The scientific literature recognizes family leisure as a key parental competence. It promotes well-being and quality of life, reasons that justify why it has been considered an element of positive parenting, a protective... [ view full abstract ]
The scientific literature recognizes family leisure as a key parental competence. It promotes well-being and quality of life, reasons that justify why it has been considered an element of positive parenting, a protective factor and one of the main characteristic of resilient families. In that sense, family leisure experiences could be especially beneficial for families involved in the Child Welfare System, due to the fact that it strengths resilience processes and it promotes positive familial dynamics.
This communication aims to show the results obtained about the benefits that family leisure could provide to the families involved in the Child Welfare System and the challenges to incorporate these experiences in the context of the visits.
A qualitative research was conducted through an analysis of secondary data. The secondary data come from interviews and focus groups based on the voices of families and professionals related to the Child Welfare System. The total number of the participants was 135 people from different regions of Spain, composed by: a) 63 professionals from different fields of knowledge (social work, education, psychology,…) with experience working on the Child Welfare System, b) 42 mothers and fathers whose children were in foster care with a plan of reunification or were actually reunified, c) 30 kids and adolescents who were the daughters and sons of the parents mentioned before (of them, 11 were reunified with their parents and 9 were in the Child Welfare System at the moment of the data gathering).
In order to analyze the data from the focus groups and interviews, firstly it was designed a category system which was re-designed through the bottom-up technique. After that, a content analysis was carried out to deeply analyze this information according to the qualitative method.
The obtained results describe multiple benefits for the families who share leisure moments in their time of visitation. Two different types of benefits were identified: a) general benefits that all the families can join just by the fact of practicing family leisure activities, b) special benefits which families related to the Child Welfare System can experience because of their specific situation. In the first one group of benefits, there are included benefits as providing fun and wellbeing to all the members of the family, strengthening family bonding and improving family cohesion and positive interactions. The second group of benefits, which are exclusive of families whose children are in foster care, includes advantages related to the improvement of the quality of the visits, satisfaction with the visits and motivation to continue with the process of reunification, among other benefits.
About the challenges of including family leisure experiences during the visits, the results point out that it is necessary a socio-educative intervention on family leisure, due to the low ability of some of these parents to play with their children or running out some leisure activity, especially with their adolescents sons/daughters. Moreover, the characteristics of visits (restricted time, artificial context, supervision, etc.) hinder the natural relationship between the members of the families and obstruct some type of leisure experiences which requires more time, space or resources. Other challenges are related to the institutional available resources and professional’s conceptions about leisure, among others.
As conclusion, family leisure experiences could be a useful strategy to empower families related to the Child Welfare System and promote their quality of life, through an intervention based on a positive parenting approach, not just a preventing abuse approach. However, besides the multiple benefits that family leisure provides to these type of families, there are some weighty challenges necessary to face on in order to include shared leisure experiences into the visits.
Participation of children and families in child welfare interventions , Other topics
