Corporate parenting in a pandemic: Considering the delivery and receipt of support to care leavers in Wales during Covid-19.

This paper considers the support available to care leavers during the Covid-19 pandemic from their corporate parents. The paper contributes to a developing evidence base concerned with social work efforts to adapt and maintain support provision during the unprecedented circumstances, and provides insight into how such support was perceived and experienced. Funded by Voices from Care Cymru and Cardiff University, a qualitative, mixed method study was conducted which included a survey of Welsh Local Authority professionals (n = 22) and interviews with Welsh care-experienced young people aged 17-24 (n = 17). The findings of this paper show the propensity of corporate parents to provide protection against the adversities of the pandemic, or to compound difficulties. While some young people reported being both practically and emotionally supported, for others corporate parenting support was perceived as unavailable, unhelpful and / or uncaring. The Covid-19 pandemic provides a unique lens to consider the strengths, flaws and future opportunities for corporate parenting. The findings emphasise the need for parity of support for young people leaving care and consideration of national, local and individual responses is included. Yet consistent with findings pre-dating the pandemic, the findings reaffirm the enduring importance of both relationships and resources in ensuring good support for care leavers.

Understanding health behaviour in pregnancy and infant feeding intentions in low-income women from the UK through qualitative visual methods and application to the COM-B (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation-Behaviour) model.

BACKGROUND: Health behaviours during pregnancy and the early years of life have been proven to affect long term health, resulting in investment in interventions. However, interventions often have low levels of completion and limited effectiveness. Consequently, it is increasingly important for interventions to be based on both behaviour change theories and techniques, and the accounts of pregnant women. This study engaged with pregnant women from deprived communities, to understand their subjective experiences of health in pregnancy. METHODS: The study adopted a women-centred ethos and recruited a purposive sample of ten pregnant women, who lived in deprived areas and were on low incomes. Participants engaged with three creative techniques of visual data production (timelines, collaging and dyad sandboxing), followed by elicitation interviews. One participant only engaged in the initial activity and interview, resulting in a total of 28 elicitation interviews. This in-depth qualitative approach was designed to enable a nuanced account of the participants' thoughts, everyday experiences and social relationships. Data were deductively coded for alcohol, smoking and infant feeding and then mapped to the COM-B model (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation - Behaviour). RESULTS: Five participants had experience of smoking during pregnancy, four had consumed alcohol during pregnancy, and all participants, except one who had exclusively formula fed her child, disclosed a range of infant feeding experiences and intentions for their current pregnancies. Considerable variation was identified between the drivers of behaviour around infant feeding and that related to abstinence from tobacco and alcohol during pregnancy. Overall, knowledge and confidence (psychological capability), the role of partners (social opportunity) and support from services to overcome physical challenges (environmental opportunity) were reported to impact on (reflective) motivation, and thus women's behaviour. The role of the public in creating and reinforcing stigma (social opportunity) was also noted in relation to all three behaviours. CONCLUSIONS: When designing new interventions to improve maternal health behaviours it is important to consider the accounts of pregnant women. Acknowledging pregnant women's subjective experiences and the challenges they face in negotiating acceptable forms of motherhood, can contribute to informed policy and practice, which can engage rather than isolate potential user groups.

Negotiating Closed Doors and Constraining Deadlines: The Potential of Visual Ethnography to Effectually Explore Private and Public Spaces of Motherhood and Parenting.

Pregnancy and motherhood are increasingly subjected to surveillance by medical professionals, the media, and the general public, and discourses of ideal parenting are propagated alongside an admonishment of the perceived "failing" maternal subject. However, despite this scrutiny, the mundane activities of parenting are often impervious to ethnographic forms of inquiry. Challenges for ethnographic researchers include the restrictions of becoming immersed in the private space of the home where parenting occurs and an institutional structure that discourages exploratory and long-term fieldwork. This paper draws on four studies, involving thirty-four participants, that explored their journeys into the space of parenthood and their everyday experiences. The studies all employed forms of visual ethnography, including artifacts, photo elicitation, timelines, collage, and sandboxing. The paper argues that visual methodologies can enable access to unseen aspects of parenting and engender forms of temporal extension, which can help researchers to disrupt the restrictions of tightly time bounded projects.

