connected to a kid. (Participant 10) 3.4 Men behaving badly All of the participants (100%) identified what they considered as questionable behaviour for men who were interested in caring for their children. These included domestic violence, sexual abuse and not providing financial support for the family. “If it said domestic violence, usually we would think it’s a man towards a woman, unless it says otherwise there’s that assumption usually.” So most of the work we do in situations of domestic violence are conflictual with a violent partner, and most of the time, the violent partner is a male. … It absolutely has been females too. And, it has started off looking like it’s the male and turned halfway through. (Participant 2) 41 Yes, absolutely I would. I would clarify it. But my initial assumption would absolutely be that the man was the aggressor, totally. … Yes, that is where my mind would go, but not to the point that I wouldn’t query it. Not to the point that I would… some people don’t query it, they just make the assumption. Who’s the victim, who’s the abuser? Yeah. That’s where my mind would go, totally. Have to be honest about that. (Participant 10) "Same thing, they usually think [sexual abuse] is the dad towards the children. And if it’s it the mom, you’re kind of more like, eugh.” His big thing is that boys being sexually assaulted by females in their [lives] is grossly underreported. You know? And that we don’t do enough about that. So we’re immediately, shackles are up at the boyfriend or whatever, but we’re not really ever looking, we don’t really ever want to look at mom. (Participant 3) Yes. I would assume on the face of it, without further knowledge that the [sexual] offender was male, yeah, I would. (Participant 10) “So unless I make the decision of deadbeat dad.” I mean, there are some generalized premises about that. I would say that if you have children, or if you participated in the birth of a child, you have a responsibility to that child. And if that child’s needs are being met, then there’s always room for interpretation about who is saying what about a deadbeat and what that means, right? (Participant 5) They just generally didn’t have an interest in being a father, chose not to. Probably made it really hard on the mother I’m sure at the time, but maybe it was in the best interest of the child right? (Participant 8) 3.5 Disquieting behaviours in child protection When working with men in child protection, all (100%) of the participants identified behaviours that would concern them as someone who was responsible for the 42 safety of children. The behaviours they described were: a criminal background or history of drug and alcohol problems; being a sexual predator; and keep secrets from them. You’d want to know more about him, so you’d be doing criminal records checks, you’d be doing other checks on him, whether there’s a history of drugs alcohol. Is he a drug dealer? Is he being arrested because he’s drinking and driving? Is he involved in any criminal activity that may possibly put the kids at risk? But I think you know, certainly if he has a record that happened ten years ago, that’s not going to eliminate him as an option to parent the kids. If there’s nothing new and certainly nothing serious that’s going to impact his ability to parent these kids, there’s no reason for us not to look at him. (Participant 1) I would presumably be doing a background check on him, I’d ask to find out whether there’s some history there. If there were… as we would with any parent we would probably be doing a police background check to find out if there’s any contact with the police. And that would simply be because the children were in care, and sort of a movement around the children’s placement at that point would dictate that we’d have to be fairly thorough in our assessments. (Participant 5) “If they’re a sexual predator or they’re into child porn.” My personal instincts on it, yeah. To be honest. In my organization, sometimes, sometimes not. I mean we have a protocol around families and sex offenders and reintroducing children in situations like that that we follow, around assessing risk and how to deal with that. But on a purely personal level, yeah, I don’t like it. … And I’ve done it. But I have to admit, it’s hard. It’s one of those moral things where you’re just like, I really struggle with this as the right thing to do. (Participant 6) If there’s information that [the father] has been involved in any sexual act with a child, a minor, charge or no charge, we’d verify that information and establish it’s a “no”. We 43 close it right there, we wouldn’t move forward. Because you don’t know, you cannot ascertain or determine a re- offence. And you are trusting him with these kids. (Participant 9) “Secrecy of any kind concerns me.” I would implore on him that if he doesn’t want to tell us about that, I think we would spend some time trying to negotiate that with him to get an answer, because as I say, our currency is information. I mean if his end goal is to have the children with him, working together is probably the best way to do that. (Participant 5) It would be a reason to reconsider. Because for me, if he’s not going to come out to tell us, what else is there that he would be hiding from me? (Participant 9) 3.6 Working with men in child protection Many (80%) of the participants commented about their experiences working with men which included the belief that men are not willing to be involved with child protection and that conflicts arise between child protection workers and clients that may lead to less than positive outcomes. “[It] is not an agency that men tend to want to willing engage with.” We’ve had fathers deny completely that they’re the father, that she’s lying and that she was sleeping with six other people at the time and I’m not the father. And we’ve just had them say, “No I’m not the father” or “I’m not interested”. (Participant 3) Sometimes I’ve experienced men who are non-custodial parents tend to expect that their children… they kind of like their role, they sort of like being um, a part-time parent. And they may not say that, but I think it’s in terms of what they do and how they behave and in terms of the choices that they make say something different. (Participant 5) 44 “And there are other families that are just going to rub you the wrong way, you rub them the wrong way, and you’re ready to say, “You are done!”’ Also I want to make sure that a father is comfortable in an interview. A lot of times, the feedback I’ve gotten from fathers is that they’re assumed to be the problem, right? (Participant 2) I would kind of try to explore with [a new child protection worker], what is it about this family that they think might be causing them some challenges. And do they feel like they’re able to work with this family the same way that they might be able to work with another family? What’s different? And do they think that if someone else were to work with this family that maybe the kids would be returned sooner, or the end result would be different? And I think that you can say that about actually a lot of families, like how we work with a family are dependent on the worker and family relationship. (Participant 4) 3.7 Men’s parenting abilities Most of the participants (90%) described their expectations of fathers’ parenting abilities and the challenges they might face. “It’s hard to be a single dad suddenly so you want to be able to provide them with the support they need.” If somebody’s wife dies, it’s harder for that guy because the wife did things that you might never have had to do, but you have to take on that role now. And you don’t know how to do it. Doesn’t mean you’re bad, but how do you help them through, and how do you give them the opportunity to do things differently? (Participant 1) So it’s great. Is he sort of aware of some of the… and he doesn’t have to be an expert, but is he aware of some of the developmental norms. And then this could cue us into, “Okay we can give this guy a little bit of support, you know, if this is where we were going to go with this, we could give this guy some support around some of that.” (Participant 3) 45 3.8 Responding to men’s anger All but one participant (90%) commented on the way they respond to men’s anger at work. These comprised of: accepting men’s anger with reservations; being more cautious when meeting with men; and feeling uncomfortable when meeting with men but not feeling there safety was at risk. Men get angry and they need to learn to deal with it but that does not make them bad guys …you have fathers that are… they’re angry and frustrated. I don’t take it personally, because the reality to that is that sometimes, they’re justified in being where they are, and being angry. And I think that in letting them vent their anger, is really