Zhang, M L, Cheung, S M, Scourfield, J and Sharland, Elaine (2018) Comparing fathers and mothers who have social work contact: a research note. Social Work Research. ISSN 1070-5309

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Abstract

High quality evidence about the characteristics of fathers who have contact with social workers is relatively scant. This research note uses a British birth cohort study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (n=13,988), to describe and compare the characteristics of fathers and mothers who have had contact with a social worker and to examine the predictors of social work contact. The research note demonstrates the use of classification trees, as an alternative approach to logistic regression, for predicting social work contact. Classification trees have the advantage of not requiring researchers to specify interactions in advance and allow for the creation of more complicated predictive models. Just four variables predicted social work contact in the classification tree model: the respondent having experienced a job loss over the last year, alcohol problems, depression, and emotional cruelty from a partner. We find that the gender of the respondent did not help predict social work contact after other factors are accounted for, and the predictors of social work contact were similar for both fathers and mothers.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Education and Social Work > Social Work and Social Care
Subjects:	L Education
Depositing User:	Deeptima Massey
Date Deposited:	17 Oct 2016 10:32
Last Modified:	04 Jan 2020 02:00
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/64788

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