Exploring children and young people's own understanding of experiences with abuse and maltreatment is an important part of taking their right to participation seriously. By applying a narrative theoretical framework, this paper explores and analyzes young people's and young adults' stories of being the target of violence and abuse as children, and their meaning making and definition of such experiences, then and now. The overall findings show the participants' varied and nuanced perceptions of what constitutes violence were much dependent on contextual, relational, and temporal aspects. Furthermore, many participants reported psychological and emotional abuse and neglect to be the most hurtful of their experiences of maltreatment. Finally, the analysis sheds light on how responses to abuse and maltreatment change and depend on the children and young people's definition of their situation through time and context. The paper contributes with qualitative knowledge to the social work research and practice field, on how abuse and maltreatment unfold in and affect children and young people's lives seen from their own points of view. Keywords Child abuse and maltreatment, violence against children and young people within the family, children and young people's experiences, meaning making, social work

Defining and assessing child abuse and maltreatment has long been a challenge to both researchers and practitioners in social work. Taking an intersectional perspective, this paper explores the meaning of class and ethnicity in professionals' investigations and assessments in child protection referrals. Overall findings show that class power was particularly actualized for caseworkers facing parents with high social status: In these cases, the parents often resisted the investigation and therefore the caseworkers had difficulties in disclosing or defining the abuse. In comparison, culture was often made relevant in cases involving minority ethnic parents, where abuse often was actualized as corporal punishment. This practice tended to be seen as a cultural issue rather than related to social problems. In these cases, class power was not articulated. The paper sheds light on intersections of class and ethnicity that may affect social work practice with children at risk of abuse and maltreatment.

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I denne artikkelen utforsker vi hvordan barnevernets risikoorientering og barnesentrering kan få utilsiktede konsekvenser for profesjonell praksis. Alvorlige barnevernssaker innebærer utfordrende og vanskelige vurderinger, hvor de etiske dilemmaene blir ekstra krevende. Vi undersøker hvordan økt fokus på avdekking av alvorlig vold og omsorgssvikt har virket inn på barnevernets arbeid, på hvilken måte foreldre opplever barnevernet som problemfokusert i samarbeidet og hvordan dette svekker tilliten til fagpersoner som skal hjelpe dem. I en tid hvor barnevernet er utsatt for sterk kritikk både internasjonalt og nasjonalt, og hvor denne kritikken retter seg mot barnevernets manglende fokus på gjenforening og tilrettelegging for samvær mellom barn og foreldre, ønsker vi å bidra til en kritisk reflekterende diskusjon om hvordan den politiske, sosiale og internasjonale sammenhengen som det norske barnevernet inngår i, virker inn på faglige dreininger i praksis. Våre analyser bygger på empiri fra to Ph.D.-prosjekter som omhandler henholdsvis barn som opplever vold i nære relasjoner, og oppfølging av foreldre som er fratatt omsorgen for sine barn. Nøkkelord: barnevern, vold og omsorgssvikt, barnesentrering, risikoorientering, tillit, problemfokus