healthy for them, and then it’s finding a way that you can work with them to work with the kids. (Participant 1) “No” is never the full answer. I mean there’s always, you need to look at the full circumstances, right? I would slow things down if there was an issue around anger management. I would slow down. (Participant 2) “I would maybe set up an interview with a father and be more cautious.” That if a parent is going to be angry it is dad that is more intimidating, it’s dad that you tend to… if you’re taking another worker along it’s because, “Oh, I’m meeting this dad and I’m really worried that he’s going to be really angry”. We seldom do that with mom. Mom can yell and scream at me, but if dad does it, it is somehow more intimidating sometimes. And I don’t know if it’s just the gender difference, or size difference, I don’t know. But yeah, there is, I guess there is a bias there. (Participant 6) …I’ve had some fathers that when you read the physical file, you feel like, “Oh my goodness, I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to meet you alone.” But when you take 46 time to meet with them, to hear their side, it changes that. (Participant 9) 47 4 Findings In this section, I will describe how I used the themes to develop theoretical constructs that illustrate how child protection workers’ concepts about men’s behaviours influence their decisions about fathers they work with. The themes are organized from the top down using theories about the social construction of fatherhood, the experiences of fathers in child protection and the decision making process. From the bottom up, the theories are in turn supported by the themes (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003). 4.1 The conceptual roots of men’s behaviours Social constructivists propose that a person’s concept of social reality is formed from their associations and communications with other people in society. Culture is seen as the manifestation of shared historical meanings of a group of people with common roots. These meanings arise in the framework of interactions between people and are continually changing (Blundo, Greene, & Gallant, 2005). The participants in this study are also members of a broader society and as such, bring with them concepts of their reality formed from their experiences living in it. In this study the participants have described where their beliefs and understandings of men’s behaviour originated from. When discussing parenting traits, many of the participants spoke of their own families and how they were raised. They stated that their beliefs about what men are capable of doing as parents were derived from the values and views of their families of origin. Some gave examples of traditional families where there were clearly defined roles for men and women in the home. Women are responsible for the cooking, cleaning 48 and making sure the lunches are ready “but lord help him if he asks me to go out and do the gardening…” (Participant 1). Several of the participants described their relationships with their fathers as a source of their understandings of men’s behaviours. They credit their fathers with supporting them emotionally and financially and influencing the paths they have taken. As one participant noted “I’m pretty comfortable with dads and see their importance in the family as mine was really important to my family and my life” (Participant 6). It is these values that have some influence on how the capacity of parents and children are assessed in child protection. Another source of knowledge about men’s behaviours as fathers that the participants identified was culture. Some participants spoke about the difficulty they had working with men from cultures similar to their fathers because of the norms and expectations of the roles of men and women. As an example, one participant noted that a cultural value you were raised with may make you more tolerant, or some times less tolerant, of that value or behaviour in someone you are working with. If a child protection worker has less tolerance for a particular behaviour, the worker may find it difficult to work with that person. It is therefore important to recognize these biases and be aware of the different culture norms and values especially in such a multicultural city where this study was done. Culture influences child protection workers decisions every day and we need to be mindful of that but we also need to be aware of how culture influences the way the people they work with view their decisions (Buckley, 2000). As one participant summed this up: You know? So we all have our stuff. We all have our beliefs, we all have things… the way we’re raised, what we think, what we hate, you know? 49 And I always think that people think that they can be neutral, but we can’t. (Participant 7) A more indirect source of information about men’s behaviours is the influence of societal norms, expectations and stereotypes. The concept of the paternal role has been changing from one where the men were responsible to provide for the family and women stayed home and cared for the children (Griswold, 1993; LaRossa, 1997) to one where it is more acceptable for men to be the primary caregiver and stay-at-home parents (Doucet, 2006). Several of the participants spoke about the role societal norms and stereotypes play in working with men in child protection. The five participants who commented on this felt that stereotypes still exist that put men in a negative light and that men are often unfairly judged by these stereotypes. Participant six noted that there is “still a lot of negative talk about dads in general” and that “they’re still somewhat less valued in their parental role than moms.” Participants five and nine reflected this sentiment but noted that there has been a shift away from these values resulting in a: Need to be responsive to that change in society and not insist on working with mothers who have issues that need to be dealt with [while] fathers who come forward, because they are men, we push them aside and always silence them. (Participant 9) Besides the personal values and expectations of individuals, they are also influenced by the values and expectations of the organization where they work. Five of the participants noted that historically the focus in child protection has been on the mother and “oftentimes we don’t look at the non-custodial father as being a possibility or an option” (Participant 1) which is noted by Scourfield (2003, 2001) who found child protection workers perceived men to be not relevant. They identified that this is due in 50 part to: the policies, procedures and protocols such as having the files in the mother’s name most of the time (Risley-Curtiss & Heffernan, 2003: Streak et al., 2008); the language as when “mom” is used to mean parent in child protection files (Huebner et al., 2008; Munro, 1998) and the need to seek the mother’s approval as the custodial parent for decisions about the father’s involvement even when she is mentally ill, homeless or addicted to drugs described by Strega et al. (2009) as the “mothering father”. The second theme in this theoretical construct is related to attainment of knowledge from more formal sources such as educational institutions, seminars and professional development workshops. Eight of the participants remarked that they did not have training specifically about men as fathers either in their university education or in- house training although two of them noted that they vaguely remembered a workshop being offered but did not attend (Strug & Wilmore-Schaeffer, 2004). Several of them stated that if they had the opportunity to take a course or workshop, they would do it. Two of the participants noted that there was very little mentioned about fathers or fatherhood in their university education even though their professors were male. I developed the theoretical construct discussed in this section from the two themes social construction of men’s behaviours as fathers and the pedagogy of men’s behaviours as fathers. These were derived from the participants’ descriptions of their source of knowledge of men’s behaviours as fathers. The participants stated that they do use mental models or representations (Kahneman & Frederick, 2002; Tversky & Kahneman, 2002) based on their experiences with their own fathers, learned cultural values and socially constructed models of men’s behaviours (Buckley, 2000; Munro, 1998) in the process of making those decisions. The participants described the use of the availability 51 heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974, 1982) less directly. They often recounted experiences of their emotional reactions to men’s behaviours especially those men who were extremely aggressive or sexually abusive but did not relate this to their ability to work with men. They felt that it was part of their social work practice and the requirements of the child protection legislation (Government of British Columbia, 1996) to work with men and offer them the opportunity to change. Gambrill (2008) suggested that the use of the availability heuristic may be outside of their awareness but there was no data to support this. However, the data does seem to support the idea that experiences and beliefs play a role in the participants’ concepts of men’s behaviours and they recognize that their biases and values influences their choices. In this study, the participants’ descriptions of their conceptual roots of men’s behaviours are best summarized by one participant who stated: “Everything I know I learned from experience” (Participant 8). 