Letters from the future: an exercise with child welfare predictions

Abstract

The article presents an empirical exercise about predictions in child welfare. In the exercise, social workers imagined letters which they could receive from a child and his/her parents in five years' time. The children had been in care for one year at the moment of letter-writing. When the social workers wrote the imaginary letters, they used their professional imagination, based on practice knowledge and experience, and were involved in a role-play. The analysis of the letters (34 from 'children' and 33 letters from 'parents') demonstrates four themes shared by the letters: ordinary life, family contacts and return home, social problems as shadows and assessment of the placement. Two narratives were performed: the narrative of future of ordinary life and that of the troubles. It is suggested that imaginary letters are helpful in highlighting practitioners' sense of the future, professional imagination as well as the empowering and critical points in practice.

Social change in developmental times? On ‘changeability’ and the uneven timings of child welfare interventions

“…This applies in particular to the study’s exploration of timing as an analytical tool for grasping processes of differentiation and othering based on age, class, gender, migration status, race, and health/able-bodiedness as axes of power. As such, it adds to previous temporal analyses of child welfare and social work (Fahlgren, 2009; Holland, 2011; Pösö, 2018; Roberts, 2017; White, 1998). Considering that child welfare interventions are a way to enforce change in children’s lives, where ‘socially desirable change’ and changeability in situations or behaviours are desired but are assessed as not possible to happen otherwise (e.g.…”

“…However, the assessment is written in a somewhat speculative and future- and risk-oriented manner (‘may have constituted’, ‘will be unfavourably affected’, and ‘may affect [them] later in life’). As Fahlgren notes, ‘the social worker must arrive at a decision on the basis of how he/she believes and judges the future will linearly develop’ (2009: 211; see also Juhila et al, 2015; Pösö 2018). Thus, here, the manner of assessing is informed by futurity , a time orientation of modernity (Halberstam, 2005; Therborn, 2003).…”

“…Prior research also offers insightful analyses of the profession and its conditions, such as time pressures and constraints (Holland, 2011; Roberts, 2017; White, 1998). Scholars also address care trajectories (Enell and Denvall, 2017; Pösö and Eronen, 2015), temporal discourses in social work, and temporal structuring of child welfare and protection practice (Fahlgren, 2009; Juhila et al, 2015; Pösö, 2018; White, 1998; Yuill and Mueller-Hirth, 2019). Also addressed are the timings and temporalities of care and support (Pösö and Eronen, 2015; Roberts, 2017), including from the perspective of young people (Andersen and Bengtsson, 2019; Pösö et al, 2018).…”

Blending work and leisure: a future digital worker hybrid lifestyle perspective

“…By providing access into otherwise unavailable knowledge engrained into practitioners' experiences (Gabriel 2018), futuring narratives enable insights into the intentions, hopes and wishes that imagined action carry (Sools, Tromp, and Mooren 2015). It is through imagination that the knowable, which have so far escaped words find expression (Pösö, 2018). In other words, adopting a narrative futuring approach helps to answer Gergen's (2015) call for prospective methodologies that aim not to 'illuminate what is, but to create what is to become'.…”

“…Two criteria were used for the recruitment: a) working as a digital worker and b) having good narrative capabilities in English. The former criterion was defined to bring together the professional imagination (Pösö 2018) of a group of people sharing common knowledge, problems, and concerns (Gabriel 2018) as well as hopes, dreams and wishes about the future (Sools, Tromp, and Mooren 2015). The latter criterion was applied according to Sools and Mooren's (2012) recommendation that to write a letter for the future participants should possess sufficient narrative competence.…”