Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies. Vol. 3. No. 1. 2002 IRISH JOURNAL OF APPLIED SOCIAL STUDIES Editor Dr. C. Niall McElwee Notes for Contributors Articles for consideration: 1. Shall be based on primary research, or exceptional critical literature reviews, or practice innovations. From time to time a theme will be published. 2. Should be between 2,500-6,000 words in length. 3. The article should be preceded by an abstract, on a separate page. The abstract should consist of title, and summary of the paper, between 300 and 500 words in length. The abstract should end with three or four key words relating to the content. To permit anonymity, a cover page should be attached, listing authorship and affiliation. 4. Manuscripts should be typed on one side of the page, double-spaced with wide margins, on A4 paper. Manuscripts to be submitted on 3.5 inch disc in Macintosh, Microsoft Word or Windows format, along with 3 hard copies. 5. References should be placed in alphabetical order at the end of the text. The Harvard Referencing System should be used i.e. Author’s surname followed by initial for first name, date in brackets, and title in italics, followed by location of publishers, and finally publisher’s name; or in the case of articles, the journal’s name in italics. e.g. McElwee, C.N., (2000), To Travel Hopefully: Views from the Managers of Residential Child Care Units in Ireland. Waterford: RMA/SocSci Consultancy. Wells, J.S.G., (1998) Severe Mental Illness. Statutory Supervision and Mental Health Nursing in the UK, Journal of Advanced Nursing 27: 698-706. 6. All text should be unjustified. Please do not insert page breaks or bold the text. 7. Contributors are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of their contributions, and for ensuring that they have permission for any extensive quotations used. 8. Articles for consideration will be sent to two external assessors/for review for suitability for publication. Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies. Vol. 3. No. 1. 2002 9. Authors are expected to correct proofs. The typescript finally accepted for publication must be regarded as definitive and subsequent corrections should be restricted to printer’s errors. Any alterations at this stage may be made only with the agreement of the editorial team. Changes in the text will not be considered at proof stage. 10. All tables should be clearly titled, numbered consecutively and be self- explanatory without reference to the text. They must be typed on separate pages with the location indicated in the text. The same applies to charts and figures. 11. Submission of an article is taken to imply that it has not previously been published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. This fact should be stated by the author on submission. The editor reserves the right to republish articles from time to time when considered appropriate for a particular volume. Articles for consideration should be sent to: Dr. C. Niall McElwee, Head of Department of Humanities, Athlone Institute of Technology, Athlone, Ireland. Phone: 00353-902-24424 [email protected] * The Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies is published by SocSci Consultancy, Leap Cottage, Kildalton, Piltown, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland. Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies. Vol. 3. No. 1. 2002 IJASS Editorial Board Dr. C. Niall McElwee Editor, President, Irish Association of Social Care Educators, c/o Department of Humanities, Athlone Institute of Technology, Athlone, Ireland. John SG Wells Deputy Editor, Lecturer in Applied Social Studies, Wateford Institute of Technology, Ireland. Associate Editorial Board Dr. Jim Deegan Acting Head of Education, Mary Immaculate Teacher Training College, Limerick, Ireland. Dr. Francis Douglas Acting Head of the Department of Education, University College, Cork, Ireland. Dr. Áine de Róiste Lecturer in Psychology, Cork Institute of Technology, Cork, Ireland. Dr. John Ennis Head of Humanities, Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford, Ireland. Prof. Harry Ferguson Research Chair in Social Work, University of Bristol, Bristol, England. Donal Guerin Research Co-ordinator, Clare Co. Council, Clare, Ireland. Nóirín Hayes Head of Social Science, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland. Dr. Mary Horgan Lecturer in Early Years Education, University College Cork, Ireland. Dr. Kevin Lalor Head of Department of Social Science, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland. Bernard O’ Brien General Manager, Wexford Area Partnership, Wexford, Ireland. Prof. Fred Powell Head of Department of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork, Ireland. Dr. Perry Share Head of Department of Humanities, Sligo Institute of Technology, Sligo, Ireland. Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies. Vol. 3. No. 1. 