Are We Failing FAmILy?: A Situational Analysis of Family Perspectives on Functioning While in Out-of-home Care
| dc.contributor.advisor | St. George, Sally | |
| dc.contributor.advisor | Wulff, Daniel | |
| dc.contributor.author | Westelmajer, Chloe | |
| dc.contributor.committeemember | Ewashen, Carol | |
| dc.contributor.committeemember | Archer-Kuhn, Beth | |
| dc.contributor.committeemember | Raffin Bouchal, Shelley | |
| dc.date | 2022-11 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-07-26T18:19:31Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-07-26T18:19:31Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2022-07-19 | |
| dc.description.abstract | 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. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | Westelmajer, C. (2022). Are We Failing FAmILy?:A Situational Analysis of Family Perspectives on Functioning While in Out-of-home Care (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1880/114884 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/39943 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | en_US |
| dc.publisher.faculty | Social Work | en_US |
| dc.publisher.institution | University of Calgary | en |
| dc.rights | University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. | en_US |
| dc.subject | family functioning | en_US |
| dc.subject | out-of-home care | en_US |
| dc.subject | residential care | en_US |
| dc.subject | task accomplishment | en_US |
| dc.subject | core competencies | en_US |
| dc.subject | functioning-with | en_US |
| dc.subject | functioning-within | en_US |
| dc.subject.classification | Social Work | en_US |
| dc.subject.classification | Individual and Family Studies | en_US |
| dc.subject.classification | Public and Social Welfare | en_US |
| dc.subject.classification | Mental Health | en_US |
| dc.subject.classification | Public Health | en_US |
| dc.subject.classification | Psychology--Social | en_US |
| dc.title | Are We Failing FAmILy?: A Situational Analysis of Family Perspectives on Functioning While in Out-of-home Care | en_US |
| dc.type | doctoral thesis | en_US |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Social Work | en_US |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Calgary | en_US |
| thesis.degree.name | Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) | en_US |
| ucalgary.item.requestcopy | true | en_US |