Bibliotek

Objective: This analysis sought to describe the characteristics and well-being of carers of older people with mental health problems admitted to a general hospital. Methods: General medical and trauma orthopaedic patients aged 70years or older admitted to an acute general teaching hospital were screened for mental health problems. Those screened positive, together with a carer, were invited to undergo further assessment with a battery of health status measurements. Carers were interviewed to ascertain strain (caregiver strain index (CSI)), psychological distress (12-item General Health Questionnaire) and quality of life (EQ-5D). Results: We recruited 250 patients to the study, of whom 180 were cognitively impaired and had carers willing to take part. After 6months, 57 patients (32%) had died, and we followed up 100 carers. Carers' own health, in terms of mobility, usual activities, and anxiety, was poor in a third of cases. At the time of admission, high carer strain was common (42% with CSI≥7), particularly among co-resident carers (55%). High levels of behavioural and psychiatric symptoms at baseline were associated with more carer strain and distress. At follow-up, carer strain and distress had reduced only slightly, with no difference in outcomes for carers of patients who moved from the community to a care home. Conclusion: Hospital staff should be alert to sources of carer strain and offer carers practical advice and emotional support. Interventions are required to prevent and manage behavioural and psychiatric symptoms at the time of acute physical illness or to alleviate their effects on carers.

•This article describes and analyses public support received by unpaid carers in Sweden

•Three types of carers were identified

•Very few carers helping someone living in a different household – the large majority of carers – received or desired support aimed directly at them

•Carers mostly wanted public services for the cared-for person

•Despite legislation in 2009 mandating municipalities to offer support to carers, very few of them know about this law

•There is a wide gap between policies and their implementation, but also some reluctance among carers to use public support services for themselves

•Social policy needs to clarify the aims of the support provided and to take the needs of both carers and cared-for persons into account.

This article describes and analyses public support for Swedish unpaid carers, now mandated by law, and also the support that they desire, using surveys conducted in 2008, 2009, and later. Few carers helping someone in a different household – the large majority of the carers – received any support aimed directly at them, such as access to support groups, training, relief service, or financial support. Yet, most carers did not desire any support for themselves. They mostly wanted public services for the cared-for person, all of which may also indirectly support carers. Intra-household carers – about a tenth of all carers – have vastly larger care commitments than other carers. Some of them desire support for themselves, usually relief services of financial support. Three out of 10 of these carers used any public support, despite the new (2009) legislation that only a minority of carers know about. There is a wide gap between policies and their implementation, but also some reluctance among carers to use public support for themselves. The relationship between carers and the state is unclear in Sweden and this reflects on the aims and the forms of support. Stereotypes about 'typical' carers may have impeded adequate forms of support.

The general aim of this dissertation is to describe and analyse patterns of informal care and support for carers in Sweden. One specific aim is to study patterns of informal care from a broad population perspective in terms of types of care and types of carer. A typology of four different care categories based on what carers do revealed that women were much more likely than men to be involved at the 'heavy end' of caring, i.e. providing personal care in combination with a variety of other caring tasks. Men were more likely than women to provide some kind of practical help (Study I).Another aim is to investigate which support services are received by which types of informal caregiver. Relatively few informal caregivers in any care category were found to be receiving any kind of support from municipalities or voluntary organizations, for example training or financial assistance (Study II).The same study also examines which kinds of help care recipients receive in addition to that provided by informal carers. It appears that people in receipt of personal care from an informal caregiver quite often also receive help from the public care system, in this case mostly municipal services. However, the majority of those receiving personal, informal care did not receive any help from the public care system or from voluntary organizations or for-profit agencies (Study II).The empirical material in studies I and II comprises survey data from telephone interviews with a random sample of residents in the County of Stockholm aged between 18 and 84.In a number of countries there is a growing interest among social scientists and social policymakers in examining the types of support services that might be needed by people who provide informal care for older people and others. A further aim of the present dissertation is therefore to describe and analyse the carer support that is provided by municipalities and voluntary organizations in Sweden. The dissertation examines whether this support is aimed directly or indirectly at caregivers and discusses whether the Swedish government's special financial investment in help for carers actually led to any changes in the support provided by municipalities and voluntary organisations. The main types of carer support offered by the municipalities were payment for care-giving, relief services and day care. The chief forms of carer support provided by the voluntary organizations were support groups, training groups, and a number of services aimed primarily at the elderly care recipients (Study III).Patterns of change in municipal carer support could be discerned fairly soon. The Swedish government's special allocation to municipalities and voluntary organisations appears to have led to an increase in the number of municipalities providing direct support for carers, such as training, information material and professional caregiver consultants. On the other hand, only minor changes could be discerned in the pattern of carer support services provided by the voluntary organizations. This demonstrates stability and the relatively low impact that policy initiatives seem to have on voluntary organizations as providers (Study IV).In studies III and IV the empirical material consists of survey data from mail questionnaires sent to municipalities and voluntary organizations in the County of Stockholm.In the fields of social planning and social work there appears to be a need to clarify the aims of support services for informal carers. Should the support be direct or indirect? Should it be used to supplement or substitute caregivers? In this process of reappraisal it will be important to take the needs of both caregivers and care recipients into account when developing existing and new forms of support. How informal caregivers and care recipients interact with the care system as a whole is undeniably a fertile field for further research.