'I probably wouldn't want to talk about anything too personal': A qualitative exploration of how issues of privacy, confidentiality and surveillance in the home impact on access and engagement with online services and spaces for care-experienced young people.

This paper draws on a qualitative interview-based study that explored online mental health and wellbeing interventions and services for care-experienced young people. The study involved young people (n = 4), foster carers (n = 8), kinship carers (n = 2) and social care professionals (n = 9) in Wales, UK. The paper reflects on the complexities of online communication in the space of 'the home'. It documents the ways in which care-experienced young people's living arrangements can restrict access to services and complicate confidentiality within portals to the virtual world, creating an environment where young people and their carers 'wouldn't want to talk about anything too personal'. Drawing on data generated in a study focused on services and interventions to support the mental health and wellbeing of care-experienced children and young people, the paper considers privacy, confidentiality and surveillance in the home and reflects on how associated relational practices impact on care-experienced young people. While the data discussed in this paper was generated during the Covid-19 pandemic, its findings have implications for how care-experienced young people and their carers can be supported to engage with the digital world in the future.

When mental health services are delivered online, they are usually accessed from home. Home can be different for young people who grow up in care, with records kept about their day-to-day activities, a lack of access to the digital world and policy governing how they are able to live their lives. We spoke with young people, foster carers and practitioners about what it is like for young people to access mental health services online. The paper discusses how the private home lives of care-experienced children and young people impacts on how they are able to access much needed mental health services. We look at the need to protect the freedom of children in care and care-experienced young people to take risks and access digital spaces like other children and teenagers do, while also recognising the reality of the pressures on practitioners and carers to protect looked after children from harm.

Smoking during pregnancy, stigma and secrets: Visual methods exploration in the UK.

BACKGROUND: Moral judgements are commonly directed towards mothers through reference to health behaviour in pregnancy, and working-class mothers are particularly subject to this moral gaze. AIM: To gain an in-depth understanding of the health issues affecting 10 low income pregnant women from deprived areas of south Wales, UK. METHODS: Participants completed visual activities (timelines, collaging or thought bubbles and dyad sandboxing) prior to each interview. Participants' visual representations were used in place of a topic guide, to direct the interview. Guided by feminist principles, 28 interviews were completed with 10 women. Data were analysed thematically. FINDINGS: Smoking was discussed at length during interviews, and this paper focuses on this issue alone. Five of the participants had smoked during pregnancy. Negative reactions were directed towards pregnant women who smoked in public, resulting in maternal smoking being undertaken in private. Participants also reported awkward relationships with midwives and other health professionals, including receipt of public health advice in a judgemental tone. DISCUSSION: Smoking during pregnancy is a particularly demonised and stigmatised activity. This stigma is not always related to the level of risk to the foetus, and instead can be seen as a moral judgement about women. We urgently need to move from individualised neo-liberal discourses about the failure of individual smokers, to a more socio-ecological view which avoids victim blaming. CONCLUSION: Stigma from friends, family, strangers and health professionals may lead to hidden smoking. This is a barrier to women obtaining evidence based stop smoking support.

The consequences of being labelled 'looked-after': Exploring the educational experiences of looked-after children and young people in Wales.

The educational experiences and attainment of looked-after children and young people (LACYP) remains an issue of widespread international concern. Within the UK, children and young people in care achieve poorer educational outcomes compared to individuals not in care. Despite proliferation of research documenting the reasons for educational disadvantage amongst this population, there remains limited empirical consideration of the lived experiences of the educational system, as perceived by LACYP themselves. This paper draws upon qualitative research with 67 care-experienced children and young people in Wales. The sample was aged 6-27 years, and comprised 27 females and 40 males. Participants had experienced a range of care placements. Findings focus on how educational policies and practices alienate LACYP from dominant discourses of educational achievement through assignment of the 'supported' subject position, where children and young people are permitted and even encouraged not to succeed academically due to their complex and disrupted home circumstances. However, such diminished expectations are rejected by LACYP, who want to be pushed and challenged in the realisation of their potential. The paper argues that more differentiated understandings of LACYP's aspirations and capabilities need to be embedded into everyday practices, to ensure that effective educational support systems are developed.