About the project

This project aims to explore how the child welfare service's work to establish and maintain support networks for youth who have received in-home services. The purpose is to disclose the content, the scope and the variation in this work. The study will therefore examine both how the child welfare service already works with young people's networks, and how this work can be developed and improved to maintain, nurture and expand good networks for youth on their way to adulthood. Based on this, the following overarching research question is formulated:

How does the child welfare service work to help young people create networks that provide support for further development into adulthood?

The dissertation will consist of three articles that thematize different aspects of work with youth network. The first article will consist of a systematic literature review of existing research on the phenomenon. The article will examine how the child welfare service works to create networks around youth who receive in-home services, and whether there are barriers or facilitators in this work. The second article will be a qualitative interview study of child welfare workers. The study seeks to provide first-hand knowledge of child welfare workers' thoughts on and experiences with creating support networks for youth, how this work is carried out and the scope of the work. The third article will examine the child welfare service's measures from the young people's point of view. By interviewing youth who have received in-home services from the child welfare service, insight is sought into youth’s thoughts regarding their network, whether there is a desire for help with this network, and possibly how this help should be.

Background

Child Protection and Welfare, University of Bergen

Research group

PROBUF