2002 Joe Wolfe ETC Consultancy, Hobbit Hill, Inistogue, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland. Associate Editorial Board: Online Editor Cormac J. Forkan Lecturer in Applied Social Studies, Centre for Social Care Research, Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland. Social Care Practice Book Reviews Susan McKenna SosSci Consultancy, Kilkenny, Ireland. International Associate Editors Canada Dr. Thom Garfat. TransformAction Consulting and Training, Quebec, Canada. Jack Phelan. CYC Instructor, Grant MacEwan College, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Dr. Varda Mann-Feder. Editor, Child and Youth Care Work, Department of Applied Human Sciences, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Dr. Grant Charles, Grant Charles and Associates, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. United States of America Dr. Henry Maier, Professor Emeritus, University of Washington, USA. Subscription Details Joe Wolfe. Director ETC Consultancy, Hobbit Hill, Inistogue, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland. Phone: 00353 5658748, email: [email protected] Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies. Vol. 3. No. 1. 2002 Editorial Dr. C. Niall McElwee It is with pleasure that I extended Fergus Hogan the opportunity of guest editing this dedicated volume of the Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies. Fergus was one of the first supporters of the journal back in the late 1990’s advertising it with his colleagues in both social work and family therapy practice and in academia. I was particularly interested in Fergus guest editing as I know he has an interest in both social work and social care/child and youth care. I strongly feel that both disciplines need to come closer together for the benefit of all the people with whom we work. The opportunity to become directly involved in the IJASS is but one route for this to take place. Early on in our deliberations, Fergus and I discussed possible areas where one might concentrate on for a dedicated issue and we both agreed that readers of the journal would like to see foster care addressed – but from number of angles. Foster care is certainly an area that is receiving increasing attention and I am delighted to see that Fergus was able to convince friends and colleagues to submit varied papers ranging from service users to foster parents themselves. All in social care deserve the right to be heard and this journal is uniquely placed to give voice to those ‘from the coalface’ so to speak. Many of my social care students over the years have lamented the lack of a substantial body of literature around fostering as it is understood and practiced in Ireland. They mentioned the fact that there are few accounts from ‘service users’ and from ‘ordinary’ foster parents to be found. Happily, this volume makes a significant contribution to filling the gap. Since our last volume, much has happened with contributors to our journal. I moved from the Centre for Social Care Research at the Waterford Institute of Technology during the summer and took up a position as Head of Department of Humanities at the Athlone Institute of Technology. The IJASS will now be published by SocSci Consultancy, with both colleges remaining partners of the journal. Dr. Kevin Lalor, one of our Associate Editors, was promoted during the summer to Head of Editorial – C. Niall McElwee Department of Social Sciences at the Dublin Institute of Technology and his edited book The End of Innocence: Child Sexual Abuse of Ireland was published in October. All at the journal would like to wish Kevin well. Professor Harry Ferguson has moved from University College Dublin to the University of Bristol where he has taken up a research Chair in social work and we wish him the very best in his move. Harry’s co- authored book Keeping Children Safe was published earlier this year. Although now based in the UK, I have no doubt that Harry will maintain a keen interest in Irish child protection and welfare. Susan McKenna has joined the IJASS team as practice book review editor. Susan is a graduate of the social care Diploma and Degree programmes at Waterford Institute of Technology and has worked in day care and community child care. She is presently lecturing part-time at the Athlone Institute of Technology and works with SocSci Consultancy. Professor Henry Maier of the University of Washington has joined our team as review editor from the United States of America and Dr Grant Charles has joined us from Calgary, Alberta. Finally, we had the pleasure of the company of Dr Thom Garfat of Montreal, Canada in October when he came to Drogheda to speak at the International conference of the Oberstown Boys Centre followed by a joint presentation with myself to student and faculty of both the Athlone and Waterford Institute of Technology’s social care programmes. Thom and I are currently negotiating with various Irish partners in relation to a model of social care theory and practice we are developing (the EirCan model©) and we will explore this in detail in forthcoming issues of IJASS. The next volume of IJASS is due for publication in early 2002 and will be divided into two sections. Section one will include a range of keynote papers from the Oberstown conference held in October 2001 with section two having a selection of papers on areas as diverse as title designations in social care, living with HIV in Ireland, residential child care, a commentary from community child care and aspects of education in care - to name but some.