Factors associated with reunification and placement move for children placed in kinship care under the age of thirteen.

BACKGROUND: When a child needs to be placed in substitute care by child protection services, social workers are encouraged to use kinship care (KC), mainly because of the greater stability associated with it. However, current state of knowledge on reunification and placement stability is essentially based on studies that combined children in KC and children in other types of substitute care setting. OBJECTIVES: This paper aims to describe longitudinally the placement trajectory of children placed in KC and to identify the factors associated with the type of exit from KC (move to another substitute care setting or reunification). METHOD: All children in a Québec child protection services agency who started a KC placement in 2014-15 under the age of 13 are observed for three years (N = 172). Data come from the child's casefile and from telephone questionnaires with the caseworker at the beginning and at the end of placement (or at the end of observation if the child has not exited). RESULTS: Several children remained in the same KC setting during the observation (39%). The others were reunified (34%) or moved to another substitute setting (27%). Multivariate regression analyzes indicated that reunification was mostly determined by higher frequency of parent-child contacts, less registrations in clinical programs and absence of parental mental health problems, while placement move was mostly associated with placement beginning as provisional measure, higher frequency of parent-child contacts and presence of parental mental health problems. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights determinants of stability and permanency that may be specific to kinship placements.

How collective interactions and institutional logics influence permanency planning in child protection in Quebec.

BACKGROUND: In the Canadian province of Quebec, placing children in foster care is an exceptional measure whose ultimate goal is family reunification. When child-protection workers decide that reunification is unlikely, they must design permanency plans that ensure continuity of care and stable relationships for the child. Most studies of this important decision-making process have focused on individual practitioners as if they acted alone. This process is collective, interactive, and influenced by various contextual elements. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this exploratory study was to examine the collective, interactive aspects of the decision-making process involved in permanency planning. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The participants were key players involved in child-protection decisions at an Integrated University Health and Social Services Centre (CIUSSS). METHODS: The theoretical approach of this study combines Giddens's structuration theory with ethnomethodology. Data were collected through interviews with 16 key players and nine months of observing advisory-committee meetings. RESULTS: In making permanent placement decisions, the participants must engage in extensive interactions with one another. They must also apply various institutional (clinical, legal, and managerial) logics with differing goals and differing operational frameworks, the tensions among which make the process more complex and challenging. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight the complexity of making permanent placement decisions and the importance of interaction and collaboration in this process. These findings suggest that management of this process should focus not on holding practitioners accountable and penalizing them for mistakes, but rather on providing adequate conditions for practice to facilitate thoughtful collective deliberation and learning and ethical decision-making.

Practitioners' views on the effects of the "For caring supervised visitation in child welfare" training.

BACKGROUND: In youth protection, the supervision of visits between children and their parent(s) with whom they no longer live is a complex clinical practice. The "For Caring Supervised Visitation in Child Welfare" training was designed to equip workers on the subject. The training was developed in Quebec (Canada), based on a co-construction approach (clinical and scientific) of knowledge and a rigorous pedagogical engineering methodology. OBJECTIVES: This article presents the results of a research study that sought to explore the perceived impact of the training, from the worker's perspective. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTINGS: Semi-directed interviews were conducted with 20 workers who had completed the training. METHOD: A thematic analysis of the full content of the interviews was carried out (Braun & Clarke, 2006). RESULTS: This project has produced initial exploratory findings that the training has made it possible to develop a more rigorous analysis of the need for supervision, better planning of visits, greater uniformity of practices among workers and adoption of practices that promote parental engagement. According to workers, these effects of the training are influenced by factors such as time devoted solely to training in the schedule, a workload adapted to the practice to be put in place and sufficient support from managers and organization. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that training improves practices in the context of supervised visits. To maximize these benefits, it is suggested that workers benefit from ongoing clinical support and adequate practice conditions.

Foster family assessment: The assessor's perspective - A qualitative study.

Children in foster care are more likely to exhibit emotional, behavioral, social, and developmental problems. Accordingly, foster families should provide them with a safe family environment that promotes their development. Therefore, to ensure that foster families adequately meet children's needs, it is crucial for youth protection services to properly assess prospective foster family applicants. However, the specific assessment methods are understudied. This study aims to capture the experiences of caseworkers and the challenges they face in assessing and selecting potential foster caregivers, as well as their needs for support to perform the assessments. Focus groups were held in child protection services agencies in the province of Québec (Canada). Three group interviews with a total of 15 caseworkers were transcribed and subjected to content analysis using NVivo 11. The caseworkers identified nine most important dimensions for assessing prospective foster families, notably motivation and engagement. Differences in the assessment process between caseworkers were observed, particularly for the type of foster family assessed. The caseworkers reported certain common needs for assessment training, primarily in interview techniques and the handling of multicultural issues. They also complained of lack of time allocated for clinical support during assessments. The results call for collaborative efforts between researchers and practitioners to provide appropriate training and tools to support the assessment process.