4.2 The dichotomy of paternal behaviour The last section explored where most of the participants (90%) obtained their knowledge and in this section, they discuss what concepts of men’s behaviours as fathers they have developed from their knowledge. They describe two perspectives: what it means to them to be a “good” father and what behaviours they consider unacceptable for fathers. In the first theme, definitions of a “good” father, the participants described their concepts of what traits fathers should have to be able to make positive contributions to their children’s well-being as described by Bouchard et al. (2007). Over half of them acknowledged that fathers are capable of being good parents and the traits necessary to 52 do this are the same for both mothers and fathers. Some of the traits identified were “nurturing, caring, spending time with your kids, valuing your children’s individuality, listening to your kids and just being there for them” (Participant 6). Many of them identified the ability to form close relationships with their children by: being present and selfless for them; protecting them and keeping them safe; responding to their verbal and nonverbal cues; comforting them when they are hurt; and having a sense of wonder and interest about what they are doing. As mentioned, the participants considered the traits of a “good” parent to be the same for a father and mother. However, two of them noted that even though they thought fathers were capable of being good parents, they do it a bit differently. They recognized, as noted by Doucet (2006), that men are capable of providing the day-to-day care of their children and that they are actively involved with schools, professionals and organizations in the community. However, as two participants noted men parent differently than women as they “tend to be more play based and moms tend to be more nurturing, caretaking based” and dads were “less concerned about the emotional implications of something ten spaces down” (Participant 10). (Bouchard, Lee, Asgary, & Pelletier, 2007; Daniel & Taylor, 2001, 1999). The participants’ concepts of men’s behaviours as fathers were not all positive. All of them (100%) identified behaviours they felt were a detriment to fathers’ abilities to adequately care for their children and could even put the children at risk. Eight of the participants identified domestic violence as a child protection concern they saw on a regular basis. All eight of them acknowledged that when they see the term domestic violence in a report, they automatically assume that it is male being abusive towards the 53 female as Participant 3 noted: “you kind of hear [domestic violence] in notes or somebody’s notes, I’m immediately going to yeah, the male is the perpetrator. And that…that’s a construct you know is there.” However, they do recognize that this is not always the case and that sometimes domestic violence can be committed by women as one participant stated: Because you have to be careful that you’re not jumping and accusing. Because I think in the past there’s been so much of that, um, and especially this perception that men are always violent. Because I’ve had situations where women can be violent and the men are actually the one protecting the kids. (Participant 7) Several of the participants raised the issue of men not being held responsible for the violent things that they do in their homes (Strega et al., 2008). This was related to a patriarchal system that makes it “not so overt but [is] sort of engrained in the way we function in society” (Participant 7). A few participants did note that, despite the difficulties the presence of domestic violence created for working with these men, they felt more hopeful about a positive outcome when addressing this problem than working with men who have sexually abused children. As with domestic violence, the participants’ first thought about sexual abuse when they read about it in reports or as part of an investigation, was that the perpetrator was a male. Many of the participants had a moral struggle with the idea of working with men who are sexually abusive but did note that under certain circumstances where the visits are supervised and the safety of the children is ensured, maintaining contact between fathers and their children is possible. However, when they did this, they did it with some reservations. 54 Five of the participants gave their opinions of “deadbeat dads”. They described them as men who do not “financially contribute to the family and [are] not involved in any way. Who’s made a baby and left the situation and left the woman to take care of things” (Participant 4). Two participants stated that they have no patience for “deadbeat dads” and felt men should be responsible enough to take care of their families. The other three had more conciliatory views. They were not happy with “deadbeat dads” but believed there may be legitimate reasons for fathers to behave this way, such as a relationship where the partner has mental health problems, poverty and unemployment as similarly described by Amato and Dorius (2010), Amato et al. (2009) and Cheadle et al. (2010). They stated that, when they read “deadbeat dads” in existing files or reports, they would give the fathers the benefit of the doubt and would reserve judgement until they had a better understanding of the fathers’ motivations. In the previous section, the participants described their concepts of men’s behaviours as fathers. For the most part, they had a positive view of men’s ability to parent their children but noted that they may do it a bit differently. They also identified some negative behaviours which they felt had negative consequences on a father’s ability to parent. In the next section, I will be looking at how the participants use their concepts of men’s behaviours in their work with fathers in child protection. 4.3 Accepting and excepting men’s behaviours in child protection Once children are taken into the care of child protection services, it is the responsibility of the child protection worker to ensure a plan is developed that addresses the child protection concerns and finds an appropriate place for children to live. If the 55 children were removed from the mother and a non-residential and a non-custodial father came forward and requested to have the children returned to his care, the child protection worker must decide if this would be a safe place for them to live. These decisions are based in part on the child protection legislation (Government of British Columbia, 1996) and in part on the heuristics or strategies child protection workers use to make those decisions (Gambrill, 2008). Availability, or the use of information that is familiar and tangible, and representativeness, or the use of personal mental models, are two common heuristics used by people to make decisions (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974, 1982, 2002; Kahneman & Frederick, 2002). This study looked at the concepts on men’s behaviours that the participants, as child protection workers, use to make decisions. They described the source of information for developing their mental models of men as fathers and what those models represent. In this section, I will discuss the participants’ use of these concepts in making decisions about fathers they work with. As discussed earlier, men can be accepted as an option to care for their children if their behaviours are assessed as being adequate to provide a safe and secure environment for their children. On the other hand, they can be excepted as an option if their behaviour is assessed as inappropriate. Most of the information used in this section was based on a scenario (See Appendices A & B) that consisted of a non-residential and non-custodial father seeking to have his children returned to his care. It began with no child protection concerns being present followed by the addition of different concerns one at a time. The participants were asked to make decisions based on the new concerns. 