Integrating work and family demands can be challenging for families caring for a child with one or more disabilities. The pandemic and its changes to work, schooling and service delivery potentially added to these challenges. This exploratory mixed methods study sought to understand how the pandemic affected adoptive parents' work-life fit and service use. A total of 200 participants responded to survey questions about parenting an adopted child with a disability prior to, and after, the onset of Covid-19. More than half of the parents (59.2%) reported that it was somewhat to very difficult to integrate both work and family demands. Parents with greater access to workplace flexibility and supportive supervisors had significantly less difficulties combining work and family. Families who reported more problems with accessing mental health services, special education and respite care reported significantly more challenges with work-family fit. Parents reported increased stress due to the pandemic changes, but many also shared positive changes such as more time for family.Online services were experienced as effective for some children and reduced time spent driving to appointments. Recommendations for workplace and social service practice and policy supporting adoptive parents of children with disabilities are discussed.
informed and female-specific. While the book succeeds with contextualizing the lives of women in the criminal justice system in terms of experiences with trauma and loss, exploitative relationships, and addiction issues, there is little exploration of the intersectionality of gender with race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability. Providing a critical lens on how systems of oppression intersect to result in further disenfranchisement would have made for an even greater book. In addition, those who seek a guide to developing a similar curriculum will have to seek the information elsewhere. The book makes a strong contribution to locating female criminality amid tragic circumstances, abuse, discrimination, and inequalities. Release of the women's stories could inform social work practice through the attention to the environmental forces that contribute to problems in living. As the accounts act to emphasize the importance of valuing the dignity and worth of the person, the book would be a useful addition to the reading list of forensic social work students, practitioners, and educators.
Immigrant parents may struggle to secure and maintain employment if they raise children with disabilities. The current study examines data from immigrant parents responding to the 2018 National Survey of Children’s Health, including 618 raising children with special health care needs (CSHCN) and 2937 parenting children needing typical care. Parents of CSHCN had higher levels of both aggravation and resilience, but less access to a medical home than parents with typical care responsibilities. Immigrants were less likely to change jobs, but more likely to cut back work hours, or quit work, if they had CSHCNs lacking a medical home, missing more school days, and living in unsafe neighborhoods. Parents of CHSHNs also spent substantial time coordinating care and providing health care at home. Results indicate the need for service providers to connect immigrant families with CSHCNs with culturally supportive organizations that can help them handle family responsibilities while maintaining employment.
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