The Voice of the Child in Social Work Assessments: Age-Appropriate Communication with Children

Abstract

This article describes a child-centred method for engaging with children involved in the child protection and welfare system. One of the primary arguments underpinning this research is that social workers need to be skilled communicators to engage with children about deeply personal and painful issues. There is a wide range of research that maintains play is the language of children and the most effective way to learn about children is through their play. Considering this, the overarching aim of this study was to investigate the role of play skills in supporting communication between children and social workers during child protection and welfare assessments. The data collection was designed to establish the thoughts and/or experiences of participants in relation to a Play Skills Training (PST) programme designed by the authors. The key findings of the study reveal that the majority of social work participants rate the use of play skills in social work assessments as a key factor to effective engagement with children. Of particular importance, these messages address how social work services can ensure in a child-centred manner that the voice of children is heard and represented in all assessments of their well-being and future care options.

The perceived effect of parental cancer on children still living at home: According to oncology health professionals

“…HPs in our study also reported children tend to avoid direct conversations as they find it confronting and overwhelming. This mirrors developmental literature which suggests face‐to‐face conversation can facilitate an automatic barrier between adults and children; and assumes children's capacity to communicate at an adult level (Landreth, 2002; O'Reilly & Dolan, 2016). Rather, congruent with suggestions from HPs in the present study, child health communication literature recommends practitioners use child friendly and playful approaches that build trust and incorporate hands on materials, repetition and reinforcement (Bennett, 2016; Zandt & Barrett, 2017).…”

“…HPs in our study also reported children tend to avoid direct conversations as they find it confronting and overwhelming. This mirrors developmental literature which suggests face-to-face conversation can facilitate an automatic barrier between adults and children; and assumes children's capacity to communicate at an adult level (Landreth, 2002;O'Reilly & Dolan, 2016). Rather, congruent with suggestions from…”

From communication to co‐operation: Reconceptualizing social workers' engagement with children

“…This finding came as a surprise given it is widely recognized that asking children a sequence of questions is an unattuned and generally ineffective response to their ways of communicating (Lefevre, ; O'Reilly & Dolan, ). Our psychosocial analysis suggests that not only was play a low priority for social workers when communicating with children but that the professional expectation to communicate and engage with children was reduced, for largely unrecognized or unacknowledged reasons, to predominantly verbal interaction.…”

Betydningen av barns deltakelse i bekjempelse av fattigdom

“…En begrunnelse mange familiekoordinatorer ga for at de reserverte seg fra å snakke med barn, var at barn er sårbare, og at de ønsket å beskytte dem mot familiens problemer. Frykt for å påføre barn skade rapporteres også i andre undersøkelser som en barriere mot at sosialarbeidere samhandler med barn om vanskelige forhold (O'Reilly & Dolan, 2016). Forskning viser imidlertid at barn i lavinntektsfamilier som oftest er klar over familiens økonomiske vansker.…”