Anita Gibbs
Biographic Data
| ID | 4431523 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anita Gibbs |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anita |
| FAMILY NAME | Gibbs |
| SIGNATURE | GIBBS A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Otago |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8286-159X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 61 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 23 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Neurodivergent Patients in Forensic Mental Health Wards
This scoping study aims to identify patient‐centered care recommendations for neurodivergent forensic mental health in‐patients. The offending neurodivergent population is currently understudied and over‐represented in forensic mental health services. This is causing individuals to receive inadequate care and increasing staff harm. To address this problem, a scoping study of existing literature has been conducted using the review question: What a…
Māori caregivers’ experiences of parenting a person with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder
Little has been written about the living experiences of Māori caregivers who parent children living with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Te Iho Tātai-ā-Rongo (FASD) in Aotearoa. This study, of 14 Māori caregivers, focused on health and wellbeing and parenting strategies. Eight of the caregivers were whānau caregivers who were parenting children from extended family, and six other Māori caregivers were parenting children not known to them. Semi-…
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
‘It's my brain why don’t they get that my brain is different?’
Having a neuro-disability or neurodivergent condition can impact a person's vulnerability to involvement with the criminal justice system, as well as increase their vulnerability to harm as a result of ignorant and punitive practices from others. With data showing that rates of neuro-disability can be as high as 89% in some justice settings, it is imperative that criminal justice social workers become trained and informed in best neuro-informed p…
Using living experience and practitioner research to create unique programmes providing help for caregivers, professionals and students to increase support for children living with Foetal Alcohol Spec…
In this article, I draw on my intersectional identities as a caregiver of a child with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, as a registered social worker with extensive experience in the justice sector, and as an employed educator and researcher at a tertiary institute, to explore how I have used these multiple identities to create new initiatives that support families where Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is an issue, and introduce critical disabi…
Women, Crime and Justice in Context
In the contemporary era of the securitisation of risk, control of migration is becoming an increasingly important task for contemporary policing and criminal justice agencies, particularly in the Australian context. This chapter explores border control from a criminological perspective and introduces key concepts around “crimmigration” and theoretical perspectives on the criminalisation of migration. This chapter pays particular attention to the …
Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder
Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disability that often requires extensive intervention and support from the helping professions, notably social work. This article considers why a social work response to FASD is needed and explores social work frameworks and models that underpin current FASD-informed practice. It illustrates the discussion with three international models used in Canada and New Zealand, the K…
New Zealand’s Home for Life Policy
In Aotearoa/New Zealand, finding a permanent home for a child, outside of the birth parent’s care, generally occurs in the most severe cases of abuse and/or neglect. In these instances, significant care and protection concerns persist, making reunification between the child and their birth parents contrary to the child’s best interests. Thus, social work efforts become centred on establishing permanent care arrangements with either whānau (extend…
Walking between worlds’
In New Zealand between 1955 and 1985 over 45,000 closed stranger adoptions took place. The Adoption Act 1955 promoted the closed adoption of many Indigenous Māori children into Pākehā (white European) families. Such adoptions severed the ancestral, familial and cultural connections for thousands of Māori children. Although the Adoption Act 1955 is still the current legislation in place in New Zealand, the late 1970s saw open adoption become accep…
Pathways to parenting in New Zealand
In New Zealand there are many ways to become a parent, including two‐parent families of heterosexual and homosexual couples, single parents, adoptive parents, kin carers, whāngai arrangements, long‐term fostering, guardianship and assisted reproductive technologies. In this paper we discuss the different pathways to parenthood, how they have come about, and New Zealand's laws, policies and practices that make them possible but also challenging. T…
Going to the Courts Twice
The policy of re-adoption for UK-citizen parents of intercountry adopted children is designed to protect children and safeguard their best interests, but in fact may breach a variety of rights and international Conventions, and when applied to specific cases can lead to more harm than good. In this review, I want to argue that the policy of re-adoption be reconsidered to minimise the distress to families when they return to the UK with their alre…
Having to adopt children twice is not in the children's best interests’
In 2007, my husband and I adopted two boys from Russia as New Zealand citizens. We complied with all the detailed legal requirements of New Zealand adoption policy and law, as well as with Russian intercountry adoption (ICA) regulations. In 2009, we decided to return to the UK, our country of birth, where we had lived until 1999. We wished to bring our legally adopted boys to the UK with a view to returning to the UK permanently. The UK adoption …
Coping with Compulsion