56 The first theme describes the participants views of behaviours they consider concerning and how that shaped their decisions. It should be noted that most of the participants pointed out that the behaviours they look at are not specific to fathers but are looked at for anyone who is seeking to have children returned to their care. I have included it because the questions most of these views came from were from the scenario which was specifically about a father. Additionally, this is a process men are subject to and the results are about behaviours that are part of the decision-making process. The first text-based category is about background and criminal record checks to determine if there are behaviours that could put the children at risk. The participants identified two main sources for this information. One is a review of child protection records to see if there has been any involvement in the past and the other is a police check to see if a criminal record exists. The red-flags they identified were; unaddressed addictions; untreated mental health problems; previous involvement with child protection; and involvement in a criminal life-style. There were also two behaviours they related to men as mentioned previously, domestic violence and physical aggression which is consistent with Scourfield’s (2003,2001) finding child protection workers in his study portrayed men as threatening. Several of them did note that they would be more concerned with recent criminal activity that may still be going and that: A criminal record check in and of itself isn’t something that you can rule out somebody on. Because quite frankly, they could have done something that’s a minor offence, like a robbery offence or a shoplifting offence, which really doesn’t impact parenting but we’d have to talk about it. (Participant 6) 57 A couple of the participants stated that, in relation to the scenario which involved a non-residential and non-custodial father, the father was not the client and they were not doing a child protection investigation. In a case such as this, the participants stated that they would need to have the father’s permission to do collateral checks on anything that arose from the criminal record check or previous child protection involvement. They would also need to have the mother’s permission about any decisions to return the children to the father’s care, if she was capable of doing that, or have the father apply for custody through the courts. Another behaviour that the participants related to fathers that they looked for in background checks was sexual abuse. This was a behaviour that most of the participants identified as something that would except a father from further consideration as an option to care for his children. As mentioned, even if a father has been sexually abusive, he can still have access to his children as long as the children are safe and the visits are supervised. This created a moral dilemma for some of the participants because they could never be sure they had done everything to protect the children and men who sexually abuse have no credibility in society (Featherstone & Lancaster, 1997). Three of the participants spoke of the need to ensure the children can be safe with their father. This related to a father’s anger and aggressive behaviour especially when it concerned his ability to use appropriate discipline and his ability to set appropriate boundaries. In the scenario, the mother had undiagnosed mental health problems and an addiction to drugs. Two of the participants stated that they would want to know if the father could protect the children from being exposed to her life-style which was the reason the children were brought into care. These concerns correspond to Dominelli et 58 al.’s (2010) description of the “misrepresented dad”. The other participant wondered, if the father was aggressive and angry with the participant, how would he be with the children, especially when the children misbehaved? They acknowledged that ensuring the children’s safety was challenging because you can never be sure of what will happen so it’s about “working in a respectful way with people, sometimes it’s challenging, and sometimes it’s still conflictual, but to some level, [fathers] know that you have a level of respect for them and that you’re really trying to help them so that they can be with their kids” (Participant 7). The final text-based category in this theme is secrecy. As with doing background checks, the participants noted that this would be a concern for anyone they worked with. However, the information for this category was also gathered from a question in the scenario. Some information had come out that the father had disappeared for two months three years previously and was refusing to discuss where he was or why he left. Eight of the participants stated that being secretive, not being forthcoming with requested information or not giving permission to speak to collaterals, was a reason for concern. Two of the participants noted their concerns but explained that “just because we want to know something doesn’t mean we have the right to know something. So if it didn’t… if there [were] no red flags coming in to link it to something, it would be none of our business” (Participant 10). The other six had more serious reservations. Several participants noted that secrecy could “negatively impact our ability to work with him” (Participant 6) resulting in a slowing down of the process to give time to convince the father to provide more information or even reconsidering the possibility of placing his children with him. They viewed fathers who would not divulge requested information 59 with suspicion and wondered what else they may be hiding which is reflected in Dominelli et al.’s (2010) description on the “denied my identity dad”. The second theme is about the participants’ view on how they work with fathers. Getting fathers involved was a priority for most of the participants but there were some challenges to this. Often times, if fathers have not been involved with child protection, there is very little information about them (Huebner et al., 2008; Munro, 1998). Most of the time this information comes from the mothers and it may be inaccurate or incomplete (English, Brummel, & Martens, 2009; Franck, 2001). Several of the participants stated that some fathers like the role of being a part-time parent or even deny that they are the fathers resulting in reluctance to work with child protection (Ryan, 2000). A few added that child protection has not done a good job in engaging these fathers as explained by one of the participants: I think we’re dealing with a lot of marginalized folks who have had a lot of negative experiences with systems in their lives, which either aim to support them or control them. So an agency like ours who has a mandate to protect kids and is seen and has been seen in quite a negative light historically, is not an agency that men tend to want to willingly engage with. (Participant 5) Once fathers have started working with child protection, a few of the participants commented that there may be challenges to keeping them involved. They felt that, if there was something about a person’s behaviours or attitudes that bothered or annoyed a child protection worker or rubbed them the wrong way, they may not be as effective working with that person and “then they keep working with that family and [they] just keep digging deeper and deeper and [they’re] not getting anyone anywhere” but “if 60 someone else were to work with this family that maybe the kids would be returned sooner, or the end result would be different” (Participant 4). The other concern raised by most of the participants (90%), in the third theme, was whether the father would be ready to take care of all his children. In the scenario, the father is asking to have all three of his children returned to his care. Their mother has not allowed him to have contact with the children because of her mental health problems but before that, he was actively involved in raising the children. In cases such as this where a decision needs to be made about the children’s placements, many participants noted that they have been using family planning meetings where all interested family members and representatives of child protection services sit down to discuss the available options for the children. They noted that they have been encouraging fathers more and more to attend these meetings. They also pointed out that the father’s participation and input does not guarantee the children will be returned to his care. As a non-residential and non- custodial father, he has the same status as everyone else at the meeting and any other family member can request to have the children placed in their care. In the scenario, there was an aunt of the older child who was not the biological son of the father. She had