About the project

The aim of this study is to gain more knowledge about how professional practitioners in the child welfare services understand and communicate when they support the parents with "advice and guidance". The goal of the “advice and guidance” is to help parents to become better equipped to care for their children, when the children live at home with their parents.

“Advice and guidance” of parents is the most commonly used in home service in child welfare. Parental counselling referred to as "advice and guidance" in child welfare services has an open structure. Because it is open and negotiable, it is important to obtain knowledge about how the conversations are designed and how the relationship between the social worker and parents is understood by both parts. Working with, in and through relationships and the relational focus has always been present in theory and textbooks in social work. Good communication skills is emphasized, but there is little empirical research on how face-to-face communication takes place in child welfare. How the power that employees have in the conversations and in their role, will be one of the focus areas.

Research questions:

• How do employees in child welfare and parents communicate in “advice and guidance”?
• How does the professional communicate to achieve key values such as trust, respect and empathy?
• How do the professional practitioners understand change, development and learning within the counselling defined as “advice and guidance”?

Methods: Video observation and interviews.

I want to have videos from two different services, a large specialized service, and a small one where they work according to a generalist model. In addition to video analysis, in-depth interviews will be conducted with the same professional practitioners and the parents.

Background

Master in Criminology

Research group

Probuf