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Fostering a culture of family‐centred care: Child welfare professionals' beliefs about fathers, family instability, and the value of relationship education
Author(s) -
Mallette Jacquelyn K.,
Futris Ted G.,
Schramm David G.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
child and family social work
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.912
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1365-2206
pISSN - 1356-7500
DOI - 10.1111/cfs.12422
Subject(s) - welfare , psychology , competence (human resources) , developmental psychology , educational attainment , social psychology , value (mathematics) , political science , law , machine learning , computer science
Guided by the Cultural Competence Attainment Model, the purpose of this study is to examine how socio‐demographic and work characteristics are associated with variations in child welfare professionals' (CWPs) attitudes about father involvement and family instability and how these attitudes are linked with whether they view relationship and marriage education as relevant to their efforts to support families. Drawing from a sample of 624 CWPs and using latent profile analysis, the results revealed three latent classes of CWPs, with most professionals being labelled as either “moderately” or “highly” concerned about father involvement and family instability, with a smaller class of professionals labelled as having less concern about these family issues. Those labelled as highly concerned tended to be older, male, African American, married, and had worked longer in the child welfare field. As well, those labelled as highly concerned were more likely to agree that strengthening the couple and coparenting relationship would benefit children and were most amenable to receiving RME training. Implications for relationship and marriage education training for child welfare professionals and other practitioners are provided.