'Caring capital' is that subset of social capital characterized by caregiving, charity and compassion when these actions are given out of a concern for the welfare of others. The relationship between caring and various forms of capital has scarcely been noticed by social scientists, either theoretically or empirically. After reviewing the concepts of caring and capital, 77 websites related to caring capital were analyzed to explore these types of questions: How large, influential and effective is the care-oriented sector of the web? How is it best to categorize the diversity of websites promoting caring capital? What social or interactive and user-generated opportunities are offered by these web sites? What implications for the future do these web organizations have? While we cannot offer any definitive answer to the question of the potential of the Internet for facilitating caring capital, this study's glimpse of the web finds only minimal charitable activity compared to the huge need for greater compassionate caring at both individual and organizational levels.

OBJECTIVES: To explore associations between carer burden and characteristics of
(1) the informal carer, (2) the person with dementia, and (3) the care support
network in 8 European countries. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: People with dementia judged at risk of admission to long-term care (LTC) facilities in 8 European countries (Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom). PARTICIPANTS: A total of 1223 people with dementia supported by community services at home or receiving day care or respite care and their informal carers. MEASUREMENTS: Variables regarding the informal carer included familial
relationship and living situation. Variables relating to the person with dementia
included cognitive functioning (S-MMSE), neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPI-Q),
depressive symptoms (Cornell depression scale), comorbidity (Charlson Comorbidity
Index), and physical functioning (Katz Activity of Daily Living [ADL] Index). The
care support network was measured using hours of caregiving (ADLs, instrumental
ADLs [IADLs], supervision), additional informal care support, and service receipt
(home care, day care). Experience of carer burden was recorded using the Zarit
Burden Interview. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine factors
associated with high carer burden. RESULTS: Carer burden was highest in Estonia (mean 39.7/88) and lowest in the Netherlands (mean 26.5/88). High burden was significantly associated with
characteristics of the informal carer (family relationship, specifically wives or
daughters), of the person with dementia (physical dependency in ADLs;
neuropsychiatric symptoms, in particular nighttime behaviors and irritability),
the care support network (hours of caregiving supervision; receipt of other
informal care support) and country of residence. CONCLUSION: A range of factors are associated with burden in informal carers of people with dementia judged to be on the margins of LTC. Support for informal carers needs to take account of gender differences. The dual challenges of
distressed behaviors and difficulties in ADLs by the person with dementia may be
addressed by specific nonpharmacological interventions focusing on both elements.
The potential protective effect of additional informal support to carers highlights the importance of peer support or better targeted home support services. The implementation of appropriate and tailored interventions to reduce burden by supporting informal carers may enable people with dementia to remain at home for longer.

As the baby boomer generation ages, the need for laws to enhance quality of life for the elderly and meet the increasing demand for family caregivers will continue to grow. This paper reviews the national family leave laws of nine major OECD countries (Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom) and provides a state-by-state analysis within the U.S. We find that the U.S. has the least generous family leave laws among the nine OECD countries. With the exception of two states (California and New Jersey), the U.S. federal Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 provides no right to paid family leave for eldercare. We survey the current evidence from the literature on how paid leave can impact family caregivers' employment and health outcomes, gender equality, and economic arguments for and against such laws. We argue that a generous and flexible family leave law, financed through social insurance, would not only be equitable, but also financially sustainable.

