The role of access/contact supervisor and its relationship to social care professionals and their education in Ireland. Access/contact supervision; whose job is it anyway?

Cooney, Eoin (2016) The role of access/contact supervisor and its relationship to social care professionals and their education in Ireland. Access/contact supervision; whose job is it anyway? Bachelors thesis, Dundalk Institute of Technology.

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Abstract

A new role has emerged over the last few decades in relation to families and children which in some cases is being filled by Social Care workers. This is the role of Access/Contact supervisor. Changes in the structures of families which in turn is being driven by changes in family law and societal attitudes are creating a demand for formalised access arrangements. This is particularly true where there is conflict between the children’s parents. Child welfare agencies are trying to strike a balance between the rights of children in care to have contact with their parents and the need to protect these children from potential harm. This is another area where demand for Supervised Access/Contact has grown, indeed it is from the world of child welfare that the role first emerged. The role involves being present while one or more parent who does not reside the child or children visits the child or children. The reasons for having the Access/Contact visit supervised can vary and therefore the role can vary accordingly. The role is somewhat controversial in that there is an ongoing debate as to whether or not it may be damaging to children in some circumstance to even consider allowing abusive parents to have access to their children however well it may be supervised. With disagreement among academics there has been calls for more research into the role and on the effects that parental access has on the children concerned. This project looked at the Role of Access/Contact supervisor in relation to Social Care and the education of Social care workers. This was done through a mixture of methodologies. Semi-structured interviews with social Care workers who were working in the role of Access/Contact supervisors were used to gather qualitative data. These interviews looked at the workers understanding of the role and its relationship with the Social care profession. A survey of Social Care students was also used to gather quantitative data on how education dealt with the topic. What was discovered by this project is that the Irish workers interviewed had a very clear understanding of their own role. The role is very much a social care one, however, there were differences in how the role was carried out in different organisations and some of the differences were quite significant. The workers in question were well equipped in general terms of skills and theories by their education, however, role specific training within social care education was not greatly in evidence.

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelors)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Social care workers; Child welfare; Families; Access.
Subjects:	Social Sciences Social Sciences > Sociology
Research Centres:	UNSPECIFIED
Depositing User:	Sean McGreal
Date Deposited:	08 Jun 2016 10:55
Last Modified:	08 Jun 2016 10:55
License:	Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0
URI:	https://eprints.dkit.ie/id/eprint/500

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