An interview-based study of 42 people with serious mental illness was undertaken in New Zealand during the early 2000s. Of the 42 people, 10 were women. The women were either currently on a Community Treatment Order or had been recently discharged from a long period of being on a Community Treatment Order. Analysis of the original interview data revealed how these women experienced both benefits and limitations under conditions of compulsory comm…
It's a bonus, without it I wouldn't even have a visit’
Supervised contact centres, where a child may maintain contact with a parent (mother or father) in a safe and supervised environment, have been available in New Zealand since the early 1990s. This article explores the services provided by such centres, previous research on the topic and describes the experiences of 12 parents participating in supervised contact arrangements at centres. Parents' overall experiences of supervised contact centres ar…
Family Perspective on Community Treatment Orders
Background: People with serious mental disorders typically live with family members. Despite increasing interest in compulsory community treatment for such patients, the experience and views of their family members have been little studied. Material: Qualitative interviews with 27 family members, whose relatives have been subject to compulsory community treatment. Discussion and conclusions: Family members are generally in favour of the use of co…
An exploration of kaupapa Maori research, its principles, processes and applications
Kaupapa Maori research developed as part of a broader movement by Maori to question westernized notions of knowledge, culture, and research. Kaupapa Maori research has been used as both a form of resistance and a methodological strategy, wherein research is conceived, developed, and carried out by Maori, and the end outcome is to benefit Maori. This piece reviews the development and main principles of kaupapa Maori research, and it also describes…
Community Treatment Orders for People with Serious Mental Illness
New Zealand legislation allows for the involuntary outpatient treatment of people with serious mental illness. This study examines the views of service users, family members and mental health professionals (MHPs) about the impact of this regime. Semi-structured interviews were completed with forty-two service users, twenty-seven family members and ninety MHPs, with recent experience of the regime. Participants were asked to comment on the functio…
A Letter from New Zealand
Women who offend
The following piece describes the findings of a Masters project in social work, undertaken in New Zealand, which looked at women's experience of crime and their perceptions of various interventions from the criminal justice system. The views of probation officers were also explored. The experiences of six 'women as criminals' interviewed for the project were invariably based on histories of being victims of physical, psychological and sexual abus…
Alternatives to Custody in the New Zealand Criminal Justice System
Alternatives to custody in New Zealand have followed a format similar to criminal justice systems in the UK and other European countries but with a stronger emphasis on both punitive, work‐based options like periodic detention, and more recently home detention, as well as restorative justice models. Much of current practice relies heavily on the now dated Criminal Justice Act 1985. However, a new sentencing and parole act is proposed for 2002. In…
Social work and empowerment-based research
Social work research, emphasising the use of rigorous, scientific and evidence-based approaches, has a tendency to exclude the subjects or participants of research, from either acting in co-researcher capacity, or from significantly influencing the course that research involving them will take. This article highlights the need for an inclusive approach with an aim to empower participants, through their greater participation in and decision-making…
Partnership between the probation service and voluntary sector organizations
This paper considers the development of inter-agency partnerships between the probation service and voluntary sector organizations in the early 1990s in England and Wales and reports the results of research by the author and their implications for youth justice arrangements outlined in the recent 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. The article outlines the development of probation partnerships and the impact of changes to probation services, voluntary o…
The Forgotten Voice
Throughout the 1990s this journal has featured articles discussing themes and issues related to probation partnerships with the voluntary sector. A missing element and valid perspective in these articles has been the viewpoint of the service user. In seeking to remedy this omission the author draws on her PhD research, which included interviews with 15 probation service users attending partnership projects. An overview of the users'experiences an…
An exploration of kaupapa Maori research, its principles, processes and applications
Kaupapa Maori research developed as part of a broader movement by Maori to question westernized notions of knowledge, culture, and research. Kaupapa Maori research has been used as both a form of resistance and a methodological strategy, wherein research is conceived, developed, and carried out by Maori, and the end outcome is to benefit Maori. This piece reviews the development and main principles of kaupapa Maori research, and it also describes…
Walking between worlds’
In New Zealand between 1955 and 1985 over 45,000 closed stranger adoptions took place. The Adoption Act 1955 promoted the closed adoption of many Indigenous Māori children into Pākehā (white European) families. Such adoptions severed the ancestral, familial and cultural connections for thousands of Māori children. Although the Adoption Act 1955 is still the current legislation in place in New Zealand, the late 1970s saw open adoption become accep…
Social work and empowerment-based research
Social work research, emphasising the use of rigorous, scientific and evidence-based approaches, has a tendency to exclude the subjects or participants of research, from either acting in co-researcher capacity, or from significantly influencing the course that research involving them will take. This article highlights the need for an inclusive approach with an aim to empower participants, through their greater participation in and decision-making…
Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder
Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disability that often requires extensive intervention and support from the helping professions, notably social work. This article considers why a social work response to FASD is needed and explores social work frameworks and models that underpin current FASD-informed practice. It illustrates the discussion with three international models used in Canada and New Zealand, the K…
Pathways to parenting in New Zealand
In New Zealand there are many ways to become a parent, including two‐parent families of heterosexual and homosexual couples, single parents, adoptive parents, kin carers, whāngai arrangements, long‐term fostering, guardianship and assisted reproductive technologies. In this paper we discuss the different pathways to parenthood, how they have come about, and New Zealand's laws, policies and practices that make them possible but also challenging. T…
New Zealand’s Home for Life Policy
In Aotearoa/New Zealand, finding a permanent home for a child, outside of the birth parent’s care, generally occurs in the most severe cases of abuse and/or neglect. In these instances, significant care and protection concerns persist, making reunification between the child and their birth parents contrary to the child’s best interests. Thus, social work efforts become centred on establishing permanent care arrangements with either whānau (extend…
Coping with Compulsion
An interview-based study of 42 people with serious mental illness was undertaken in New Zealand during the early 2000s. Of the 42 people, 10 were women. The women were either currently on a Community Treatment Order or had been recently discharged from a long period of being on a Community Treatment Order. Analysis of the original interview data revealed how these women experienced both benefits and limitations under conditions of compulsory comm…
The Forgotten Voice
Throughout the 1990s this journal has featured articles discussing themes and issues related to probation partnerships with the voluntary sector. A missing element and valid perspective in these articles has been the viewpoint of the service user. In seeking to remedy this omission the author draws on her PhD research, which included interviews with 15 probation service users attending partnership projects. An overview of the users'experiences an…
Social work and empowerment-based research
Social work research, emphasising the use of rigorous, scientific and evidence-based approaches, has a tendency to exclude the subjects or participants of research, from either acting in co-researcher capacity, or from significantly influencing the course that research involving them will take. This article highlights the need for an inclusive approach with an aim to empower participants, through their greater participation in and decision-making…
Partnership between the probation service and voluntary sector organizations
This paper considers the development of inter-agency partnerships between the probation service and voluntary sector organizations in the early 1990s in England and Wales and reports the results of research by the author and their implications for youth justice arrangements outlined in the recent 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. The article outlines the development of probation partnerships and the impact of changes to probation services, voluntary o…
Women who offend
The following piece describes the findings of a Masters project in social work, undertaken in New Zealand, which looked at women's experience of crime and their perceptions of various interventions from the criminal justice system. The views of probation officers were also explored. The experiences of six 'women as criminals' interviewed for the project were invariably based on histories of being victims of physical, psychological and sexual abus…
Alternatives to Custody in the New Zealand Criminal Justice System
Alternatives to custody in New Zealand have followed a format similar to criminal justice systems in the UK and other European countries but with a stronger emphasis on both punitive, work‐based options like periodic detention, and more recently home detention, as well as restorative justice models. Much of current practice relies heavily on the now dated Criminal Justice Act 1985. However, a new sentencing and parole act is proposed for 2002. In…
A Letter from New Zealand
Community Treatment Orders for People with Serious Mental Illness
New Zealand legislation allows for the involuntary outpatient treatment of people with serious mental illness. This study examines the views of service users, family members and mental health professionals (MHPs) about the impact of this regime. Semi-structured interviews were completed with forty-two service users, twenty-seven family members and ninety MHPs, with recent experience of the regime. Participants were asked to comment on the functio…
Family Perspective on Community Treatment Orders
Background: People with serious mental disorders typically live with family members. Despite increasing interest in compulsory community treatment for such patients, the experience and views of their family members have been little studied. Material: Qualitative interviews with 27 family members, whose relatives have been subject to compulsory community treatment. Discussion and conclusions: Family members are generally in favour of the use of co…
An exploration of kaupapa Maori research, its principles, processes and applications
Kaupapa Maori research developed as part of a broader movement by Maori to question westernized notions of knowledge, culture, and research. Kaupapa Maori research has been used as both a form of resistance and a methodological strategy, wherein research is conceived, developed, and carried out by Maori, and the end outcome is to benefit Maori. This piece reviews the development and main principles of kaupapa Maori research, and it also describes…
It's a bonus, without it I wouldn't even have a visit’
Supervised contact centres, where a child may maintain contact with a parent (mother or father) in a safe and supervised environment, have been available in New Zealand since the early 1990s. This article explores the services provided by such centres, previous research on the topic and describes the experiences of 12 parents participating in supervised contact arrangements at centres. Parents' overall experiences of supervised contact centres ar…