This literature review is concerned with caring for older people and employment, with
a particular focus on the public sector. The review has been commissioned from the
Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) by the Audit Commission.
At the request of the Audit Commission, the emphasis of the review is on two main
questions. First, there is the question of the extent to which mainstream services and
employers take into account the particular circumstances and needs of carers of older
people in their provision of services or employment practices. Second, there is the
question of the effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of carer-friendly services and
employment practices. The Audit Commission asked the researcher to consider
effectiveness and cost-effectiveness from the perspectives of the different interest
groups involved, that is, the carer, the employer, the person being cared for and the
public interest. The focus of the review is primarily on the role of public sector
employers in offering carer-friendly employment policie

Changes in psychiatric health care and increased reliance on outpatient care have resulted in the transfer of responsibility for care from psychiatric services to social networks. Young person's therefore often take responsibility during their own sensitive phase of emerging adulthood for the care of a loved one who suffers from mental illness. The overall aim of this study was to learn how young persons who provide care and support to a person with mental illness handle their everyday lives. This study also aimed to evaluate web-based versus folder support for these young informal carers. The papers in this thesis use qualitative descriptive (I), comparative (II), mixed methods (III), and experimental (IV) design approaches. Participants were recruited twice: first, 12 participants were recruited for the qualitative papers and interviewed; then 241 participants were included in the interventions and sent self-administered questionnaires by email or the regular postal service at the start of the intervention (T1), after 4 months (T2), and after 8 months (T3) during 2010 and 2011. Young informal carers (YIC) managed their everyday lives and unexpected stressors from their perceived responsibility for the supported person by relying on their own abilities and their social networks and by maintaining a constant state of readiness in case something should happen to the supported person. Supporting a person in the family can have higher positive subjective value than supporting a friend. Although friends perceived that they received more support. They often did not share their situation with others and felt that others did not understand what they were going through; even when YIC did share their burden with their social networks, they felt either that they were ignored or that others did not know how to act or what to say. YIC often experienced a lack of appropriate, available, and serious professional support. They thought that support from professionals might improve their caring situation and that it might ease their burden if the person with mental illness had more professional care and support. Baseline stress levels were high in both intervention groups (web-based support versus informational folder), but decreased in the folder group. The folder group showed more improvement in their caring situation than the web group, and improvements in general selfefficacy, well-being, and quality of life. The web group also showed improved well-being. Non-significant differences between the groups indicate that each intervention could be useful depending upon the individual's preference. This highlights the importance of adopting a person-centred approach to offer young persons the appropriate support.

Changes in psychiatric health care and increased reliance on outpatient care have resulted in the transfer of responsibility for care from psychiatric services to social networks. Young person's therefore often take responsibility during their own sensitive phase of emerging adulthood for the care of a loved one who suffers from mental illness. The overall aim of this study was to learn how young persons who provide care and support to a person with mental illness handle their everyday lives. This study also aimed to evaluate web-based versus folder support for these young informal carers. The papers in this thesis use qualitative descriptive (I), comparative (II), mixed methods (III), and experimental (IV) design approaches. Participants were recruited twice: first, 12 participants were recruited for the qualitative papers and interviewed; then 241 participants were included in the interventions and sent self-administered questionnaires by email or the regular postal service at the start of the intervention (T1), after 4 months (T2), and after 8 months (T3) during 2010 and 2011. Young informal carers (YIC) managed their everyday lives and unexpected stressors from their perceived responsibility for the supported person by relying on their own abilities and their social networks and by maintaining a constant state of readiness in case something should happen to the supported person. Supporting a person in the family can have higher positive subjective value than supporting a friend. Although friends perceived that they received more support. They often did not share their situation with others and felt that others did not understand what they were going through; even when YIC did share their burden with their social networks, they felt either that they were ignored or that others did not know how to act or what to say. YIC often experienced a lack of appropriate, available, and serious professional support. They thought that support from professionals might improve their caring situation and that it might ease their burden if the person with mental illness had more professional care and support. Baseline stress levels were high in both intervention groups (web-based support versus informational folder), but decreased in the folder group. The folder group showed more improvement in their caring situation than the web group, and improvements in general selfefficacy, well-being, and quality of life. The web group also showed improved well-being. Non-significant differences between the groups indicate that each intervention could be useful depending upon the individual's preference. This highlights the importance of adopting a person-centred approach to offer young persons the appropriate support

