Browsing by Author "Archer-Kuhn, Beth"

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    Are We Failing FAmILy?: A Situational Analysis of Family Perspectives on Functioning While in Out-of-home Care
    (2022-07-19) Westelmajer, Chloe; St. George, Sally; Wulff, Daniel; Ewashen, Carol; Archer-Kuhn, Beth; Raffin Bouchal, Shelley
    Despite Canada having the highest rate of children living in out-of-home care throughout the world (Brownell & McMurtry, 2015; Gilbert et al., 2012; Thoburn, 2007) there is scant Canadian data or research pertaining to these children and their families. Research has shown that a child’s family functioning level is highly correlated with successful out-of-home mental health care treatment outcomes, discharge, behavioural improvement, and stability (Sunseri, 2004, 2019). Family functioning models and assessments that have not been normed upon Canadian families, or that organise family functioning related to task accomplishment, are being utilised to make life-changing decisions within out-of-home care settings. Harnessing my experiences as a front-line counsellor, family therapist, manager, administrator, and passionate out-of-home care advocate I set about asking the research question “What aspects of functioning as a family unit are most important and most immediate to families with a child in out-of-home mental health care?” in order to create theory that could provide better comprehension of what functioning means for these families. I utilised Adele Clarke’s (Clarke, 2005, 2007, 2009; Clarke et al., 2015, 2018) methodological extension of Situational Analysis, Kathy Charmaz’s (2014) Constructivist Grounded Theory Coding structure, and Nora Bateson’s (2016) concept of “warm” and contextualised data to get as close as possible to the situated knowledge of family functioning with a child in out-of-home care. Following maximum variation theoretical sampling, 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 families and 42 individual family members engaging in out-of-home mental health care. Through my analysis 72 family functioning tasks, or core competencies, practiced by families arose and were categorised within five core areas: coping with disconnected systems, managing stigma and blame, attending to the emotional needs of the whole family, living through and living with mental health issues, and creating togetherness through separation. The resulting theory is that families, as the unacknowledged and silenced front-line workers, have to function with, and within, the many elements that surround the reality of living with a family member in out-of-home mental health care.
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    Blood, Sweat, and Oil: An Ethnographic Examination of Worker Well-being and Culture in Alberta’s Petroleum Industry
    (2022-11-25) Wright, Alysia C.; St. George, Sally; Archer-Kuhn, Beth; McDerrmott, Mairi
    Natural resource extraction is an industry that provides crude oil, minerals, and gas for global consumption. Despite the increasing visibility of the environmental, economic, and political harm attributed to the petroleum industry writ large, each of us, in one form or another, benefits from its products and the labour of the workers invisible beyond the veil of industry. This study aimed to elucidate the human and social costs associated with working in the petroleum industry, specifically related to the relationship between workers’ well-being, the demands and challenges of work, and the culture of the petroleum industry. Using a critical ethnographic methodology, I gathered the stories of 19 oil workers who talked about how the demands and challenges of working in the petroleum industry affected their well-being. I developed three broad thematic statements from these interviews: (a) oilfield culture was a vital aspect of working in the petroleum industry that determined psychosocial enforcement of identity, norms, and expectations among workers, (b) labour superseded well-being to ensure continuity of production, and (c) surviving in a petroeconomy bred singular reliance upon the petroleum industry and necessitated increasingly adaptive and resilient workers. I conclude this dissertation with a discussion about the implications of these findings and recommendations for future research focusing on workers' lived experiences at work and home.
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    Gendered Practices in Child Protection: Shifting Mother Accountability and Father Invisibility in Situations of Domestic Violence
    (Cogitatio Press, 2018-10-04) Archer-Kuhn, Beth; de Villiers, Stefan
    This article reports on an exploratory, qualitative, multiple-methods study that included individual interviews and a focus group with child protection services (CPS) workers in a large city in Alberta, Canada. The findings illuminate current CPS worker practices in situations of domestic violence where inclusion and exclusion decisions are made for service provision, and the ways in which documents reflect these day-to-day practices; how service user descriptions are constructed and reconstructed, the social problem of domestic violence conceptualized, and the ways in which professional development training encourages critical thinking about existing practices to create new solutions for families experiencing domestic violence. Thematic analysis reveals three themes about CPS workers’ experience: 1) current practices reflect invisibility of men and accountability of women; 2) personal and professional shift in perspectives on who to work with, gender expectations, and how CPS are delivered; and 3) reflexive practice into potential intervention strategies and professional development training. The findings suggest specific recommendations for practice including the need to engage men in child welfare practice, shift perspective about service delivery with families experiencing domestic violence, and account for gender norms and practices in service delivery.