Follow-up of out-of-home care in dialogues between children and appointed social workers

ABSTRACT

Children in out-of-home care are entitled to a safe and stable living environment. In Sweden, appointed social workers in child protection services are assigned to follow up out-of-home care and ensure that children’s needs are met. Drawing on qualitative data collected in Sweden, this paper explores social workers’ dialogues with children in care and whether and how these dialogues allow for the children’s participation. The analysis includes individual interviews with social workers and young people with experience of out-of-home care as children. The concepts of openings, opportunities and obligations proved helpful in identifying individual and organizational commitment in relation to child participation through dialogues. The findings revealed that, for children and young people, their participation is dependent on recognition, commitment and action from social workers. At times this means respect their wish no to talk to a social worker. The paper discusses appointed social workers’ possibilities for being able to satisfy these demands. We learnt from the social workers that they are open to the children being involved and they strive to fulfil their obligations in relation to dialogues with the children. However, their organizations have not fully developed strategies or tools to increase the participation in respect to each individual child´s wishes. Our conclusion is that appointed social workers need opportunities, such as time, skills and organizational support, to create genuine dialogues with children to ensure that all children feel heard and listened to.

KEYWORDS:

• Child participation
• dialogues
• appointed social workers
• out-of-home care
• care review process

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the social workers and young people who took the time to speak to us and for generously sharing their experiences and opinions with us.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

Ethical approval was granted by the Ethical Review Board in Gothenburg, Sweden, Reference number 2018-18

Legislation

Care of Young Persons (Special Provisions) Act (LVU) (1990:52)

Social Services Act (SoL) (2001:453)

Government bills

Govt Bill 2006/07:129 Utveckling av den sociala barn‐ och ungdomsvården

Govt Bill 2012/13:10 Stärkt stöd och skydd till barn och unga.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by Allmänna barnhuset (Reg. no. 2018-13) SEK 350 000Allmänna barnhuset, Sweden [Dnr 2018-13];