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This article considers, for a Canadian national probability sample of middle-aged women and
men, the question of how typical is the experience of being "caught in the middle" between being
the adult child of elderly parents and other roles. Three roles are examined: adult child, employed
worker, and parent (and a refinement of the parent role, being a parent of a co-resident child).
Occupancy in multiple roles is examined, followed by an investigation of the extent to which adults
in various role combinations actually assist older parents and whether those who provide frequent
help are also those "sandwiched" by competing commitments. The majority of middle-aged children
do not provide frequent help to parents. Notably, the highest proportion of daughters who assist
elderly parents are those in their fifties whose children are no longer co-resident. For both sons and
daughters, being "caught in the middle" is far from a typical experience in this cross-sectional
analysis.

Abstract
Background: Information and communication technology (ICT)-based solutions have the potential to support informal caregivers in home care delivery. However, there are many challenges to the deployment of these solutions.

Objective: The aim of this study was to review literature to explore the challenges of the deployment of ICT-based support solutions for informal caregivers and provide relevant recommendations on how to overcome these challenges.

Methods: A scoping review methodology was used following the Arksey and O'Malley methodological framework to map the relevant literature. A search was conducted using PubMed, IEEE library, and Scopus. Publication screening and scrutiny were conducted following inclusion criteria based on inductive thematic analysis to gain insight into patterns of challenges rising from deploying ICT-based support solutions for informal caregivers. The analysis took place through an iterative process of combining, categorizing, summarizing, and comparing information across studies. Through this iterative process, relevant information was identified and coded under emergent broader themes as they pertain to each of the research questions.

Results: The analysis identified 18 common challenges using a coding scheme grouping them under four thematic categories: technology-related, organizational, socioeconomic, and ethical challenges. These range from specific challenges related to the technological component of the ICT-based service such as design and usability of technology, to organizational challenges such as fragmentation of support solutions to socioeconomic challenges such as funding of technology and sustainability of solutions to ethical challenges around autonomy and privacy of data. For each identified challenge, recommendations were created on how to overcome it. The recommendations from this study can provide guidance for the deployment of ICT-based support solutions for informal caregivers.

Conclusions: Despite a growing interest in the potential offered by ICT solutions for informal caregiving, diverse and overlapping challenges to their deployment still remain. Designers for ICTs for informal caregivers should follow participatory design and involve older informal caregivers in the design process as much as possible. A collaboration between designers and academic researchers is also needed to ensure ICT solutions are designed with the current empirical evidence in mind. Taking actions to build the digital skills of informal caregivers early in the caregiving process is crucial for optimal use of available ICT solutions. Moreover, the lack of awareness of the potential added-value and trust toward ICT-based support solutions requires strategies to raise awareness among all stakeholders-including policy makers, health care professionals, informal caregivers, and care recipients-about support opportunities offered by ICT. On the macro-level, policies to fund ICT solutions that have been shown to be effective at supporting and improving informal caregiver health outcomes via subsidies or other incentives should be considered.

Although research on social support has generated findings that are key to the study of social and personal relationships, scholars have yet to deal with a number of conceptual issues that affect how social support is defined and measured. Research on hurt feelings provides some interesting insights concerning the conceptualization of support. Based on this research, as well as a review of the literature on social support, the current article describes several issues that scholars ought to consider as they conceptualize, evaluate, and study social support processes.

