A kutatás célja annak vizsgálata, hogy a hazai gyermekvédelmi szakellátás rendszerében milyen nevelési értékek azonosíthatók, illetve, hogy a rendszer két nagy egységében – nevelőszülői és intézményes ellátás – vannak-e a nevelési értékek tekintetében különbségek. Továbbá vizsgáljuk azt is, hogy a gyermekvédelmi szakemberek és az ellátott gyermekek és fiatal felnőttek hogyan reflektálnak a nevelési értékekre: melyek ezek az egyes szereplők szerint, és hogyan épülnek be a gondozási-nevelési folyamatba. Kvalitatív kutatási eredményeink azt mutatják, hogy a gyermekvédelem strukturális problémái égetőek, melyek nagyban meghatározzák a nevelésről való vélekedéseket.

Following a discussion about ethics and social work, in this article, we will present the main results of three researches conducted in the past few years on the Hungarian child protection system. These studies highlight the professional gaps, the prejudiced beliefs related to the primary (children) and secondary (parents) client systems of child protection, the value crisis in professional mentalities, and the crisis of the profession in general. We argue that a change in mentalities and professional treatment in the operational practice requires a thorough reconsideration of the ethical dimensions of child protection to the extent of developing and introducing their own code of ethics. As the helping profession is actively involved in the transformation of the welfare state, in parallel with restructuring welfare conditions, we should reconsider how the scarce methodological framework for practice at the national level can cope with problems and how it can emancipate the clients and serve their well-being. The research results indicate that the direction of development is to create an activating and mobilizing helper system that can preserve the core values of the profession as well as adapt to social changes and reflect on the expectations of the public policy thereof.

The study is reflecting on the nature and features of social work with families with children, attempting to discuss social work as assistance and apprehension and to detect whether there is any causal link between the efficiency of social work and the narrative approach and the “unstoried”, “faceless” condition of the families. We argue that professional attitude aimed at providing child protection support is not possible without knowing the story of families with children. Without a helping attitude, no real social work is possible, and thus the client remains invisible and faceless in the process of child welfare or child protection interventions. Besides the actual situations of story-based intervention in social work (micro level), narrativity is also important for the transparent and adequate functioning of the system (mezzo level); moreover, it can become a factor of paradigm shift in social and political discourse on social work and its target groups (macro level). The study is based on the research entitled Child Protection Trends Supporting Children’s Well-Being carried out within the Research Scholarship granted by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2017–2020). The research focused on the family concept of child protection professionals and their views of the clients that can be deducted from this concept. The research also examines the notion and functions of the family from the viewpoint of children, young people and their parents as well as the professional attitudes and interventions determined by these perceptions. Research results show that due to the diversity and complexity of the problems of families in the purview of the child protection system one cannot reflect on professional solutions along types of problems. Successful functioning and efficient child protection rely rather on revealing individual and specific needs. All this indicates that child welfare and child protection work is possible only if built on personal stories.

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