Coping with Compulsion
An interview-based study of 42 people with serious mental illness was undertaken in New Zealand during the early 2000s. Of the 42 people, 10 were women. The women were either currently on a Community Treatment Order or had been recently discharged from a long period of being on a Community Treatment Order. Analysis of the original interview data revealed how these women experienced both benefits and limitations under conditions of compulsory comm…
Going to the Courts Twice
The policy of re-adoption for UK-citizen parents of intercountry adopted children is designed to protect children and safeguard their best interests, but in fact may breach a variety of rights and international Conventions, and when applied to specific cases can lead to more harm than good. In this review, I want to argue that the policy of re-adoption be reconsidered to minimise the distress to families when they return to the UK with their alre…
Having to adopt children twice is not in the children's best interests’
In 2007, my husband and I adopted two boys from Russia as New Zealand citizens. We complied with all the detailed legal requirements of New Zealand adoption policy and law, as well as with Russian intercountry adoption (ICA) regulations. In 2009, we decided to return to the UK, our country of birth, where we had lived until 1999. We wished to bring our legally adopted boys to the UK with a view to returning to the UK permanently. The UK adoption …
Pathways to parenting in New Zealand
In New Zealand there are many ways to become a parent, including two‐parent families of heterosexual and homosexual couples, single parents, adoptive parents, kin carers, whāngai arrangements, long‐term fostering, guardianship and assisted reproductive technologies. In this paper we discuss the different pathways to parenthood, how they have come about, and New Zealand's laws, policies and practices that make them possible but also challenging. T…
Walking between worlds’
In New Zealand between 1955 and 1985 over 45,000 closed stranger adoptions took place. The Adoption Act 1955 promoted the closed adoption of many Indigenous Māori children into Pākehā (white European) families. Such adoptions severed the ancestral, familial and cultural connections for thousands of Māori children. Although the Adoption Act 1955 is still the current legislation in place in New Zealand, the late 1970s saw open adoption become accep…
New Zealand’s Home for Life Policy
In Aotearoa/New Zealand, finding a permanent home for a child, outside of the birth parent’s care, generally occurs in the most severe cases of abuse and/or neglect. In these instances, significant care and protection concerns persist, making reunification between the child and their birth parents contrary to the child’s best interests. Thus, social work efforts become centred on establishing permanent care arrangements with either whānau (extend…
Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder
Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disability that often requires extensive intervention and support from the helping professions, notably social work. This article considers why a social work response to FASD is needed and explores social work frameworks and models that underpin current FASD-informed practice. It illustrates the discussion with three international models used in Canada and New Zealand, the K…
Women, Crime and Justice in Context
In the contemporary era of the securitisation of risk, control of migration is becoming an increasingly important task for contemporary policing and criminal justice agencies, particularly in the Australian context. This chapter explores border control from a criminological perspective and introduces key concepts around “crimmigration” and theoretical perspectives on the criminalisation of migration. This chapter pays particular attention to the …
Using living experience and practitioner research to create unique programmes providing help for caregivers, professionals and students to increase support for children living with Foetal Alcohol Spec…
In this article, I draw on my intersectional identities as a caregiver of a child with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, as a registered social worker with extensive experience in the justice sector, and as an employed educator and researcher at a tertiary institute, to explore how I have used these multiple identities to create new initiatives that support families where Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is an issue, and introduce critical disabi…
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
‘It's my brain why don’t they get that my brain is different?’
Having a neuro-disability or neurodivergent condition can impact a person's vulnerability to involvement with the criminal justice system, as well as increase their vulnerability to harm as a result of ignorant and punitive practices from others. With data showing that rates of neuro-disability can be as high as 89% in some justice settings, it is imperative that criminal justice social workers become trained and informed in best neuro-informed p…
Neurodivergent Patients in Forensic Mental Health Wards
This scoping study aims to identify patient‐centered care recommendations for neurodivergent forensic mental health in‐patients. The offending neurodivergent population is currently understudied and over‐represented in forensic mental health services. This is causing individuals to receive inadequate care and increasing staff harm. To address this problem, a scoping study of existing literature has been conducted using the review question: What a…
Māori caregivers’ experiences of parenting a person with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder
Little has been written about the living experiences of Māori caregivers who parent children living with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Te Iho Tātai-ā-Rongo (FASD) in Aotearoa. This study, of 14 Māori caregivers, focused on health and wellbeing and parenting strategies. Eight of the caregivers were whānau caregivers who were parenting children from extended family, and six other Māori caregivers were parenting children not known to them. Semi-…
Political science (13 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Medicine (8 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (6 works) · Psychiatry (6 works) · Child Welfare and Adoption (5 works)