Abstract
The number of people who combine work and unpaid care is increasing rapidly as more people need care, public and private care systems are progressively under pressure and more people are required to work for longer. Without adequate support, these working carers may experience detrimental effects on their well-being. To adequately support working carers, it is important to first understand the challenges they face. A scoping review was carried out, using Arksey and O'Malley's framework, to map the challenges of combining work and care and solutions described in the literature to address these challenges. The search included academic and grey literature between 2008 and 2018 and was conducted in April 2018, using electronic academic databases and reference list checks. Ninety-two publications were mapped, and the content analysed thematically. A conceptual framework was derived from the analysis which identified primary challenges (C1), directly resulting from combining work and care, primary solutions (S1) aiming to address these, secondary challenges (C2) resulting from solutions and secondary solutions (S2) aiming to address secondary challenges. Primary challenges were: (a) high and/or competing demands; (b) psychosocial/-emotional stressors; (c) distance; (d) carer's health; (e) returning to work; and (f) financial pressure. This framework serves to help those aiming to support working carers to better understand the challenges they face and those developing solutions for the challenges of combining work and care to consider potential consequences or barriers. Gaps in the literature have been identified and discusse

Concern is increasing about children growing up in families where there are substance use problems but relatively little is known about the perspectives of the children themselves. This article reports on a qualitative study with young people who grew up in such families, exploring their accounts of their daily lives at home, school and leisure. The study focuses on the everyday interactions, practices and processes the young people felt helped them to 'get by' in their challenging childhoods, showing how the protective factors thought to promote 'resilience' were seldom in place for them unconditionally and without associated costs.

An ex post facto study was conducted to investigate treatment outcomes for 80 women and 168 children admitted into a residential substance-abuse treatment program. The results indicated childhood emotional neglect is a barrier for remaining in and completing treatment for African-American women with comorbid psychological disorders but not for those with crack cocaine dependent disorders. African-American women with comorbid psychological disorders were also three times more likely to dropout of treatment. In addition, there were relatively few differences for between drug-exposed and nonexposed children. However, the results indicated that children of substance-abusing women who completed treatment were more likely to have behavioral problems, to receive early intervention services, and to have mothers as legal guardians by the end of treatment. Implications for gender-specific interventions for African-American women and their children in residential treatment are discussed.

Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
To examine the associations between child physical abuse executed by a parent or caretaker and self-rated health problems/risk-taking behaviors among teenagers. Further to evaluate concurrence of other types of abuse and how these alone and in addition to child physical abuse were associated with bad health status and risk-taking behaviors.
METHODS:
A population-based survey was carried out in 2008 among all the pupils in 2 different grades (15 respectively 17 years old) in Södermanland County, Sweden (n=7,262). The response rate was 81.8%. The pupils were asked among other things about their exposure to child physical abuse, exposure to parental intimate violence, bullying, and exposure to being forced to engage in sexual acts. Adjusted analyses were conducted to estimate associations between exposure and ill-health/risk-taking behaviors.
RESULTS:
Child physical abuse was associated with poor health and risk-taking behaviors with adjusted odds ratios (OR) ranging from 1.6 to 6.2. The associations were stronger when the pupils reported repeated abuse with OR ranging from 2.0 to 13.2. Also experiencing parental intimate partner violence, bullying and being forced to engage in sexual acts was associated with poor health and risk-taking behaviors with the same graded relationship to repeated abuse. Finally there was a cumulative effect of multiple abuse in the form of being exposed to child physical abuse plus other types of abuse and the associations increased with the number of concurrent abuse.
CONCLUSIONS:
This study provides strong indications that child abuse is a serious public health problem based on the clear links seen between abuse and poor health and behavioral problems. Consistent with other studies showing a graded relationship between experiences of abuse and poor health/risk-taking behaviors our study shows poorer outcomes for repeated and multiple abuse. Thus, our study calls for improvement of methods of comprehensive assessments, interventions and treatment in all settings where professionals meet young people.

The article analyses the different strands of public concern regarding children in the course of the 20th century, and the political process and the ideological constellation which led up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The ratification of the Convention and its political effects in northwestern Europe are analysed. Finally, a set of hypotheses are presented about likely determinants of the impact of the Convention in different parts of the world.

This meta-analysis examined 118 studies of the psychosocial outcomes of children exposed to interparental violence. Correlational studies showed a significant association between exposure and child problems (d = -0.29). Group comparison studies showed that witnesses had significantly worse outcomes relative to nonwitnesses (d = -0.40) and children from verbally aggressive homes (d = -0.28). but witnesses' outcomes were not significantly different from those of physically abused children (d = 0.15) or physically abused witnesses (d = 0.13). Several methodological variables moderated these results. Similar effects were found across a range of outcomes, with slight evidence for greater risk among preschoolers. Recommendations for future research are made, taking into account practical and theoretical issues in this area.

