Information and communication technology (ICT) usage in contemporary child welfare practice reflects dominant managerial interests rather than those of the profession, and, importantly, of service users. Explicit use of ICT in the interests of service users remains embryonic, and professionals have been slow to capitalize on the communication potential of new technologies. This contrasts with technology uptake in other areas of human services. Unless this situation changes, client participation and power may decline further and managerial interests increasingly dominate. ICT has the potential to strengthen interaction between families and workers and change the conditions of initiation, distribution and use of spoken and written 'texts' in social work practice. This could significantly affect the ability of service users to be heard and to influence decision making. However, the opportunities and limitations of computer-mediated communication are a relatively new area of study-their application to child welfare requires considerable care. Social workers should explore the advantages that ICT offers service users and challenge the digital divide which still affects significant pockets of service users, and reflect on our own role in this. Here, we ask why social work has been has been slow to capitalize on new approaches to its core business: communication.

Child welfare case management systems were designed, in part, to standardize participatory practices for both young people and their parents. This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study of Australian service users' experiences of participation when using the case management systems, Looking After Children and Supporting Children and Responding to Families. Findings indicate that the majority of service users reported positive experiences of participating in the use of these systems. However, participatory relations were often slow to develop and frequently involved conflict. Some service users used their power to control the flow and accuracy of information, or resisted workers in other ways. Some children and young people were excluded from the opportunity to participate because the systems did not have a ‘text‐based’ format to ‘ensure’ that this process occurred. These findings indicate that case management systems did not result in relationships which consistently informed the intervention in a way that the systems' authors had envisaged. Service users did not necessarily take up the openings offered to them and workers did not necessarily comply with the systems' obligations. The findings cause us to question the assumptions that power can be bestowed or withdrawn, in the way suggested by these case management systems.

This paper investigates the time caseworkers spend supporting long-term foster care and adoption placements. Undertaken in Australia through collaboration between university and nongovernment agency researchers, the 'Cost of Support Study' tracked the hours that caseworkers spent supporting twenty-seven children and their carers over a nine month period. 1 The placements were part of a 'Find-A-Family' program for 'hard to place children', many of whom had previously experienced multiple placement breakdowns. The program has a history of 78% stability on the first placement (over the young person's time in the program) and 93% by the second, with the type of support provided by this accredited agency's program detailed here. The weekly worker diaries reveal an average of 3 hours 32 minutes of worker time per week per placement; however wide variation is apparent in the time given to each placement, and depends on the characteristics of the child involved. Further, the resources required to support each placement are found by multiplying worker hours by the hourly cost per worker, using New South Wales government costings. The paper contributes to the important debate regarding the link between worker time and stability in care, by deepening our understanding of the costs involved in providing high quality support and supervision of casework.

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Semi-structured interviews were used to explore identity development for nine adoptees (aged 9-23 years) who were adopted by their foster carers in NSW, Australia. Adoptions were open, with court-ordered face-to-face contact with birth families. Findings suggest that participants had healthy adoptive identities, with coherent and meaningful narrative about their life histories. Adoption provided a sense of security and belonging. Openness provided information to build a self-narrative and encouraged discussion of adoption issues within adoptive families. Adoptive parents were critical in helping children understand their adoption and facilitating direct contact with birth families, thus laying foundations for positive identity development.