International Journal Advances in Social Science and Humanities
Available online at: www.ijassh.com
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Interpretation of Corporate Parenting in Hungary
Andrea Rácz*
University of Debrecen, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Hungary. *Corresponding Author: [email protected]
Abstract
In postmodern societies, the earlier notions of socialization, child development, cannot describe childhood. The adult-child relationship has also changed; the lines separating the different life stages have been blurred. The challenges of information society, globalization reorganizes the way of how families spend quality time with their
children, thus the influence of parents on their children’s development and their responsibility are diminished.
These social challenges have had an impact on social work and child protection as well, because helping professions are also set in the afore mentioned postmodern conditions. The aim of the Is the State a Good Parent?” research is to
examine the principles guiding practical work, and the professional concepts in the Hungarian practice, in relation to corporate parenting and taking responsibility in general. In the article we will rely on the qualitative results of the research to examine the development needs of the Hungarian child protection services in order to ensure long-term professional functioning. We will look at experts’ opinion on the profession and the mentality in child
protection.
Keywords: Hungarian child protection, Child protection in postmodernism, Corporate parenting.
Introduction
Child Protection in Postmodernism
The birth of information society in the mid-1970s led to the disappearance of modern ideas and the appearance of post-modern ideas. According to Bauman [1], the most significant, what is more, the most constitutive feature of modern society is trust: trust we have in ourselves, in others and in institutions. All of these three components of trust are essential, and if one of them is lost, the two others will be weakened and eventually they will collapse. This uncertainty is the very cornerstone of postmodern society. According to Beck [2; 3], traditional institutions have failed, and this has lead to the blurring of the social roles of the individual. In a risk society, risk grows not only in the lower economical and social spheres. As Giddens [4] puts it, a life path today is composed of autonomous projects that do not necessarily constitute a coherent whole. Risk societies are characterized by the fact that everyone is responsible for their own life, the risks linked to health, ageing, unemployment, poverty are individualized. In the postmodern era, there is no universal knowledge, truth, and predictability and order are replaced by the complexity and fragmentation of phenomena. Local solutions,
differences, individual choices play the most important role. [1, 5, 6, 7]
Childhood is different as well. In postmodern societies, the earlier notions of socialization, child development, cannot describe childhood. The adult-child relationship has also changed; the lines separating the different life stages have been blurred. [8, 9, 10] In Winn’s book Childhood
without childhood [11] she writes that children
are not living a life characteristic of children; they resemble “adults” in their clothing, activities and knowledge. The challenges of information society, globalization reorganizes the way of how families spend quality time with their children, thus the influence of parents on their children’s development and their responsibility are diminished.
highlights it, is a multidimensional and complex phenomenon. He draws the attention to the fact that social policy research usually looks at the State as a homogenous object, which has its own rationality, motivations and interests. In the context of this normative approach, welfare state is positioned as a “thing” that thinks and reacts, as opposed to postmodern narratives that emphasize the different contradictory practices, which have a major influence on its multi-faceted components and shape them. The position of the State as the primary embodiment of power is also insignificant in post structural and postmodern approaches. Foucault mentions a so-called governmentality (“gouvernementalité”), which shapes the practices directed towards governing others and ourselves, from the State organizational level to the individual life style level. [12; 13], The State takes the shape of a segment of the larger field of power relations, including e.g. the circles of experts, organizations, institutions, and clients. According to Foucault [14], if the individual (in our case, the individuals living in the context of child protection) are treated as subjects, power becomes positive, that is, the client’s position in the institutional structure is not subordinate, and experts give them a chance to develop their individual competencies. (Specific term used in social work: empowering.) Thus, power is competent when the protection and support of children and young adults in care are ensured, and when the provided services match the individual needs, when the professional toolkit and methodology are adequate, and when taking responsibility for it is ensured both on the individual and systemic levels.
