In Finland, support for families with children is given, as far as possible, as part of basic services. However, to support basic services, services of this kind have also been generated as the result of several projects. The public sector itself has been reorganized and reformed to more resemble a project. In this article, the experiences of parents with children receiving project-based support are studied qualitatively. Preventive support was offered via child health and maternity clinics in the form of home visiting. The reform of the municipal and service structure has made the development of preventive services an issue of even greater current relevance. The purpose of the study was to collect and explore the experiences of parents as reported in their own voices. The research question is, how did families experience this novel support model in practice? The data consist of interviews with six client families, including mothers and fathers, nine parents in all. A qualitative and narrative approach to the interview data was used. Analysis of the interviews yielded the following themes: being critical about the support given, building trust between parents and the professionals and empowering parents through support. According to the results, parents experienced receiving early support, and especially home visiting, as useful. The purpose of home visiting was not always clear to begin with, and consequently, some parents had reservations about them. Experiences of maternity and child health clinics varied. In addition to the health professionals' skills, their personality, familiarity and supportive and trustful way of working was felt to be most important. Parents felt that their parenting skills and relationships met with approval during the family work. Further research is needed on this kind of early support, especially support delivered at home, to develop these services.

The purpose of this article is to discuss questions about studying sensitive and contradictory family situations, particularly in the process of gathering qualitative data via interviews. In the article, the authors ask what types of considerations are possible when studying such issues. Three ongoing family studies conducted in the social sciences by the authors are used as the basis for discussing the sensitive and contradictory nature of such family issues. The authors’ studies are about the foster children’s family relations, the sons of problem-drinking fathers and the families participating in a preventive family support system. Family matters are often perceived as being something private that is not to be talked about or shared with outsiders, e.g. talking about negative feelings towards family members may be complicated.

This article considers the meaning of the participants’ home as an interview context when studying sensitive family issues. The article is based on two qualitative family studies by the authors on foster children’s perspectives on their home and their family relations and client families’ experiences of preventive family support. Both studies address sensitive family issues, in particular Finnish child welfare. The first author’s interview data consist of interviews with foster children, social network maps and diaries and the second author’s data of interviews with six client families. Most of the interviews were conducted at the participants’ homes, but in the second author's study two interviews were conducted at the university.