offered to take this child but not the other two. She had a distant relationship with the older child but was a stranger to the other two. One participant suggested several times that this aunt should attend this meeting and could provide respite to all three children for a couple of weekends a month. The worker felt that this could be a support the father might need even though the children would be going to stay with a strange person instead of the father they know. 61 Eight of the participants commented on what abilities they would like fathers to have before they returned their children to them. Most of the participants wanted to make sure the father in the scenario was capable of raising all three children and whether he was willing to commit to this for the long term. To determine his capability, they would like to know: if he can provide a home with adequate space and the necessities of life; if he has adequate daycare for when he is at work; what his theories are on child rearing; and if he has adequate familial and community supports. One participant reflected Doucet’s (2006) finding that there may often be a tendency in child protection where “you almost think the men might be missing some of just the basic stuff on raising a girl. So you’re thinking, “I’m going to have to remind him…” or “We’ll get some support around this.” And that’s kind of patronizing” (Participant 3). Although the participants held the personal beliefs that fathers are capable of caring for their children, they felt that when he is involved with child protection they would need to put in supports to help him adjust and make sure the children were safe. However, as noted by one participant, if this same father had been available to take the children before they were taken into care. As pointed out by one participant, if the father had stepped forward and said ““I’ll take the kids and keep them safe” we could totally roll with that. But once the kids are in care, now we have a higher standard for getting them out of care and returning them to somebody else” (Participant 10). In other words, men’s behaviours as fathers only come into question if the children are taken into care. The final theme is about the way the participants respond to men’s anger in their work. Four participants commented about men’s anger. They felt that men’s anger can be expected sometimes especially when they are frustrated or anxious. They recognized 62 that the involvement of child protection, where children are being removed, can produce these feelings and result in outburst of anger. One participant noted that venting “their anger is really healthy for them, and then it’s finding a way that you can work with them to work with the kids” and added that this “doesn’t make them bad guys” (Participant 1). However, men needed to be able to deal with their anger in an appropriate way because, if they were not able to, it could indicate anger management problems that could put the children’s safety at risk. Even though the participants noted that men’s anger can be appropriate, some also stated that men’s anger can be threatening and intimidating. When meeting with a father, one participant stated: “I would say that perhaps I approach men more cautiously than setting up an interview with a mother. I would maybe set up an interview with a father and be more cautious” (Participant 2). Another worker noted that the information she read in a file was inaccurate and the father turned out not to be as intimidating as he was portrayed. The same worker also remarked that: The challenge is coming from the non-custodial parent to the social worker. … That’s the challenge, because the non- custodial parent, they come out and it’s like, I know the ministry’s plan, so they are aggressive; they want to fight with you. So they’re telling you that, “Yes I’m this, I want to do this, why won’t they take [my word]? Because I’m a man, because I’m this” (Participant 9). However, some of the participants stated that this is part of the job and they have never felt that their immediate safety has been at risk but have felt a bit uncomfortable in certain situations such as when a father uses derogatory language. The theoretical construct in this section was derived from themes: disquieting behaviours in child protection; working with men in child protection; men’s ability to 63 parent; and responding to men’s anger. These represent men’s behaviours the participants use to determine if fathers are able to have their children returned to their care. If the behaviours are acceptable, the work with the father can move forward. However, if the behaviours are exceptable, the possibility of working with the father needs to be re-evaluated. The only behaviour that was identified as one that was exceptable and would put a stop to placing the children with their father was sexual abuse. The participants felt that, with the other behaviours, they could continue working with the father and at least offer him the opportunity of change. 64 5 Discussion The aim of this study was to answer the question: What concepts about men’s behaviours do child protection workers use when working with non-residential and non- custodial fathers? I used several related bodies of knowledge to define and make sense of the themes which have also contributed to the development of the theoretical constructs (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003). I am going to discuss to what extent the research question has been answered by the child protection workers who participated in this study in relation to the theoretical construct and the extant literature. The first theoretical construct, the conceptual roots of men’s behaviours, explores where the child protection workers in this study believe their concepts of men’s behaviour originated from. Kahneman and Frederick (2002) and Tversky and Kahneman (2002) wrote that people use mental models or representations based on their experiences with their own families, learned cultural values and socially constructed models of people’s behaviours (Buckley, 2000; Munro, 1998) to help them make sense of the world. This is called the representative heuristic and is used as a short cut to facilitate decision-making. In this study, the child protection workers stated that their family-of- origin, cultural background and societal standards shape their concepts of men and the behaviours they expect from them. In the second theoretical construct, the dichotomy of paternal behaviour, the child protection workers related their personal concepts of positive and negative behaviours of men as fathers. They believed that fathers are capable of being good parents, as described by Doucet (2006). They also described behaviours they considered to be 65 negative including aggressive behaviour, sexual abuse and “deadbeat dads”. These will be reviewed in the discussion of the next theoretical construct. In this study, the third theoretical construct, accepting and excepting men in child protection, generated the answers to the research question. The child protection workers in this study considered acceptable behaviours as a willingness to parent, some positive parenting skills, being cooperative and working with child protection workers. Behaviours that were considered exceptable and could lead to a decision not to return the children to their fathers’ care were: a recent and extensive criminal history; extreme aggression; and secrecy. As far as aggressive behaviour towards child protection workers, this was considered understandable behaviour given the circumstances and would not necessarily except a father from child protection involvement. The one behaviour that was considered completely exceptable was sexual abuse. However, with all these behaviours, there was a willingness to continue to work with the father to keep him involved in some capacity as long as the children were safe. Scourfield (2001, 2003) wrote that child protection workers in his study considered men to be threatening and violent, absent, irrelevant and of no use. In the study I conducted, aggression and violence were a concern for the child protection workers both for their own safety and the effect it has on women and children. They noted that domestic violence and sexual abuse were behaviours they attribute primarily to men even before they had all the relevant information. Except for references to “deadbeat dads”, the child protection workers did not speak about fathers they considered to be of no use as described by (Scourfield, 2003). In fact, there was a high regard for fathers’ commitment to their families and their ability to parent. Many of the workers stated that they would 66 make an extra effort to find fathers and involve them with child protection. Scourfield (2003) wrote that men were considered irrelevant if