Placement Stability, Cumulative Time in Care, and Permanency: Using Administrative Data from CPS to Track Placement Trajectories.

Objectives: The Quebec Youth Protection Act was amended in 2007. The main goal of this reform was to improve placement stability for children who are removed from their home for their protection. Among several legal provisions introduced was the establishment of maximum age-specific durations of out-of-home care, after which a plan must be established to provide stability for children placed in substitute care by finding permanent homes for them. The purpose of this study is (1) to examine trends in placement use and placement stability since the reform and (2) to document the current frequency of each type of placement setting, the cumulative time in care before the exit to permanency, and the sustainability of the permanency outcome. Methods: The study relies on 3 entry cohorts of all children investigated who received protection measures in the province of Quebec during 3 specific time frames before and after the reform (n = 9620, 8676, 8425). Cohorts were observed for a period varying from 3 to 4 years. Administrative data from all 16 child protection agencies were used to track placement trajectory indicators and to compare cohorts. Results: There has been a decrease in the proportion of children receiving protection measures who were placed in care since the reform, and placement in kinship care has become more frequent among children placed. Placement stability improved slightly after the reform. Overall, for infants, the most frequent type of permanency attained is adoption, while reunification is the option most often indicated for older children. Some children are at a greater risk of experiencing unstable placement trajectories: young children have a high rate of reunification breakdown, some wait a long time to be adopted, and adolescents are frequently removed from the substitute care setting where they were supposed to stay until the age of 18. Conclusions: The results suggest interesting avenues for policy makers and service providers to improve the stability of placement trajectories. Advantages and disadvantages of administrative data are discussed.

Impact of Inuit customary adoption on behavioral problems in school-age Inuit children.

A large proportion of Inuit children in Arctic Quebec are adopted in accordance with traditional Inuit customs. In contrast to adoptions in Southern Canada and the United States, the child is adopted at birth and by a close family member; he or she knows who his or her biological parents are, and will typically have contact with them. Studies of other populations have reported an increased incidence of behavior problems in adopted compared with nonadopted children. This study examined the actual extent of the increase in the number of behavior problems seen in Inuit children adopted in accordance with traditional customs. In a prospective longitudinal study conducted in the Canadian Arctic (n = 46 adopted and 231 nonadopted children), prenatal and familial variables were documented at birth and at school age (M = 11.3 years). Behavior problems were assessed on the Teacher Report Form of the Child Behavior Checklist. Adopted children lived in more economically disadvantaged families, but their caregivers were less prone to depression, domestic violence, or alcohol abuse compared with those of the nonadopted children. The adoption status was not related to the teacher's report of attention problems, externalizing or internalizing behaviors, after controlling for confounders. Despite less favorable socioeconomic circumstances, a higher extent of behavioral problems was not seen at school age in Inuit children adopted at birth by a family member. Psychosocial stressors associated with adoption are more likely to be responsible for an association with higher levels of childhood behavior problems rather than adoption per se.

Root microbiome relates to plant host evolution in maize and other Poaceae.

Prokaryote-eukaryote interactions are primordial, but host selection of its bacterial community remains poorly understood. Because eukaryote evolution affects numerous traits shaping the ecology of their microbiome, we can expect that many evolutionary changes in the former will have the potential to impact on the composition of the latter. Consequently, the more phylogenetically distant the eukaryotic hosts, the more distinct their associated bacterial communities should be. We tested this with plants, by comparing the bacterial communities associated with maize genotypes or other Poaceae. 16S rRNA taxonomic microarray analysis showed that the genetic distance between rhizobacterial communities correlated significantly with the phylogenetic distance (derived from chloroplastic sequences) between Poaceae genotypes. This correlation was also significant when considering specific bacterial populations from all main bacterial divisions, instead of the whole rhizobacterial community. These results indicate that eukaryotic host's evolutionary history can be a significant factor shaping directly the assembly and composition of its associated bacterial compartment.

The role of the antimicrobial compound 2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol in the impact of biocontrol Pseudomonas fluorescens F113 on Azospirillum brasilense phytostimulators.

