In the shadow of their parents: The construction of children in social work practice

Bidragets oversatte titel: I skyggen af forældrene: Konstruktionen af børn i socialt arbejdes praksis

Line Søberg Bjerre

Publikation: Konferencebidrag uden forlag/tidsskriftKonferenceabstrakt til konferenceForskningpeer review

Abstract

In this paper I will discuss paradoxes between the development of certain social work practices with children, such as ICS (Integrated Children System), and casework traditions of the social work profession.
In recent years, Danish law has incorporated “the child’s perspective” – which means that social workers are required to bring the child’s voice into their casework. Within a similar timeframe, social work methodology has changed with the introduction of ICS. In social work practice, however, these new standardizations live side by side with a case management tradition of social diagnosing. In my research, I have been studying how the child is constructed in social work practices, focusing (as a psychologist) on which discourses and psychological paradigms are used in such constructions. I have conducted a qualitative study of social work in Denmark, observing three different teams in a Danish municipality.
Overall, I have found that social workers talk about families in a way that rarely gives children’s words or perspectives any weight. Instead, social workers are mainly concerned with the social or psychiatric diagnosis of the mother, or their own professional relationship with the parents. In important ways, their discussions of families are informed by the traditions of social diagnosing, which have historically been informed by psychiatric and psychoanalytic thinking, particularly the notion of psychological determinism; the child’s perspective remains out of sight. In this tradition, children are largely constructed as passive victims of the parents’ problems.
With the child obscured in the shadow of the parents’ social diagnosis, it remains difficult to implement the intentions of legislation that seeks to foreground the child’s perspective. I conclude that if children continue to be constructed as passive victims, social work will struggle to implement the ICS model; more importantly, children’s active agency will remain underrepresented in social work practice.
Bidragets oversatte titelI skyggen af forældrene: Konstruktionen af børn i socialt arbejdes praksis
OriginalsprogEngelsk
Publikationsdato2016
StatusUdgivet - 2016
Begivenhed6th European Conference on Social Work Research: Reflective social work practices in contemporary societies: crossed dialogues and new pathways between praxis and research - Catholic University, Lissabon, Portugal
Varighed: 30 mar. 20161 apr. 2016
Konferencens nummer: 6
http://www.eswra.org/2016_conf.html

Konference

Konference6th European Conference on Social Work Research
Nummer6
LokationCatholic University
Land/OmrådePortugal
ByLissabon
Periode30/03/201601/04/2016
Internetadresse

Bibliografisk note

Oral presentation på ESWRA 2016 i Lissabon

Fingeraftryk

Dyk ned i forskningsemnerne om 'I skyggen af forældrene: Konstruktionen af børn i socialt arbejdes praksis'. Sammen danner de et unikt fingeraftryk.

Citationsformater