they did not have legal status under the child protection law. The child protection workers in this study expressed their desires to continue working with men despite their legal status but did voice frustration in their ability to reunite fathers with their children because they were not considered the custodial parent. The concept of men being absent was also present in the conversations of the child protection workers in this study. They made several references to the fact that historically child protection services has not been particularly inviting to men and they sometimes choose not to be involved which was a finding of Ryan (2000). There was also a suggestion that some men only prefer to be involved as fathers on a part-time basis. A behaviour not mentioned by Scourfield (2001, 2003) that was particularly concerning to the child protection workers in this study was secrecy. They felt that fathers who hold back information were, as noted by Strega et al. (2009), hiding something more sinister and may not be trusted to look after their children. Doucet (2006) noted that the fathers in her study had the knowledge, skills and desire to adequately parent their children. Doucet (2006) and Bouchard et al. (2007) pointed out that although fathers are able to parent, they do it slightly differently than mothers in that they pay more attention to the physical care needs of children and mothers are more nurturing. Men’s behaviours as fathers were a primary consideration for the child protection workers in this study. These child protection workers felt that, in order to provide a safe and secure environment for children, fathers needed to be able to meet their physical and emotional needs. In their conversations, they acknowledged that fathers are capable of parenting children but do it slightly differently. However, when 67 fathers, especially single fathers, are involved with child protection, paternal behaviour is scrutinized more and held to a higher standard than the behaviours of fathers whose children were not taken into care. They felt that fathers may need support and guidance on how to raise children. Overall, in this study, child protection workers had a positive attitude towards men and their ability to parent. The child protection workers in this study were willing to work with fathers even if they found some of their behaviours exceptable to at least give them the opportunity to change. Fathers were not considered to be a homogeneous group and each father has different strengths that they felt should be recognized and built upon as noted by Ryan (2000). 68 6 Conclusion 6.1 Implications for practice Walmsley, Strega, Brown, Dominelli and Callahan (2009), in their review of the literature in Canadian BSW curriculum about working with fathers, noted that only three schools of social work had at least part of one class in a 13 to 15 week course that contained content on fathering. They explained that this lack of information can result in child protection workers missing important aspects of fathers’ abilities, strengths, challenges and risk they could be to children and women. Strug and Wilmore-Schaeffer (2003) reflected these findings noting that “this information can help social workers to be more effective advocates for fathers and their families” (p. 509). They added that schools of social work should include teaching about fathers in graduate and undergraduate courses and in more diverse areas such as human behaviour, social welfare policy and research. The child protection workers in this study voiced the same sentiment and suggested that there needs to be more information about fathers and fatherhood in social work curriculum as well as access to more seminars and workshops about fathers. Ryan (2000) wrote that the common practice of child protection workers for men who commit aggressive acts in the home, such as domestic violence and sexual abuse, is to remove them from the home and make the mother responsible for protecting the children. This has the immediate effect of providing safety for children but also allows men to escape responsibility for their actions. Often there is not an expectation for them to seek counselling or be involved in a program to ameliorate these concerns. The family he was removed from may be safe but he may start a new relationship and put the safety 69 of other women and children at risk. The child protection workers in this study expressed their frustration with the lack of resources available for men who commit these acts. They felt that there should be more programs for anger management or emotional regulation and more groups to support men in understanding and addressing domestic violence. In Ryan’s (2000) study, she noted that there need to be more services for men in areas such as addressing concrete needs, supports with addiction or mental health and parenting skills and support groups. Men often feel uncomfortable in groups attended by mostly mothers (Doucet, 2006) or in parenting programs run by women (Ryan, 2000). The child protection workers in this study noted that they have few resources to refer fathers to and that even some of those are open only to specific populations or have a fee- for-service. Parenting programs are often during the day which is inconvenient if the father is working or in some cases are only accessible if the father has legal status (Ryan, 2000) under the child protection law. Most of these workers would like to see programs within child protection designed for men and to meet their needs. They would also like to see community based programs that could support men so that they can provide a safe and secure environment for their families and possibly reduce the chances of coming to the attention of child protection services. 6.2 Strengths and limitations of this study I feel that this study has a good representation of the demographics of child protection workers and the type of child protection jobs they do in the area where the study was conducted. The questions in the interviews were open ended and the 70 participants were able to express their opinions freely. The scenario and the question were derived from my twenty years of experience in the child protection field and the extant literature. The participants were all sent a copy of Table 2.1 with a brief explanation of its content and they were asked to see if the connection between text-based categories, themes and theoretical constructs made sense to them. Five of them responded with positive feedback and a few suggestions for some minor changes. These, I feel, are strengths of this study. This study was limited by the fact that the sample population was relatively small and they were recruited from two regions out of six that are under the jurisdiction of the same child protection act. These two regions are mostly urban with a very diverse population from the very poor to the very rich. Other regions may have different demographics, child protection procedures and interpretation of policy leading to different perspectives on child protection concerns and different attitudes towards working with fathers. The data were gathered from the participants’ discourses on their values and beliefs about how they see their work with fathers but this may be different from actual observations of them doing the work. It may also be different from the way fathers feel about their involvement with child protection. Given this, the findings in this study are particular to this group of participants and are not transferable to all child protection workers in all jurisdictions. It can be a starting point towards a better understanding of how fathers should be involved in child protection matters. 71 6.3 Implications for further research The data from this study has supported the three preliminary theoretical constructs that child protection workers can have both positive and negative personal views about men’s behaviours as fathers and that these are derived from their experiences, values and biases. In their work, they use these views to determine if a father is acceptable and continue working with him or exceptable and disengage with him. However, the findings describe fathers in general and not specifically non-residential and non-custodial fathers. The child protection workers in this study indicated that they will try to work with any father who wants to be involved but their work is limited if the father does not have legal status (Ryan, 2000) under the child protection law. If the child protection worker feels this father’s behaviours make him acceptable to care for his children, the children cannot be returned to him unless they were removed from him or he is granted custody by the court. The child protection workers in this study stated that this creates delays, keeps children in care longer and can frustrate fathers to the point they are ready to give up. Fathers’ reluctance to be involved with child protection, as noted by the child protection workers, could also be influenced by the consequences of fathers’ legal statuses. Exploring non-residential and non-custodial fathers’ experiences with the legal system would be an area worth exploring further to give a more comprehensive insight into fathers’ involvement with child protection. This study produced three theoretical constructs that related specifically to the child protection workers who were interviewed. 