Academic Publications

1965. Fear & Courage, edited by Renee Hollis, Emotional Inheritance, Exisle Publishing Pty Ltd, Australia & New Zealand, 2019

1500 word memoir about a 21-year-old social worker who isn’t as smart as she thinks she is and gets into trouble with a back-woods farmer who speaks gun.

2017, Guelph, ON, Rural Ontario Institute, co-authored with Kauppi, C; O’Grady; B, Schiff, R; Martin, F; Ontario Municipal Social Services Association, research funded by Ontario Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs.

In-depth description of homelessness in rural and northern communities across Ontario, with policy and practice recommendations written for the provincial government.

View online.

(2013); Arts Council ~ Haliburton Highlands.

Unpublished analysis of economic and social data of local artists. It described a sharply bi-modal earning picture among Arts Council members which nevertheless had a significant financial and social impact on the County.

2013, research funded by Government of Canada Homelessness Partnering Strategy, web-published.

A narrative-based study of 48 youth between 16 and 30 who were raised rurally in the County of Haliburton, City of Kawartha Lakes, and Peterborough County, plus youth in six focus groups, and key informants. Youth remained in or returned to rural areas, or moved to urban areas. They self-identified as at risk of homelessness, broadly defined. The full direct scribed interviews were published to a web-site, no longer functional; with participants agreement, the data remains available for any purpose consistent with the intent of the research.

Viewpoint, a publication of Canadian Pensioners Concerned, Ontario Division, vol 37, issue 4, December 2011; reprinted in Minden Times, Dec 28, 2011.

A somewhat acerbic analysis of the impact on services in rural communities of bottom-line thinking that devalues informal, unpaid services on which rural communities operate.

S Voisin, Ed.D (2007)

An inclusion research project designed by me, funded by City of Kawartha Lakes, conducted by parents under my guidance, co-analyzed and reported by an independent assessor. The focus was to elicit community guidance as the future of the local school was in question.

by Catherine Kohler Riessman & Lee Quinney, Qualitative Social Work, 4, 4, 391-412, 2005

An interrogation by academic Riessman and practitioner Quinney of how narrative is used in social work research. My research (based on direct scribing article) is one of three exemplars selected from among 200 studies based on Riessman’s exacting criteria.

Family Services of Haliburton County, funded by Clarica Foundation in conjunction with Institute for the Study of Children at Risk, McMaster University. (2003)

An action research project designed to encourage municipal investment in recreational opportunities for local children, within the context of a seasonal recreational economy that rendered the County the poorest or second-poorest jurisdiction in the province. All grades 1,4,7 and 9 students in the County (N=542) students were surveyed with a questionnaire for data intended to be comparable with Census Canada data. The results were presented to the four municipal governments and the adjoining municipality which is the provincial conduit for children’s funding. The project was illuminating but not successful in procuring on-going local investment.

Child Welfare: Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice, Kathleen Kufeldt & Brad McKenzie, editors (2003)

Based on a 2000 presentation to Child Welfare League of Canada, and derived from doctoral research, describes how the languages of care and order operate within the child welfare system. The order perspective (called ‘justice’ by Carol Gilligan who developed the dialectic) is based on roles, rules and reciprocity; the care perspective is inclusive, responsive to the needs of others, and minimizes harm. The perspectives are seen as associated with gender.

Unpublished manuscript, (1999)

Full data gathered from 24 participants on which doctoral research was based, including each participant’s direct-scribed interview and their analysis of their story as a life transition event (as per Joseph Campbell).

Community Alternatives, 9, 2, 67-85 (1997)

Self-narratives of Julie, a parenting child who effectively used the care system, and Tim, whose experience was less positive and whose son may well be headed into care.

Child and Family Social Work, 3,1, 1-12 (1998)

A detailed description and analysis of the data-collection technique used in doctoral research. Includes a strong philosophical/ethical case for narrative data in qualitative research.

(with Teresa Palmer), Community Alternatives, 9, 2, 29-60 (1997) Reprinted as Transitions to Adulthood: a Youth Perspective by National Youth in Care Network, Child Welfare League of Canada, Canadian Foster Care Association 1997.

Analysis of data gathered from nine focus groups in three Canadian provinces involving 57 young people who had been raised in child welfare care, conducted by Teresa Palmer, a young person who had been in care. The focus was on seven content areas from the Looking After Children protocol. It recommends further consultation with youth to devise a client-centred approach to emancipation from child welfare care.

Health Canada Community Support Development Program (1997)

Analysis of a collaborative alternative school designed and operated by 8 disparate agencies that served street-oriented youth at high risk for substance abuse, after 7 years of operation and in the context of significant political change. The paper is designed to guide the process of reconsidering the program and as a guide for others who might wish to replicate it.

(1998), unpublished PhD thesis, Bristol

Narrative research of 24 18-year-old youth, half of each sex, raised in the care of Toronto Children’s Aid Society, exploring their experience in and leaving child welfare care. One finding: boys come into care earlier and leave later.

Youth in Transition: Perspectives on Research and Policy, Burt Galaway & Joe Hudson, Eds., Thompson Educational Publishing, Toronto (1996)

Analysis of census data of 29 youth who turned 18 in 1994 and were in child welfare care of Toronto CAS after their 16th birthday, compared to their age cohort. They fare poorly; the transition to legal adulthood is early and unsupported, boys often ‘graduate’ to illicit activity and girls to early motherhood. Does this reflect primarily the choices of society or of the children it publicly parented?

1996, prepared for Child Welfare League of Canada, Canadian Foster Family Association, National Youth in Care Network.

Generously described collection of relevant published and grey literature in Canada, UK and USA to 1996.

Canada’s Children, summer 1995, 21-24.

A gender analysis of the experience of youth at 18 raised in the child welfare system, with respect to race, education, employment, parenting, and mobility. One conclusion: ‘Given the position that young people leaving care occupy within society, we must consider that young women becoming mothers and young men engaging in illegal behaviour are making well-informed and rational choices. The choices that we as state parents make are much more difficult to rationalize and defend.’

Unpublished paper presented at Invitational Research Conference on Preparing Foster Youth for Adult Living, University of Illinois, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1993.

An analysis of the intersection of four modalities of service (individual, group, milieu, advocacy/community development) and five content foci (housing, employment, education/literacy, practical skills, relationship skills) over seven years of operation of the Pape Adolescent Resource Centre, a program that serves youth aging out of child welfare care in Toronto. PARC’s annual reports (1896-1992) are the data underlying the paper. The shortcomings of research to contextualize the efficacy of PARC or similar programs is clearly the foundation for my subsequent doctoral work.

(with Georgina White), Canadian Journal of Criminology, 30,4 (1988)

A retrospective file study of 38 West Indian children, compared with a matched group of Canadian children, served by the Toronto Family Court Clinic from 1981-83. It focuses on the misfit between West Indian and legal/psychiatric cultures, and the stresses of serial migration and racism on family and individual functioning.

(with Norman McLeod), Citizen Participation: Canada. A Book of Readings. James Draper, Ed., New Press, Toronto (1971)

A subjective comparison of community development work in Hawke’s Bay and Cox’s Cove, Nfld in 1968-70 under the aegis of Frontier College, funded by the Newfoundland Department of Community and Social Development.

(with Norman McLeod) Continuous Learning 9, 4-5 (1970); Journal of the Canadian Association for Adult Education, x, pgs 149-158.

A subjective reflection on a Frontier College pilot project using a husband-wife team to do community development in an under-performing outport near Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, within the broader Resettlement Project of the time.