Laufer Z
School of Social Work, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Israel.
Child Abuse Negl. 1994 Nov;18(11):913-21. doi: 10.1016/s0145-2134(05)80002-x.
Home Weekends are the main channel of contact between children in placement and their parents. This practice is of special interest because of both the hopes it raises and the risk it entails. The present research examines public welfare agency practice in this domain. Interviews were held with 45 social workers (from 32 agencies) who were responsible for case-managing 74 families with children in residential care (n = 105). Findings clearly indicate that the practice of home weekends is characterized by the following: an absence of professional access to the children and their parent(s) and neglect in assuring the well-being of children; a lack of differential patterns of children's visits or intensity of social worker-parent contact in relation to parents' dysfunctioning; and a lack of implementation of family-oriented intervention. It was also found that, for 50% of the children, the well-being score while at home does not manifest serious distress. This raises the question of whether the conditions obligate placement in a residential setting. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
家庭周末是寄养儿童与其父母之间的主要联系渠道。这种做法因其带来的希望和所涉及的风险而特别引人关注。本研究考察了公共福利机构在这一领域的做法。对45名社会工作者（来自32个机构）进行了访谈，他们负责管理74个有孩子在寄宿照料机构的家庭（n = 105）。研究结果清楚地表明，家庭周末的做法具有以下特点：缺乏专业人员与孩子及其父母接触，忽视确保孩子的福祉；在孩子探访模式或社会工作者与父母接触强度方面，没有根据父母的功能失调情况加以区分；缺乏以家庭为导向的干预措施。研究还发现，对于50%的孩子来说，在家时的幸福得分并未显示出严重困扰。这就引发了一个问题，即这些情况是否必然要求将孩子安置在寄宿环境中。文中讨论了对研究和实践的启示。