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The problem of engaging men in child protection work. British Journal of Social Work, 27, 25-42. Padgett, D. K. (2008). Qualitative research methods in social work research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Pleck, J. H. (2010). Fatherhood and masculinity. In M. E. Lamb (Ed.), The role of the father in child development (pp. 27-57). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Risely-Curtiss, C., & Hefferman, K. (2003). Gender biases in child welfare. Affilia, 18, 395-410. doi:10.1177/0886109903257629. Ryan, M. (2000). Working with fathers. Abingdon, UK: Radcliffe Medical Press Ltd. Rycus, J. S., & Hughes, R. C. (2008). Assessing risk throughout the life of a child welfare case. In D. Lindsey, & A. Shlonsky (Eds.), Child welfare research: Advances for practice and policy (pp. 201-213). New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc. Rycus, J., & Hughes, R. C. (2003). Issues in risk assesment in child protective services. Policy White Paper, Retrieved on April 4, 2010 from the North American Resource Centre for Child Welfare: http://www.narccw.com. Saldana, J. (2009). The coding manual for quantitative researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc. 82 Scourfield, J. (2001). Constructing men in child protection work. Men and Masculinities, pp. 70-89. doi:10.1177/1097184X01004001004. Scourfield, J. (2003). Gender and child protection. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillian. Strega, S., Brown, L., Callahan, M., Dominelli, L., & Walmsley, C. (2009). Working with me, working at me: Fathers' narritives of child welfare. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 20, 72-91. doi:10.1080/10428230902871207. Strega, S., Fleet, C., Brown, L., Dominelli, L., Callahan, M., & Walmsley, C. (2008). Connecting father absence and mother blame in child welfare policies and practice. Child and Youth Services Review, 30, 705-716. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2007.11.012. Strug, D., & Wilmore-Schaeffer, R. (2004). Fathers in the social work literature: Policy and practice implications. Families in Society: The Journnal of Contemporary Human Services, 84(4), 503-511. doi:10.1606/1044-3894.142. Taylor, S. (1982). The availability bias in social perception and interaction. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgement under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (pp. 191-200). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124-1131. Retrieved on October 10, 2010, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/178360. 83 Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 26, 453-458. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1982). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (pp. 163-178). New Kork, NY: Cambridge University Press. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (2000). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. In T. Connolly, H. R. Arkes, & K. R. Hammond (Eds.), Judgment and decision making: An interdisciplinary reader (pp. 35-52). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (2002). Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: The conjunction fallacy in probability judgment. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgement (pp. 19-48). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Walmsley, C., Strega, S., Brown, L., Dominelli, L., & Callahan, M. (2009). More than playmate, less than co-parent: Fathers in the Canadian BSW cirriculum. Canadian Social Work Review, 26(1), 73-96. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com. ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/210098619/fulltextPDF/138119315E02DFADEE 0/7?accountid=14656. 84 Appendices Appendix A: Interview guide (original version) Interview Questions for Child Protection Social Workers Prior to the beginning of the interview, consent provisions will be discussed and an opportunity to sign the consent form will be offered. To begin the interview, the purpose of the study will be outlined briefly. Then the participant will be guided in sharing her or his experiences as a child protection social worker. 1. Could you please tell me about your experiences working with non-custodial, non- residential fathers who are seeking to have their children returned to their care? Probes that will be used in exploring the participant’s experiences:  How long have you been a delegated child protection social worker?  Have you worked with non-custodial, non-residential fathers?  Could you explain any concerns you have had working with fathers (e.g., safety, intimidation, threats…)? 2. I am going to read the following scenario and ask you to comment on it. A child protection worker has recently been assigned a file in regards to Mary, a thirty- five year old mother of three children. She has had an undiagnosed mental illness for several years but it has become more acute in the past six months. She has just been diagnosed with schizophrenia and is refusing treatment, is homeless and is using drugs. You have determined that she is not capable of looking after her children. Mary’s three children are a son John, fourteen years old, a daughter Sally, 5 years old, and a son Lucas, 2 years old. They are all in foster care currently. Mary has been in a relationship with Alan, thirty years old, for ten years and he is the father of Sally and Lucas. John’s father died when John was an infant. Alan is the only father figure he has known. Mary had been living with Alan until 5 months ago when she moved on her own with the children. Alan has recently asked to have all three children returned to him. You know very little about him except that he has had the same job doing shift work in a factory for the past five years. He makes a moderate salary and has his own apartment. He has been actively involved with all three children but Mary has been making that more difficult in the past 2 months. He has supported the family financial on an informal basis. 85 John’s paternal aunt has said she would be willing to take him but not the other two children. Her involvement with John has been sporadic. John has stated that he would prefer to stay with his siblings. The worker has had very little experience working with fathers and has come to you for advice. a) What are the first steps you would suggest the worker takes to decide if Alan should be considered as a possible placement option for the children? b) What child protection concerns would you suggest the worker explore and why? c) What information would you suggest the worker find out from the collaterals? d) At the first meeting with Alan, what information would you want from him? e) An anonymous caller reports that Alan has problems controlling his anger, how would you suggest the worker approach this? f) Lucas’ daycare provider reported that she has occasionally seen bruises on his face and arms. This was a while ago when the children were still living with both parents. Mary explained that they were a result of him playing with the other children. The older children’s teachers stated that they have had no concerns about the children and they appear to be happy and well adjusted. The children’s doctor, who has seen them all since birth, stated that he has never had any child protection concerns. Given the callers report, what advice would you give the worker on deciding what to do with this information? g) The worker has decided to start visits with the father and asks you where they should take place and whether they should be supervised. What would you suggest and why? What information would you suggest the worker want to know about what is happening during the visits? h) After about two months, the worker reports the visits are going very well and all the reports from extended family, other professionals and especially from the children are extremely positive. However, the worker has recently come across some information in the file that is a bit concerning. There was a report that Alan left the family home for two months about three years ago and no one knew where he went. He returned but never gave a full explanation of where he was. The worker asks you how important this information is in making a decision about returning the children to Alan. What is your advice? What if Alan refuses to explain his whereabouts? 