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The death of a close family member is a profound insult to a child's developmental course. Though early research assumed that childhood bereavement was a risk factor for mental and behavioral disorders in childhood and adult life, recent research has taken an ecological view of childhood development and considers a child's exposures to risk and protective factors. Yet, it remains unclear as to how many children are affected by the death of a close family member each year and how peer support groups can help children to adapt to such an adverse event. This dissertation represents three distinct stages in the development of a comprehensive evaluation for an agency that provides a peer support service for bereaved children and their families. First, a primary question that arose during initial consultations with the agency was to determine how many children are affected annually within Pennsylvania. This led to an exploration of the epidemiology of childhood bereavement. The methods and data sources used to produce these estimates were critically evaluated and modified to offer a new interpretation of available data. Second, it was important to identify constructs that could be used in an outcomes evaluation of the peer support program. Focus groups were used to explore the perceived benefits of attending peer support groups among caregivers and teens who had attended a spring session at the center. The intention to use focus groups was to increase the validity of constructs and, ultimately, the results of an outcomes evaluation.Third, after identifying evaluation constructs a feasibility study was conducted to pilot an outcomes evaluation instrument. The study involved 30 families who attended the spring 2007 sessions at the center. Results suggested that peer support programs can improve children's coping efficacy while helping to improve their caregivers' perception of social support. The program also improved both children and caregivers' sense that they are not alone in their grief.As demonstrated in this dissertation, including the loss of siblings and primary caregiving grandparents in prevalence estimates of childhood bereavement and applying resilience theory to peer support research is of public health relevance.

This paper outlines the broad key findings from a research project on UK childhood bereavement service provision, using eight organizational case studies. Despite a shared objective of 'helping bereaved children' services were very diverse. Three organizational types were identified with differing management and administrative structures, each of which had different implications for staff. Although the overall size and employment status (paid or unpaid) of the respective workforces varied, the number of staff who worked directly with children or their families was similar. Direct and indirect services were offered within a matrix of provision that focussed either on children or on families, and involved individual and/or group work activities. Obtaining sufficient funding presented services with immense challenges. Unless they were part of a larger 'host' organization with a continued commitment to childhood bereavement service provision, services were unable to rely on regular and long-term sources of funding. This can have a detrimental impact on the core business, and on the ability of the service to develop their provision. Improving and increasing research, audit and evaluation of childhood bereavement services would contribute to supporting the case for both individual services and for the childhood bereavement sector as a whole.

Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
Although the death of a parent is one of the most significant stressors a child can experience, the psychiatric sequelae of parental death are not fully understood.
METHOD:
A total of 360 parent-bereaved children (ages 6-17) and their surviving parents were directly interviewed four times during the first 2 years following the death (at 2, 6, 13, and 25 months). Data collection occurred from 1989 to 1996. Psychiatric symptomatology was compared among the bereaved children, 110 depressed children, and 128 community control children and their informant parents. Additional analyses examined simple bereavement without other stressors versus complex bereavement with other stressors and anticipated versus unanticipated death.
RESULTS:
Bereavement following parental death is associated with increased psychiatric problems in the first 2 years after death. Bereaved children are, however, less impaired than children diagnosed with clinical depression. Higher family socioeconomic status and lower surviving parents' level of depressive symptoms are associated with better outcomes. Complex bereavement was associated with a worse course, but anticipation of the death was not.
CONCLUSIONS:
Childhood bereavement from parental death is a significant stressor. Children who experience depression in combination with parental depression or in the context of other family stressors are at the most risk of depression and overall psychopathology.

Many young people who are mistreated by an adult, victimized by bullies, criminally assaulted, or who witness domestic violence react to this violence exposure by developing behavioral, emotional, or learning problems. What is less well known is that adverse experiences like violence exposure can lead to hidden physical alterations inside a child's body, alterations that may have adverse effects on life-long health. We discuss why this is important for the field of developmental psychopathology and for society, and we recommend that stress-biology research and intervention science join forces to tackle the problem. We examine the evidence base in relation to stress-sensitive measures for the body (inflammatory reactions, telomere erosion, epigenetic methylation, and gene expression) and brain (mental disorders, neuroimaging, and neuropsychological testing). We also review promising interventions for families, couples, and children that have been designed to reduce the effects of childhood violence exposure. We invite intervention scientists and stress-biology researchers to collaborate in adding stress-biology measures to randomized clinical trials of interventions intended to reduce effects of violence exposure and other traumas on young people.

