Child welfare workers use of knowledge in their daily work

Abstract

The debate continues on what constitutes core knowledge in professional work in child welfare and child protection. The aims of this article are to examine what different sources of knowledge social workers report to use in their daily work and to determine the importance of different knowledge sources in relation to their work experience, educational background and type of employment (caseworker/manager). Data were obtained from a survey completed by 390 social workers in municipal child welfare services in Western Norway. Social workers answered questions regarding their use of different knowledge sources in their daily work. The information they obtained in a particular case and their personal experiences were the most frequently used sources. Factor analysis revealed four subgroups of knowledge sources: The most frequently used were: (a) Colleagues and Supervision and (b) Personal Experience, followed by (c) Social Work Education, Courses and Municipal and State Documents, with (d) Journal Articles, Textbooks and External Sources being the least frequently used. The most important source for social workers with less work experience was Colleagues and Supervision, whereas the factor Journal Articles, Textbooks and External Sources was more often important for social workers with a master’s degree than for those without this level of education. Overall, social workers seem to rely mostly on personal experience and their colleagues as sources of knowledge in their work.

Det er en pågående debatt om hva som utgjør det profesjonelle kunnskapsgrunnlaget i barneverntjenesten. Målet med denne artikkelen er å undersøke hvilke ulike kilder til kunnskap sosialarbeidere rapporterer å bruke i sitt daglige arbeid, samt å undersøke forholdet mellom bruken av ulike kunnskapskilder og henholdsvis arbeidserfaring, utdanningsbakgrunn og stilling (saksbehandler/barnevernsleder). Data ble hentet fra en elektronisk spørreskjemaundersøkelse som ble gjennomført blant sosialarbeidere ansatt i det kommunale barnevernet på Vestlandet. Utvalget består av 390 sosialarbeidere som svarte på spørsmål om bruk av ulike kunnskapskilder i sitt daglige arbeid. Den informasjonen de fikk i en bestemt sak og sine personlige erfaringer var de mest brukte kildene til kunnskap. Basert på faktoranalyse ble fire undergrupper av kunnskapskilder identifisert: Den mest brukte gruppen av kunnskapskilder var (a) Kolleger og Veiledning, etterfulgt av (b) Personal Erfaring (c) Grunnutdanning, Kurs, Kommunale og Statlige Dokumenter, mens (d) Tidsskriftartikler, Lærebøker og Eksterne kilder var minst brukt. Den viktigste kilden for sosialarbeidere med kort arbeidserfaring var Kolleger og Veiledning, bruk av Tidsskrift Artikler, Lærebøker og Eksterne kilder var oftere brukt av sosialarbeidere med mastergrad enn de som ikke hadde mastergrad. Hoved konklusjonen fra denne undersøkelsen er at personlig erfaring og kolleger er de mest brukte kunnskapskilder for sosialarbeidere i kommunalt barnevern.

Keywords:

• child welfare services
• social workers
• knowledge
• practice
• competence

Nøkkelord:

• barneverntjenesten
• sosialarbeider
• kunnskap
• praksis
• kompetanse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Anette Christine Iversen is professor in child welfare at the Department of Health Promotion and Development at University of Bergen. She has a Ph.D. in Health Promotion and has been leading a masters’ programme in child welfare studies since 2008. She is currently head of the research group Child welfare, Equality and Social inclusion. Her main areas of research interests include a broad perspective on the challenges, strength and difficulties of child welfare clients, interagency collaboration and social workers need for knowledge and competence.

Kåre Heggen is professor in social science at Faculty of Social Science and History at Volda University College and at Centre for the Study of Professions at Oslo and Akershus University College. He is Dr polit in education from University of Trondheim (1994). He has been a visiting scholar at Melbourne University. His main research area is professional education, knowledge and qualifying. He has published books, articles and edited books in this field.

Notes

1. There was no significant difference on the single item ‘what I learned in my training’ between social workers with short or long experience.

Additional information

Funding

This research project was supported by UH-nett Vest (the University and College Network for Western Norway)