A phenomenological investigation of kinship involvement in the lives of children whose parents have mental illness.

Background And Purpose: Mental health services rarely reach children whose parents have mental illness despite their poor outcomes. There is a need to consider how mental health practitioners can prioritize the needs of these children and their families. This study examined kinship involvement in the lives of children whose parents have mental illness.

Constructing the in the lives of children living with parental mental illness.

Children living with parental mental illness are referred to as an invisible population because mental health services rarely target them, as the focus is often on the parent who is ill mentally. The same situation occurs even in school where they are unnoticed. This study conducted in Ghana creates awareness about what these children think about their interactions at school in the context of parental mental illness.

Living with parental mental illness is like a roller coaster: Reflections on children's lifeworld in the family setting.

Aims And Objectives: To explore what it is like for children in the family setting to live with parental mental illness.

Background: There are reported risks of negative social and behavioural outcomes among children living with parental mental illness such as poor school performance, isolation and poor mental health. There is yet more to know about how children's interactions with significant members of the family shape their experiences.

Filicide as a cultural practice in Ghana: The qualitative understanding of a family tragedy and its implications for child protection practice.

Background: Contrary to evidence from the Western literature, cases of filicide in Ghana are mostly unreported because they are rooted in cultural practices and hidden from the general public.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore the cultural context of filicide in a rural community. Particularly, to provide an understanding of the spirit child (SC) phenomenon, how the killing of a SC is performed and to provide a general understanding of filicide within a particular context.

Where Do We Go After Surviving the Virus? Cross-Country Documentary Analysis of the Social Consequences Faced by COVID-19 Survivors.

In this study, we attempted to move beyond the skewed discussions on stigma to unravel other social consequences that are experienced by persons who have recovered from COVID-19. We conducted a documentary review of published news reports from 14 highly ranked news portals in Ghana and Malaysia (published between 1st January 2020 and 30th August 2020) that contained personal accounts from the recovered patients about their lived experiences with the virus and social consequences encountered after recovery. Narratives from the recovered patients were extracted and analyzed following the narrative thematic analysis procedure.

Child polyvictimization in Zongo communities in Ghana: Young people's reflections on systemic resilience enablers.

Purpose: Polyvictimization is often commonplace for young people living in violent communities. The situation is no different for young people in Ghanaian Zongo communities where poverty, social disorder and social vices are prevalent due to structural reasons.

Objective: Using the social ecology approach to resilience, the study sought the perspectives of young people about how systemic aspects of community contribute to their positive development in high-risk communities.

Regulating the traditional kinship care practice in Ghana: Reflections from young people with kinship care experience.

Background: Kinship care has become a favourable alternative care option for orphans and vulnerable children without adequate parental care in Ghana. However, kinship care practices in Ghana are considered informal cultural practices without formal regulations. The absence of formal regulations could have consequences on the health and development of children due to the lack of proper supervision and empirical assessment of children's needs.

Exploring the support services of foster care leavers: An institutional ethnographic study.

Research has documented the challenges faced by foster care leavers in their transition to independent living or adult lives revolving around education, employment, accommodation, substance use and criminal involvement. Although studies have investigated the support available to foster care leavers, there is inadequate research on the contribution of social service organisations where most foster leavers receive services. More particularly, in Denmark, child welfare services do not reach foster care leavers as a specific target group beyond 23 years.

Drawing on Kinship Care Support for Older People during a Pandemic (COVID-19): Practice Considerations for Social Workers in Ghana.

Undoubtedly, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought both systemic, practice changes and limitations to social workers' commitment to the welfare of vulnerable populations such as older people. A golden preventive rule of the COVID-19 pandemic; maintaining physical and social distancing, has limited social workers' direct practice support for older people who are considered as an at-risk population. Within jurisdictions such as Ghana where kinship care practices are culturally engrained, social workers should promote kinship care support as substitute mechanisms and pathways to safeguard or meet the welfare needs of older people.

Moving towards independent living in Ghana: Narratives from young adults about their kinship care experience.

Introduction: In most sub-Saharan African countries, studies on the impact of out-of-home care experience on the transition of young adults leaving care are limited to those leaving institutional or foster care with no empirical evidence on the experiences of those moving out of kinship care. This study reports findings from interviews with young adults with experience of kinship care in Ghana, about what lessons their kinship care experiences provided in their transition to adulthood.

Method: Twenty-five young adults aged 21-25 years (17 males, 8 females) with kinship care experience from rural communities in Ghana were purposively selected.