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Childhood poverty has moved from the periphery to the centre of the policy agenda following New Labour's pledge to end it within twenty years. However, whether the needs and concerns of poor children themselves are being addressed is open to question. The findings raise critical issues for both policy and practice - in particular the finding that children are at great risk of experiencing exclusion within school. School has been a major target in the drive towards reducing child poverty. However, the policy focus has been mainly about literacy standards and exclusion from school. This book shows that poor children are suffering from insufficient access to the economic and material resources necessary for adequate social participation and academic parity.Childhood poverty and social exclusion will be an invaluable teaching aid across a range of academic courses, including social policy, sociology, social work and childhood studies. All those who are interested in developing a more inclusive social and policy framework for understanding childhood issues from a child-centred perspective, including child welfare practitioners and policy makers, will want to read this book.Studies in poverty, inequality and social exclusion seriesSeries Editor: David Gordon, Director, Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research.Poverty, inequality and social exclusion remain the most fundamental problems that humanity faces in the 21st century. This exciting series, published in association with the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol, aims to make cutting-edge poverty related research more widely available. For other titles in this series, please follow the series link from the main catalogue page.

AIM: To investigate whether socio-economic status (SES) in childhood and school failure at 15 years of age predict illicit drug abuse in youth and young adulthood. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Register study in a Swedish national cohort born 1973-88 (n = 1,405,763), followed from age 16 to 20-35 years. Cox regression analyses were used to calculate hazard ratios (HR) for any indication of drug abuse. MEASUREMENTS: Our outcomes were hospital admissions, death and criminality associated with illicit drug abuse. Data on socio-demographics, school grades and parental psychosocial problems were collected from censuses (1985 and 1990) and national registers. School failure was defined as having mean school grades from the final year in primary school lower than -1 standard deviation and/or no grades in core subjects. FINDINGS: School failure was a strong predictor of illicit drug abuse with an HR of 5.87 (95% CI: 5.76-5.99) after adjustment for age and sex. Childhood SES was associated with illicit drug abuse later in life in a stepwise manner. The lowest stratum had a HR of 2.28 (95% CI: 2.20-2.37) compared with the highest stratum as the reference, when adjusted for other socio-demographic variables. In the fully adjusted model, the effect of SES was greatly attenuated to an HR of 1.23 (95% CI: 1.19-1.28) in the lowest SES category, while the effect of school failure remained high with an HR of 4.22 (95% CI: 4.13-4.31). CONCLUSIONS: School failure and childhood socio-economic status predict illicit drug abuse independently in youth and young adults in Sweden.

We examined prevalence of parental deaths among former out-of-home care youths at age 18 and 25, and odds of parental loss compared with peers from similar socio-economic childhood backgrounds. The study utilized Swedish national register data for 12 entire birth cohorts (1972–1983), 35 550 former out-of-home care youths and 1 138 726 cohort peers without out-of-home care experiences. Logistic regression models were used to compute odds ratios for parental loss through death.

It was especially common among former residents of long-term out-of-home care to be motherless (11%), fatherless (11–13%) or orphaned (3–4%) at age 18, compared with non-foster care peers (1%, 3% and 0.03%). Twenty-six per cent had lost at least one parent (4% among non-foster care peers). At age 25, the figures had increased considerably; 36% had lost at least one parent, compared with 7% in the majority population. Adjusted odds ratios for parental loss among long-term care youth were strikingly high, particularly for having a deceased mother. In short-term and intermediate care, most youths with deceased parents had suffered parental loss before entering foster care. For youth from long-term care, parental death after start of placement was most common.

Childhood traumatic grief refers to a condition in which characteristic trauma-related symptoms interfere with children's ability to adequately mourn the loss of a loved one. Current concepts of this condition suggest that it overlaps with but is distinct from uncomplicated bereavement, adult complicated grief, and posttraumatic stress disorder. This article describes the core features of childhood traumatic grief; differentiates it from these related conditions; and reviews the current research status of suggested diagnostic criteria, assessment instruments, and treatments for this condition. Implications for future clinical practice, research, and policy are also addressed.

