Framing the ‘child at risk’ in social work reports: Truth-telling or storytelling?

Abstract

In the field of child welfare and protection, the notion of the 'child at risk' implies a central ground and legitimation for intervention yet is extremely ambiguous, since it can be constructed in radically different ways in practice. This construction process might involve challenges to professional assessment and intervention, since dealing with this complex notion is about more than tools, (risk) management and protocols. We focus on the practice of writing reports as an exemplary practice in which social workers exercise their power while assessing and constructing the child as 'at risk'. Two approaches of social workers in interpreting the complexity of situations where children are potentially at risk are considered: truth-telling and storytelling. We report on a qualitative study conducted with 152 social work students in which we explore how they construct reports.Findings: In our analysis, we identify three major issues in the construction of the 'child at risk' when social work students approach report writing as an open-ended and reflexive practice of storytelling: recognisability, comprehensibility and stigmatisation.Applications: The normative judgment processes in social work are complex, determined by the analysis of situations in which the child may potentially be constructed as being at risk. Dealing with this complexity therefore requires reflexivity of social workers regarding their perceptions and interpretations at stake in practice. We argue that normative judgment in risk assessment should be an essential area for exploration in social work education.

Children’s residence in divorce disputes – examination of social work reports to the court

“…These observations give rise to some questions, the first of which concerns the relevance of the extensive description of the physical residential conditions, the residential situation and the family members' occupancy of home space in the social work reports, bearing in mind that these aspects are rarely referred to when settling the cases. interpreted as a practice of storytelling, based on interaction with the family members at their homes (Roets et al 2016). When social workers were integrated in divorce work in Finland in the early 1980s, one of the key points was the presumed ability of social workers to be close to people, everyday life and folk knowledge.…”

Same Problem, Different Policies

“…Chapin (2014) alludes to the inability to separate the two when advising students to examine "the definitions of problems that laid the foundation for policy" in order to "uncover the assumptions that were made about the people the policy is designed to serve" (p. 175). A cursory scan of the social work literature over the past several years indicates some initial attention to the significance of problem framing for vulnerable populations including: the "child at risk" in social work reports (Roets, Roose, DeWilde, & Vanobbergen, 2017), child health inequality (Hernandez, Montana, & Clarke, 2010), immigrant communities (Valtonen, 2016), and citizens returning to the community after incarceration (Van Sluytman, Torres, McLeod, & Coleman, 2018). Pal (2006) defines policy analysis as "the disciplined application of intellect to the study of collective responses to public problems" (p. 14), and as such, a policy framework typically serves as "one of the major tools used by the policy researcher…a systematic model for examining a specific social welfare policy or a series of policies" while also guiding the analysis and evaluation of policy proposals (Karger & Stoesz, 2014, p. 26).…”

Managing the flow of private information on children and parents in poverty situations: Creating a panoptic eye in interorganizational networks?

“…In its metaphorical meaning, the panopticon can be used for its relevance in grasping that continuous observation and supervision are possible in a network at all times. This is made possible by an increased flow of information: Documentation and information sharing in social work is a possible instrument of control and surveillance and a medium through which professionals can exercise power in the practice of assessing, judging, and documenting, particularly when they are brought together in a network (Roets et al, ; Roets, Roose, De Wilde, et al, ). The permanent visibility and observation lead to the automatic functioning of the disciplinary power.…”