Non-resident fathers becoming full-time carers: A qualitative study of fathers and social workers’ reflections on their motivations, and the challenges and opportunities they encountered across the child protection process in England.

Sobo-Allen, Lee 2022. Non-resident fathers becoming full-time carers: A qualitative study of fathers and social workers’ reflections on their motivations, and the challenges and opportunities they encountered across the child protection process in England. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Research studies in the UK over the past twenty-five years have consistently found a number of challenges and problems in the engagement, and relationship between fathers and social workers in child protection practice. This has resulted in missed opportunities for fathers to be assessed as either a risk or a resource for their children. In considering the latter, this PhD thesis study, through adopting an Appreciative Inquiry lens, contributes to existing knowledge through exploring what factors were present where social workers had successfully considered non-resident fathers as a resource. In particular, situations where the social workers agreed to the father becoming their child’s primary carer, when they had concerns about the care the child was receiving from their mother. Seven social workers and thirteen former non-resident fathers were recruited and interviewed. The fathers who participated in the study had their child living with them on a full-time basis. Adopting a narrative approach to the interviews I documented the fathers’ journeys, exploring their motivations for agreeing to take on this role and their experiences of their involvement with their child’s social workers, whom I also interviewed. The thesis illustrated how given the opportunity, fathers involved in child protection will ‘step up’ and become a resource for their child when the child’s mother is not in a position to do so. The fathers exercised agency and demonstrated a commitment to the assessment and their child. The social workers demonstrated a level of reasoning and discretion in considering the negative aspects of the fathers’ lives, where they understand that the fathers were neither good nor bad, but a combination of both, and demonstrated an ability to offer encouragement and challenge in equal measures. Most importantly, despite a few challenges, the fathers and social workers were able to develop, and sustain a relationship, that led to the fathers been successfully utilised as a resource in child protection practice.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 November 2022
Last Modified:	06 Jan 2024 03:37
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/154254

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