Pseudomonads producing the antimicrobial metabolite 2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol (Phl) can control soil-borne phytopathogens, but their impact on other plant-beneficial bacteria remains poorly documented. Here, the effects of synthetic Phl and Phl(+) Pseudomonas fluorescens F113 on Azospirillum brasilense phytostimulators were investigated. Most A. brasilense strains were moderately sensitive to Phl. In vitro, Phl induced accumulation of carotenoids and poly-ß-hydroxybutyrate-like granules, cytoplasmic membrane damage and growth inhibition in A. brasilense Cd. Experiments with P. fluorescens F113 and a Phl(-) mutant indicated that Phl production ability contributed to in vitro growth inhibition of A. brasilense Cd and Sp245. Under gnotobiotic conditions, each of the three strains, P. fluorescens F113 and A. brasilense Cd and Sp245, stimulated wheat growth. Co-inoculation of A. brasilense Sp245 and Pseudomonas resulted in the same level of phytostimulation as in single inoculations, whereas it abolished phytostimulation when A. brasilense Cd was used. Pseudomonas Phl production ability resulted in lower Azospirillum cell numbers per root system (based on colony counts) and restricted microscale root colonization of neighbouring Azospirillum cells (based on confocal microscopy), regardless of the A. brasilense strain used. Therefore, this work establishes that Phl(+) pseudomonads have the potential to interfere with A. brasilense phytostimulators on roots and with their plant growth promotion capacity.

Preschool-aged children have difficulty constructing and interpreting simple utterances composed of graphic symbols.

Children who require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems while they are in the process of acquiring language face unique challenges because they use graphic symbols for communication. In contrast to the situation of typically developing children, they use different modalities for comprehension (auditory) and expression (visual). This study explored the ability of three- and four-year-old children without disabilities to perform tasks involving sequences of graphic symbols. Thirty participants were asked to transpose spoken simple sentences into graphic symbols by selecting individual symbols corresponding to the spoken words, and to interpret graphic symbol utterances by selecting one of four photographs corresponding to a sequence of three graphic symbols. The results showed that these were not simple tasks for the participants, and few of them performed in the expected manner - only one in transposition, and only one-third of participants in interpretation. Individual response strategies in some cases lead to contrasting response patterns. Children at this age level have not yet developed the skills required to deal with graphic symbols even though they have mastered the corresponding spoken language structures.

Persistence of culturable Escherichia coli fecal contaminants in dairy alpine grassland soils.

Our knowledge of Escherichia coli (E. coli) ecology in the field is very limited in the case of dairy alpine grassland soils. Here, our objective was to monitor field survival of E. coli in cow pats and underlying soils in four different alpine pasture units, and to determine whether the soil could constitute an environmental reservoir. E. coli was enumerated by MPN using a selective medium. E. coli survived well in cow pats (10(7) to 10(8) cells g(-1) dry pat), but cow pats disappeared within about 2 mo. In each pasture unit, constant levels of E. coli (10(3) to 10(4) cells g(-1) dry soil) were recovered from all topsoil (0-5 cm) samples regardless of the sampling date, that is, under the snow cover, immediately after snow melting, or during the pasture season (during and after the decomposition of pats). In deeper soil layers below the root zone (5-25 cm), E. coli persistence varied according to soil type, with higher numbers recovered in poorly-drained soils (10(3) to 10(4) cells g(-1) dry soil) than in well-drained soils (< 10(2) cells g(-1) dry soil). A preliminary analysis of 38 partial uidA sequences of E. coli from pat and soils highlighted a cluster containing sequences only found in this work. Overall, this study raises the possibility that fecal E. coli could have formed a naturalized (sub)population, which is now part of the indigenous soil community of alpine pasture grasslands, the soil thus representing an environmental reservoir of E. coli.

Physical organization and phylogenetic analysis of acdR as leucine-responsive regulator of the 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate deaminase gene acdS in phytobeneficial Azospirillum lipoferum 4B and other Proteobacteria.

The phytostimulatory alphaproteobacterium Azospirillum lipoferum 4B exhibits the plant-beneficial gene acdS, which enables deamination of the ethylene precursor 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC). Here, we show that acdS is in the vicinity of acdR, a homolog to leucine-responsive regulator lrp, in A. lipoferum 4B and most other acdS+ Proteobacteria. Unlike in Beta- and Gammaproteobacteria, acdS (and acdR) is preferentially located on symbiotic islands and plasmids in Alphaproteobacteria. In A. lipoferum 4B, acdS was mapped on a 750-kb plasmid that is lost during phenotypic variation, whereas other phytobeneficial genes such as nifH (associative nitrogen fixation) are maintained. In Proteobacteria, the phylogenies of acdR and acdS were largely but not totally congruent, despite physical proximity of the genes, regardless of whether DNA or deduced protein sequences were used. Potential Lrp, cAMP receptor protein (CRP) and fumarate-nitrate reduction regulator (FNR) binding sites were evidenced in the acdS promoter regions of strain 4B and most of 46 other acdS+ Proteobacteria. Indeed, transcriptional and enzymatic analyses done in vitro pointed to the involvement of Lrp- and FNR-like transcriptional up-regulation of ACC deaminase activity in A. lipoferum 4B. This is the first synteny, phylogenetic, and functional analysis of factors modulating acdS expression in Azospirillum plant growth-promoting rhizobacterium.