Discussing childhood traumatic grief, a condition likened to uncomplicated bereavement, adult complicated grief, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), this article addresses the core features of this condition and its potential treatments. After asserting that childhood traumatic grief is not consistently differentiated from adult complicated grief, normal childhood bereavement, or PTSD, the authors distinguish uncomplicated bereavement as deep mental anguish or sorrow over a loss. After defining adult complicated grief as normal bereavement complicated by separation over the loss of a relationship, this article discusses childhood PTSD as a mental condition following an experienced or witnessed traumatic event, in order to differentiate these conditions from childhood traumatic grief. Addressing childhood traumatic grief itself, the authors distinguish this condition from those aforementioned by defining it as the encroachment of traumatic symptoms on a child's ability to grieve. Citing differences among childhood traumatic grief and uncomplicated bereavement, adult complicated grief, and PTSD, the authors argue that in childhood traumatic grief a child is so traumatized that he or she is unable to complete the tasks of uncomplicated bereavement and is plagued with horrors and fears associated with the idea of death. The authors suggest that mediating, assessing, and treating childhood traumatic grief is best accomplished by early assessment, careful appraisal of a child's family circumstances, and prompt intervention. The authors conclude that clinicians need to be better trained at recognizing the distinctions between childhood traumatic grief and other forms of grief in order to best serve their child clients

Summary
In Norway and the Nordic countries more generally, the awareness of children affected by parental
illness or substance abuse has increased during the last 10 years. There has also been a general shift
from inpatient to outpatient care in public hospitals, and from public hospitals to primary health
care. This shift has increased the number of parents who live at home with more severe illness while
they are in active treatment. They need more informal and formal external care in their own homes.
Until recently, care for the ill, disabled, or elderly within the family has been invisible and barely
mentioned in public documents, statistics, or research reports. This applies even more for children's
caregiving activities. In 2010, the Research Council of Norway called for research of this question,
pointing out that 'little research has been conducted in this field, where children themselves serve as
informants, and more insight is needed about which interventions and measures that provide
effective help'. The main aims of the papers discussed in this thesis have been to explore:
• The extent and nature of the children's caring activities
• The positive and negative outcomes of the children's caring activities
• Factors associated with the children's quality of life (QoL)

Keywords:
children and their life experiences;
experiences of children of parents with intellectual disabilities;
adult children, raised by parents with intellectual disabilities;
children of mothers with intellectual disabilities;
children being affected - with mothers diagnosed as having intellectual disability;
everyday life within the family, school and friends;
support from public authorities and life - as adolescents and young adults;
alternating between being children and adults;
children of parents with intellectual disabilities - risk of facing difficulties
Summary
This chapter contains sections titled:

This paper describes the experiences of bereaved children and parents and their use of UK childhood bereavement services. It forms part of a larger qualitative study and was undertaken in the context of questions about the impact of bereavement on children and their status and participation in research, raising important methodological and ethical issues. Interviews were undertaken with 24 bereaved children and 16 parents who had used one of eight organizational case study services. Participant observation of six group interventions was undertaken. The study identified a multiplicity of bereavement experiences both within and between families. Children identified difficulties in managing and expressing their feelings, isolation, problems at school, and fear for their surviving parent. Parents found it difficult to maintain their parenting role as they struggled with their own bereavement and the disruption in their circumstances. Children and parents who participated in interventions were able to describe the significant ways in which they found it helpful, including the benefit of speaking to someone who understood their experience. Although some experienced difficulties in attending group interventions, bereaved parents welcomed the support to help them provide appropriate care for their bereaved child. By providing an "ecological niche" for bereaved children, UK childhood bereavement services contribute to meeting outcomes identified in recent policy initiatives.

Notions of 'being' and 'becoming' are intrinsic to childhood research. Whilst the 'being' child is seen as a social actor actively constructing 'childhood', the 'becoming' child is seen as an 'adult in the making', lacking competencies of the 'adult' that he or she will 'become'. However, I argue that both approaches are in themselves problematic. Instead, theorising children as 'being and becomings' not only addresses the temporality of childhood that children themselves voice, but presents a conceptually realistic construction suitable to both childhood researchers and practitioners.