Results and Discussion
Research Framework
It was the idea of this productive power in the field of professional care in child protection and in a larger sense, the different ways of treating children, that has inspired the present research,
Is the State a Good Parent?” is based on
quantitative and qualitative methods.) The aim of this research is to examine the principles guiding practical work, and the professional concepts in the Hungarian practice, in relation to corporate parenting and taking responsibility in general. The State can be considered a good parent, thus corporate parenting functions well if it is able to take responsibility for the looked after children, if it is able to meet their individual needs, and if it strives to make the looked after children achieve the same good results in school and in other fields in life as any other responsible parent would wish for their own children. With regards to young
adults, being a good parent means preparing them for individual, independent life by ensuring the right level of education and integration in the labour market. It is a primary expectation towards foster parents as well to be good parents, as members of the public child protection system who provide a home. [15; 16; 17]
In the following, we will rely on the qualitative results of the research to examine the development needs of the Hungarian child protection services in order to ensure long-term professional functioning. We will look at experts’ opinion on the profession and the mentality in child protection. In the present stage of the research, 3 focus-group interviews and 4 individual expert interviews have been conducted.
Current Challenges in the Hungarian Child Protection System
Maslow’s theory on personality and needs (1987) is largely known and applied. In the field of child protection (in both its larger and narrower senses), it is obvious that when dealing with children, adult society and helper institutions and the different services have to satisfy all of the seven needs-physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, cognitive, esthetical and self-actualization- to protect children’s rights.
According to Maslow’s theory, the needs at lower levels have to be satisfied first, as a condition to the satisfaction of higher level needs. The level of a child’s need is determined by the degree to which the family can deter eventual dangers in the child’s environment, and what aid is available for that purpose from the State’s side. [18] Bradshaw distinguishes 4 types of needs: 1) normative needs (needs determined by a norm), 2) comparative needs (analysis of how different groups satisfy their needs), 3) subjective needs (how the individual feels, that is, the sensation of being in need) and 4) explicit needs (needs that are expressed). [19] The need as per Bradshaw is multidimensional, of a social nature, relative and based on a value judgement, and it distinguishes between the needs perceived by the individual and those defined by the experts. [19] From a child protection point of view, this means that there have to be needs to be defined and satisfied according to standards, however, the subjective and explicit needs of the primary and secondary target groups must not be overlooked. The voicing of the latter needs also promotes the use of the principles of participation and partnership in practice.
provide adequately differentiated answers to the complexity of looked after children’s needs. For example, let us take the difficult situation caused by the fact that disabled children are largely over represented among the looked after children. Another major challenge is that in the last few years, the number of young adults staying in the care system has risen markedly. We would like to note in particular that the number of children with special needs is very high, and the problems of children belonging to that group are extremely complex, even after setting up a typology. The profession only has a rather approximate structure to deal with this feature, which necessarily leads to the situation where a large number of services at the disposition of the looked after is not adequate. [20] As far as children with ordinary needs are concerned, their status can less and less be separated from that of the special and extraordinary statuses. “We have more and more children with special needs. According to the legal definition, special need is a very simple thing (…) One is (…) the field of psychological difficulties. Unfortunately this is too large a definition, anything can fit in that from simple depression to very serious psychiatric illnesses. (…) There are children suffering from depression and anxiety (…), and this is a serious illness, but not nearly as serious as when we know that a child
will be considered schizophrenic – maybe not
explicitly, but still – after they come of age.” The most important problem is that when a child enters the system, it is not their needs that are decisive, but the available place. That is, financial concerns overwrite the professional point of view.
In the system of adult social support as well, we notice a lack of places and a non-adequate degree and differentiation in the content of professional services linked to those places as compared to the needs. [21, 13] Furthermore, when several sisters and brothers have to be placed in foster care, it goes almost without saying that the care that would meet their needs or their joint placement is impossible. We would also like to note that few are the foster parents who would take on a child with a special need for further services and regular treatments.
As far as foster care is concerned, many professionals say that in this type of care, the access to differentiated professional care is significantly more difficult, which causes serious problems. This aspect should be handled with special attention when considering the development of the system, since despite the beneficial effects of easily forgeable personal ties and the good influence of family context on
personal development, the absence of adequate professional help can cause just as serious issues.
“Professionals working in child protection
specialist care and teachers both complain that the children are not well. Mentally, physically, etc (…) Children who live in a care home are at least helped by professionals to catch up with the others, to deal with their difficulties and restore their mental health somehow. In foster families, there is no such possibility. The only possibility foster parents have is to turn to the local competent educational service or health care service provider, and if we consider that foster parents mostly live in disadvantaged localities, well, there are quite a
few gaps in the coverage of those services.” With
regards to the promotion of foster care from 2014, most of the interviewees considered it a real risk that in developments, quantity would be emphasized instead of quality.
