PETER LYONS: Associate Professor, Principal Investigator, Child Welfare Education Program School of Social Work, Georgia State University

Reflections on Child Care through a Cross-cultural Mirror

As this journal moves into its second decade of publication, it is refreshing to see that it not only retains an interest in global developments in child care, but is also working proactively to extend that interest. As a member of the international advisory board of the journal, I am both pleased and excited to see these developments. Having worked in child care (more familiar to North American readers as child welfare) in three different countries, in four different decades, I am intensely aware of the differences in culture, legislation, policy, social circumstances, and consequent service provision that exist in different societies. It is not simply the differences that are worthy of note, however; differences are to be expected. It is the areas we share in common that are often the most illuminating. This learning from each other, and about each other, is a challenge, an opportunity, and a responsibility of all those interested in the welfare of children and their families.

A recent experience reminded me of the tremendous opportunity to learn about one’s own system that is provided by the examination of another. In spring 2004 I had the good fortune to travel with a group of students from Atlanta, Georgia, where I now live, to my original home in the North of England. The group consisted of graduate and undergraduate social work students who either worked in a public child protection agency or would do so upon graduation. In a meeting with colleagues from a local authority social services department one of the US students asked a UK colleague: "Why don’t you have mandated reporting laws for child abuse professionals in the UK?" Another US student who asked instantly refrained the question:
"Why do we have mandated reporting laws in the US?" It is this mirror to our own preconceptions that is most usefully provided by cross-cultural examination. This edition of Child Care in Practice is replete with the type of international, cross-cultural learning opportunity to which I refer.

The first article brings together researchers from the Nangyang Technological University, Singapore and the University of Iowa in the USA. The study on which they report has significant cross-cultural implications. As the authors point out, the World Health Organization recently expressed concern about the worldwide increase in childhood neuropsychiatric disorders. Reporting on the application of a hospital-based cognitive-behavioral intervention with children experiencing severe emotional and behavioral disorders, Yeo, Wong, Gerken, and Ansley provide a clear description of the intervention protocol and the research methodology employed. As is often the case with complex intervention research and a client group experiencing significant co-morbid disorders, the authors reported mixed success. Even so, the study provides a useful contribution to the sparse literature on hospital-based cognitive-behavioral with children suffering severe emotional and behavioral disorders.

In keeping with the international theme, the article by Ong Puay Tee and Jalan Ayer Keroh Lama compares Chinese and Malay operated child care centers in Melaka, Malaysia. An examination of the quality of child care using several different dimensions to operationalize quality, in a country with an increasing trend toward dual-career families, is a theme that resonates internationally. Although located in one state in Malaysia, the authors’ observations derived by comparing and contrasting the two ethnic-based, early child care models illuminate both types and lead to recommendations for service delivery improvement with saliency beyond the borders of Melaka, or indeed Malaysia.

The article by Tom Teggart and Joanne Menary returns to the topic of children’s mental health. Using a cohort design, the authors administered a questionnaire to the carers, and teachers of children and young people in substitute care (foster and residential), as well as to a subgroup of children. Computerized algorithms were then used to predict psychiatric disorders based on triangulated data from these multiple sources. The findings suggest that over 60% of 4—10 year olds and some 50% of 11—16 year olds in the sample may have had a diagnosable psychiatric disorder. The authors’ contention that the juxtaposition of "social circumstances and psychiatric realities" experienced by these children and young people requires a complex array of services is once again a theme that has currency throughout the international child care community.

David Gilliland, Peter Gallagher, and John Growcott pick up this theme in their analysis of mental health service delivery to children and adolescents in Northern Ireland. Specifically, they address the strategic issues that arise in commissioning and delivering child and adolescent mental health services. In outlining a tiered service delivery structure, addressing primary, secondary and tertiary interventions—as well as the multiplicity of professional domains, and thus organizations involved—the authors bring together the findings of numerous reports. Furthermore, their recommendations about the essential elements of such a system touch upon universal child care themes. Coherent organizational structure, integrated planning, cross-training, recruitment and retention strategies, specialist services, and consumer involvement are all familiar issues to professionals in most countries.

Reporting on a multi-state study in the United States, the article by Jeffrey Shears and JoAnn Robinson addresses the impact of fathering attitudes and practices on child development. The authors hypothesized that parental influence was an interactional, rather than a unidirectional, process and tested this using a multiple method approach involving initial assessment, ongoing interviews at intervals, and videotaping parent—child interactions. The investigation revealed that father’s modernity (broadly speaking, encouraging autonomy in their children) was associated with positive mother—child interactions, and child cognitive development.

In other words, higher levels of modernity were associated with better outcomes for children. In common with the other articles in this issue, as much can be learned from the description of services and extant child-rearing practices as from the formal reporting of results.
The article by Tony Newman and Benny McDaniel again addresses common themes—the difficulties of applying research to practice, and the promotion of positive attachment in early childhood. As the authors point out, the most underutilized component of the "research into practice model" is the actual implementation. This, they contend is "labor intensive, easily diverted by more acute priorities, dependent on small numbers of champions and subject to drift and diversion." The description of the approach they adopted provides a useful heuristic framework from which other practitioners can learn. Of particular utility is the article review format presented, which is entirely congruent with the trend towards increasing utilization of evidence-based practice.

This edition of the journal also contains four book reviews: two on aspects of foster care, one on parental support, and one on trauma and attachment. Despite the broad range of topics, the diversity of the authors, and the international scope of the scholarship, each of the contributions to this edition of the journal speaks directly to the experience of child care professionals everywhere.