“My second mum and dad” - Grandparents Plus

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Appendix B The study Participants and procedure Permission to carry out the study was obtained from the University of Oxford Ethics Committee. Children, aged 11-16, were recruited from 1010 schools drawn from the School Government Publishing Company's list using probability proportionate to size sampling. Advance letters detailing the purpose of the study were sent to the sampled schools. Included in the letter was a return slip for the school to complete to indicate their willingness to take part in the study, and, if willing, to provide a contact name of the person at the school who would be in charge of arranging the survey process. Surveys were conducted with children in one year per school, chosen using random allocation. A class within each year was also randomly chosen. Children filled out anonymous questionnaires in class, and returned their questionnaires in a sealed envelope. In all, 103 schools indicated their willingness to take part in the study, and 70 returned questionnaires. The original sample was 1566 secondary school aged children. Measures Contextual and structural factors were gender, age, free school meals (FSM) eligibility, and Special Educational Needs (SEN) status. Adverse life events were assessed with Tiet et al.'s Adverse Life Events scale which in this study measured number of adverse life events experienced in the last year. This scale is composed of 25 possible events for which children had little or no control over (e.g., 'someone in the family died', 'negative change in parents' financial situation'), and is a modification of the Life Events Checklist which has acceptable validity and test-retest reliability. The LEC is a measure of exposure to potentially traumatic events developed at the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to facilitate the diagnosis of PTSD. Psychopathology and prosocial behavior were assessed with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), a 25-item 3-point scale (ranging from 0-2) scale measuring four difficulties (hyperactivity, emotional symptoms, conduct problems, and peer problems), as well as prosocial behavior. Each subscale had five items. A total difficulties (broad psychopathology) scale is calculated by summing the scores for hyperactivity, emotional symptoms, conduct problems, and peer problems (www.sdqinfo.com). Academic achievement was measured with the children's results in Standard Attainment Tests (SATs) taken at the end of primary school (Key Stage 2). SATs are statutory tests in the Core subjects of the National Curriculum. At the end of Key Stage 2 (when children are aged 10-11), children have to take national tests in English, mathematics and science. There are certain levels which children should attain. According to the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the expected level for children at the end of Key Stage 2 is 4. As the study sample was in secondary school, Key Stage 2 SATs results could be obtained from all students. Closeness to grandparents was measured with Elder and King's scale of grandparent-grandchildren relationship quality. Children indicated on 4-point scales (ranging from 1-4) the extent to which they could depend on their grandparent, the extent to which they felt appreciated, loved or cared for by their grandparent, the extent to which the grandparent helped them in significant ways, the extent to which they perceived happiness in their relationship with their grandparent, and the extent to which they were close compared to other grandchildren to the grandparent. The grandparent who received the highest scale score was identified as the closest grandparent. Additional criteria, as suggested and used by Elder and King were used to identify the closest grandparent if more than one close grandparent was identified. These criteria were frequency of contact (the grandparent that they saw or talked to most was rated as the most significant), gender of grandparent (the same-sex grandparent was rated as the most significant), and lineage (maternal grandmother was chosen first, followed by maternal grandfather and then paternal grandparents). My second mum and dad / 38
Area risk was measured with the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), a weighted area-level aggregation of specific dimensions of deprivation. The dimensions of deprivation used to construct the English IMD 2004, for instance, were 1) income deprivation, 2) employment deprivation, 3) health deprivation and disability, 4) education, skills and training deprivation, 5) barriers to housing and services, 6) living environment deprivation, and 7) crime. The schools' postcodes were used to identify the level of local area risk. As the English IMD and the Welsh IMD are not comparable IMD ranks were used, which for the purposes of this study were standardized. In-depth Interviews. These were conducted by two young researchers from the University of Oxford. The sample was derived from the young people who responded to the survey. The parents of those young people in the survey who agreed to talk further (the final section of the questionnaire asked the teens if they would happy to talk to a researchers) were randomly approached by the survey company and asked if they would be willing to meet up with the researchers from the University of Oxford. The first 40 young people who agreed to be interviewed met up with the researchers. The young people came from all over England and Wales. Interviews were transcribed and entered into Nvivo for analysis using a cross-case thematic 'framework' approach. This approach is of particular use in studies where objectives are pre-set and there is a need to link the analysis to quantitative findings. A thematic framework was constructed and systematically applied to interview transcripts; the results were then charted according to key themes for researcher interpretation. Representativeness a) Survey: 1566 young people The survey was carried out in 2007 and was designed to be representative of young people in England and Wales age 11-16. The resulting sample was checked against national statistics (Office for National Statistics, 2007). The sample was indeed broadly representative of children in England and Wales. There were approximately equal percentages of males (50.8%) and females (49.2%) aged 11 to 16 years old (M = 13.38, SD = 1.40). The majority (64.8%) of children were from intact families, 17.1% were from lone-parent families (national rate = 24%) (Office of National Statistics, 2007). Furthermore, 15.9% were from stepfamilies and approximately 3.2% of the children were living in households with other types of living arrangement (such as with a grandparent, an older sibling, or another relative). About 9% of the sample reported having been excluded from school at some time and 18.9% as having received free school meals at some point in their lives (in the UK all children whose families receive state benefits are eligible for free school meals). In the sample, 90.3% recorded their ethnicity as White and this is broadly comparable to the national rate, 92.1% (Office of National Statistics, 2007). b) In-depth Interviews: 40 young people The interviewees were broadly representative of the total survey sample (and, in turn, young people in England and Wales) in terms of gender (just over half being male) and age (mean = 13.4, range = 11-16). Young people taking part in the interviews were primarily white British (n = 29), the remainder: black African (n = 3), Asian (n = 4) and white European (n = 4). Most of the young people lived in urban/suburban (n = 28) areas with the reminder (n = 12) residing in rural areas, villages and small towns. The majority of interviewees lived with both biological parents (n = 27, 64.8% in the survey) with roughly equal proportions of the remaining interviewees living with just their mother (n = 5, 17.4% in the survey) or their mother and her partner (n = 6, 15.3% in the survey) - two were living with their grandmother, but had regular contact with their mother. My second mum and dad / 39
Page 1 and 2: Report/August 2009 This research wa
Page 3 and 4: Summary Main findings Grandparents
Page 5 and 6: However young people were prepared
Page 7 and 8: The study This is the first nationa
Page 9 and 10: Figure 2.1 Percentage of living gra
Page 11 and 12: Chapter 2 references 2.1 Broad, 200
Page 13 and 14: Figure 3.1 Grandparents relationshi
Page 15 and 16: Table 3.1 Young people's views on h
Page 17 and 18: The current study Table 4.1 Percent
Page 19 and 20: Chapter 5 Involvement with grandchi
Page 21 and 22: Chapter 5 references 5.1 Clarke and
Page 23 and 24: Strong findings from the current st
Page 25 and 26: Chapter 6 references 6.1 Hunt, 2008
Page 27 and 28: The current study Table 7.1 Adversi
Page 29 and 30: Chapter 8 Children’s rights to st
Page 31 and 32: ‘That would be a problem for me b
Page 33 and 34: ‘I don’t think there’s anythi
Page 35 and 36: Chapter 9 The policy debate - a res
Page 37 and 38: Appendix A References Bengtson, V.
Page 39: Kennedy, G. E. and Kennedy, C. E. (
Page 43 and 44: Summary of hierarchical regression
Page 45 and 46: C.3. Grandparent involvement in dif
Page 47: Grandparents Plus 18 Victoria Park

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