Foster parents usually have low qualifications and hold low social statuses. [13] It is also important to highlight that many of the real parents are hostile towards foster care. One of the reasons for that is the lack of adequate information, or the presence of preconceptions based on false information, the other is the not completely unjustified fear that, as opposed to institutional care, there is a much larger chance that foster care may significantly weaken the emotional ties of the child with their biological family. “There is jealousy, emotional rivalry. If my child is put in a group home with five adults taking turns in it, who do this as a job, that is not a family in which my children arrive from their own, and that foster mother will step into my place, that foster father will step into my place, and I will hear my child call her mother instead of
me.”
Conclusion
What are the conditions of good corporate parenting? According to Hart and Williams [22], when talking about corporate parenting that works well, it is inevitable to clarify whether the adequate structures and systems are in place in order to make sure that the State or the organisations and persons acting on its behalf can accomplish their professional tasks efficiently, and we suppose that these tasks are clear and well defined. Within the framework of our research, we asked what would be the criteria and conditions that could make the State a good parent.
Ensuring Trainings and Advanced Trainings for
Experts: We think that the basic training of
new knowledge are important, and international examples should be known, Hungarian and international studies, best practices should be shared, and these programs should be free of charge. Currently there is no program that would focus on the training of professionals for the field of child protection. Since social workers lack the pedagogical training and teachers lack the social training, they are not prepared with the adequate knowledge they would need in the field of child protection. There is a need to raise awareness continuously via these elements.
Decisions Should be Based on Professional
Knowledge Instead of Fiscal Concerns: When
professionals think of the development programs in the child protection system, they do not think it is right to let financial aspects guide decisions instead of professional ones. Financial resources are not sufficient for the purposes anyway. A more active involvement of experts in the decision making process has also been mentioned, e.g. the opinion of professionals could count more at law amendments. For developing the system, decisions based on wide consensus would be needed, and it is precisely the constructive partnership that is missing. The persons working on different levels of the system, and in certain cases even the children are generally not involved in preparing the developments. The need that professionals should appear before the decision makers of child protection as professionals, instead of auxiliary or executing personnel has been raised. It should be clear that the larger sense of child protection covers organized interventions, the institutional structure and the community of the persons working within its framework, an education and care methodology matching the postmodern challenges, which helps satisfying children’s needs within the family or outside of it (the normative, subjective and explicit needs as described by Bradshaw), and contribute to the full protection of children’s rights.
Raising Social Prestige: The prestige of child
protection is low, professionals are underpaid, and we cannot expect them to be motivated. The other members of society lack clear knowledge of the work accomplished by child protection professionals. On one hand, it is difficult to provide a credible image of it because of its
complexity, on the other hand, due to stereotypical thinking patterns; society regards those dealing with “deviants” as “deviants” themselves. [23] Concerning social work, Banks [6] explains after Johnson that social help is “the profession conveyed by the State”, which is based on contradictions and ambivalences. It expresses the unselfishness of society via the provision of care and services, and the expectation of enforcing social norms via its control functions. Social workers suffer from exclusion and repression (because they take care of people who do not deserve to be helped), and they are seen as exploitative and tyrannical (because they have too much power as opposed to individuals and families).
Standardization and the need of Quality
Assurance: The interviewed professionals
unanimously agreed that in most cases, institutional care or foster care would mean better conditions, safer childhood for the looked after children than leaving them with their families. However, if we look at the output indicators, the efficiency of the system (taking into account school results and social integration of care leavers) lags far behind the level that would be justified by the financial and human resources deployed for its functioning. For example, further education indicators are not any better in the group of looked after children than if they had stayed in their disadvantaged families, and according to estimates, 40% of care leavers become homeless, criminals or prostitutes. [13] As a conclusion of the above, we think that the use of professional standards, effectiveness checks, monitoring systems – a field completely missing from the Hungarian child protection system – should be of major significance in the future developments of child protection. This could provide safety and predictability to the clients, as well as to the service providers.
Acknowledgement
The research realized with the financing of the Sociology and Social Policy Studies Department of the University of Debrecen, Hungary between 1 June 2013 and 30 June 2014. (registry number: RH/885/2013)
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