The development of a child-supervised visitation training programme for South African social workers

Abstract

Currently no accredited training programme exists for social workers working in the field of child-supervised visitation in South-Africa. Professionals, especially social workers, are urgently seeking for a training programme that delivers training in the field of child supervised visitation. Section A refers to the problem statement, research objectives, research procedures and research methodology. The keywords as well as the limitations of the research are discussed. The research was conducted in phases. Objective 1 consist of phase 1 and 2. The knowledge gained from phase 1, the literature reviews as well as the survey monkey in phase 2, was utilized in the designing and developing of the training programme in child-supervised visitation. Objective 2 consist of phase 3. During phase 3, the programme was designed. This phase was conducted by the researchers and did not involve human participants. Objective 3 consist of phase 4. During phase 4, the draft programme was presented to a sample of social workers to determine if the programme improved both knowledge and attitude of social workers in the practice of child- supervised visitation. This phase enabled the researchers to refine the final version of the child-visitation programme. The problem statement in Section A is based on the following: In South Africa no postgraduate qualification or accredited training programmes currently exists in training social workers working in the field of child-supervised visitation. Currently any social worker or person can conduct child-supervised visitation. Child-supervised visitation is a specialist field in the social work profession and not all social workers are qualified to work in the field of child-supervised visitation. The field of child-supervised visitation is a new field of social work and in process of development There appears to be increased emphasis on skilled visitation supervisors performing visitation duties rather than non-skilled well-meaning family or community members being used. It appears from literature that this area of protection of children warrants advancement and formalization in practice. There is no conclusive evidence that supervised visitation is formally practiced in South Africa, with no publication effort in social work going towards this potential field of practice. There is potential for supervised visitation becoming a function of social work practice, and, due to its focus on serving the court as client, a role performed by forensic social workers. The protection from potential harm to children during child-supervised visitation further motivates research attention in this field of practice, specifically to open and make this a formal additional practice area for forensic social workers. The development of a child-supervised visitation programme for social workers may formalize, define and describe the roles of visitation supervision as a preventative intervention for secondary trauma to children. The research problem of this study concerns the lack of any existing child-supervised visitation training programmes for social workers in the South African context. Furthermore, due to the area of child-supervised being a new field of practice within the social work field, there is a general literary void that requires development. To fill this pertinent gap in practice and literary contribution, this study is aimed at developing a training programme in child-supervised visitation for South-African social workers. A need has been identified for a training programme for social workers in the field of child-supervised visitation to receive in-service training. This problem statement resulted in the following research goal of the study as well as the three research objectives indicated below: Goal: The development of a child-supervised visitation training program for South African social workers Objectives To identify which content, according to international and South-African literature as well as feedback from South African social workers that work in the field of child-supervised visitation, need to be included in a child-supervised visitation training programme. For this objective, a survey monkey amongst social workers working with divorce cases and visitation issues of children will be use as well as the literature review (Article 1). To refine and confirm a child-supervised visitation programme. The researcher will compile a training programme and a panel of experts will review the content and make recommendations (Article 2). To determine if the presentation of a child-supervised visitation programme will increase both knowledge and attitude of social work participants in the practice of child-supervised visitation. This objective will be executed by the presentation of the newly developed supervised visitation programme by means of a quasi-experimental, one-group pre- and post-test, with a comparison group design, signifying the new programme's first trial implementation (Article 3). The research was subdivided into phases. Specifically, the study can be described as a sequential study because the different research activities occurred one after the other and the findings of one study was integrated into the next study. At a meta-level, the design underlying this research was the Intervention Design and development paradigm (ID&D) or Intervention research paradigm. Qualitative data were mainly utilised. The literature studies focused on the specialised knowledge social workers in the field of child-supervised visitation need to possess. Section B consists of the three articles in which the research goals and research outcomes are reported. Each article is dealt with as a self-contained unit focusing on specific research objectives achieved via specific research methods. These methods were employed to collect the necessary data for developing the child-supervised visitation training programme. Article 1 The objective of this article was to identify which content, according to international and South-African literature as well as feedback from South African social workers that work in the field of child-supervised visitation, need to be included in a child-supervised visitation training programme. For this objective, a survey monkey amongst social workers working with divorce cases and visitation issues of children, as well as the literature review were used. An investigation into the existing literature as well as the feedback from the South African social workers working in the field of child-supervised visitation, pointed out that social workers working in the forensic field must possess specialised training and specific knowledge. This specialised training must include - Definition of child-supervised visitation - Purpose of providing child-supervised visitation - Types of child-supervised visitation - Child-supervised visitation intake procedure and guidelines - Risk assessment for child-supervised visitation - Access to records, record-keeping, documentation and report-writing - Child-supervised visitation involving severe parental and/or child mental illness or disability - Child-supervised visitation involving domestic violence - Child-supervised visitation involving child abuse and neglect, including sexual abuse - Child-supervised visitation involving substance - Child-supervised visitation involving high-conflict divorce - Child-supervised visitation in criminal cases - Basic stages of child development - Cultural diversity in child-supervised visitation - Critical incidents during child-supervised visitation - The final child-supervised "goodbye" visit when a parent's parental rights have been terminated. The goal of the article was to use the needs analysis for direction for establishing the content of the child-visitation training programme for social workers. Article 2 The objective of this article was to refine and confirm a child-supervised visitation programme. Based on the expert review of the draft programme in child-supervised visitation for South African social workers, the researcher made the following conclusions: The following content is essential for a child-supervised visitation programme: - Definitions of child-supervised visitation - Description of child-supervised visitation superior - Types of child-supervised visitation - Purpose of providing child-supervised visitation - Child development and how it influences child-supervised visitation - Child-supervised visitation in the context of sexual abuse - Child-supervised visitation in the context of parental/child mental illness - Child-supervised visitation in the context of domestic violence - Child-supervised visitation in the context of substance abuse - Child-supervised visitation in criminal cases - Child-supervised visitation involving parental alienation - Cultural diversity in child-supervised visitation - The final child-supervised "goodbye" visit when a parent's parental rights have been terminated - Critical incidents at a child-supervised visitation - Indemnity insurance for social workers - Self-care - Ethics of child-supervised visitation and social work. Child-supervised visitation is a growing need in South Africa and the need for a child-supervised visitation programme is long overdue. Many children are exposed to the adverse effects of child-supervised visitation due to a lack of professional training. Article 3 The research goal of this article was to determine if the presentation of a child-supervised visitation programme increased both knowledge and attitude of social work participants in the practice of child-supervised visitation. This objective was executed by the presentation of the newly developed supervised visitation programme by means of a quasi-experimental, one-group pre- and post-test, with a comparison group design, signifying the new programme's first trial implementation. The participants involved in this trial implementation was South African social workers working in the field of child-supervised visitation. The participants were selected by means of criterion sampling. The results of this research indicated that the content of this developed training programme will sufficiently equip social workers with the required knowledge, and positive attitude to carry out child-supervised visitation. The contents of the training programme correlates with that literature recommends and meets the needs of experts in the field currently carrying out child supervised visitation. Section C is a summary of the findings, and conclusions of the research report are drawn and some recommendations are made. Section D consists of various addenda. Section E contains an integrated bibliography.