86 i) Eventually, Alan explains his two month absence. He stated that he has always struggled with his sexual identity but never explored it fully. At that time, he had met a man who he had a sexual relationship with and left the family because he did not want them to find out. He moved in with this man. When the relationship ended, he moved back home and decided that it was mistake. However, when Mary left, he once again decided to explore his sexual orientation and has been in a relationship with the same man for the past four months. He stated that he is very happy and has accepted his sexuality. What advice would you give the worker to assess this new information? j) Is there any information that would eliminate Alan as a consideration? Is there any other information you would suggest the worker find out to help in the decision making process? 3. How prepared do you feel you are in terms of knowledge, attitudes and skills to make decisions about non-custodial, non-residential fathers seeking to have their children in their care? 4. What traits should a father have to be considered a good parent? Are they different for a mother? 5. Are there any barriers to engaging with non-custodial, non-residential fathers in child protection services?  Policies  Procedures – e.g., how are the files named?  Laws – e.g., Child Protection laws, laws pertaining to custody  Supports – e.g., parenting programs, daycare  Professional education  Other aspects 6. What are your age, gender, education and ethnicity? 87 Appendix B: Interview guide (revised version) Interview Questions for Child Protection Social Workers Prior to the beginning of the interview, consent provisions will be discussed and an opportunity to sign the consent form will be offered. To begin the interview, the purpose of the study will be outlined briefly. Then the participant will be guided in sharing her or his experiences as a child protection social worker. 1. Could you please tell me about your experiences working with non-custodial, non- residential fathers who are seeking to have their children returned to their care? Probes that will be used in exploring the participant’s experiences:  How long have you been a delegated child protection social worker?  Have you worked with non-custodial, non-residential fathers?  Could you explain any concerns you have had working with fathers (e.g., safety, intimidation, threats…)? 2. I am going to read the following scenario and ask you to comment on it. A child protection worker has recently been assigned a file in regards to Mary, a thirty- five year old mother of three children. She has had an undiagnosed mental illness for several years but it has become more acute in the past six months. She has just been diagnosed with schizophrenia and is refusing treatment, is homeless and is using drugs. The worker has determined that she is not capable of looking after her children. Mary’s three children are a son John, fourteen years old, a daughter Sally, 5 years old, and a son Lucas, 2 years old. They are all in foster care currently. Mary has been in a relationship with Alan, thirty years old, for ten years and he is the father of Sally and Lucas. John’s father died when John was an infant. Alan is the only father figure he has known. Mary had been living with Alan until 5 months ago when she moved on her own with the children. Alan has recently asked to have all three children returned to him. You know very little about him except that he has had the same job doing shift work in a factory for the past five years. He makes a moderate salary and has his own apartment. He has been actively involved with all three children but Mary has been making that more difficult in the past 2 months. He has supported the family financial on an informal basis. John’s paternal aunt has said she would be willing to take him but not the other two children. Her involvement with John has been sporadic. John has stated that he would prefer to stay with his siblings. 88 The worker has had very little experience working with fathers and has come to you for advice. a) What are the first steps you would suggest the worker takes to decide if Alan should be considered as a possible placement option for the children? b) What child protection concerns would you suggest the worker explore and why? c) What information would you suggest the worker find out from the collaterals? d) At the first meeting with Alan, what information would you want from him? e) An anonymous caller reports that Alan has problems controlling his anger, how would you suggest the worker approach this? f) Lucas’ daycare provider reported that she has occasionally seen bruises on his face and arms. This was a while ago when the children were still living with both parents. Mary explained that they were a result of him playing with the other children. The older children’s teachers stated that they have had no concerns about the children and they appear to be happy and well adjusted. The children’s doctor, who has seen them all since birth, stated that he has never had any child protection concerns. Given the callers report, what advice would you give the worker on deciding what to do with this information? g) The worker has decided to start visits with the father and asks you where they should take place and whether they should be supervised. What would you suggest and why? What information would you suggest the worker want to know about what is happening during the visits? h) After about two months, the worker reports the visits are going very well and all the reports from extended family, other professionals and especially from the children are extremely positive. However, the worker has recently come across some information in the file that is a bit concerning. There was a report that Alan left the family home for two months about three years ago and no one knew where he went. He returned but never gave a full explanation of where he was. The worker asks you how important this information is in making a decision about returning the children to Alan. What is your advice? What if Alan refuses to explain his whereabouts? i) Eventually, Alan explains his two month absence. He stated that he has always struggled with his sexual identity but never explored it fully. At that time, he had met a man who he had a sexual relationship with and left the family because he did not want them to find out. He moved in with this man. When the relationship 89 ended, he moved back home and decided that it was mistake. However, when Mary left, he once again decided to explore his sexual orientation and has been in a relationship with the same man for the past four months. He stated that he is very happy and has accepted his sexuality. What advice would you give the worker to assess this new information? j) If the worker came to you and stated that there are certain facts about this case that really challenge her or his beliefs or morals, what advice would you give to the worker? k) Is there any information that would eliminate Alan as a consideration? Is there any other information you would suggest the worker find out to help in the decision making process? 3. How prepared do you feel you are in terms of knowledge, attitudes and skills to make decisions about non-custodial, non-residential fathers seeking to have their children in their care? 4. When doing collateral checks you often ask families of origin questions to find out how the father was raised to give some insight into how he might be as a parent. Do you believe this is true for child protection workers? Does their upbringing and learned values influence the decisions they make? 5. Are there certain behaviors or actions or even words that you would automatically associate with men? (Domestic violence, pedophile, aggression, sexually abusive) 6. Do you feel that you have adequate time to gather the information you need to make well-informed decisions about non-custodial and non-residential fathers? 7. What traits should a father have to be considered a good parent? Are they different for a mother? 8. What are the challenges to engaging with non-custodial, non-residential fathers in child protection services?  Policies  Procedures – e.g., how are the files named?  Laws – e.g., Child Protection laws, laws pertaining to custody  Supports – e.g., parenting programs, daycare  Professional education  Other aspects 90 9. What are your age, gender, education and ethnicity?
Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Social Work
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
“We don’t look at the non-custodial father as being a possibility or option” : working towards a better understanding of how fathers are conceived in child protection
Text