Editorial

Welcome to the first issue of Nordic Social Work Research for 2024! We ended the last year with the publication of a special issue on Social work in a multilingual world, edited by Kristina Gustafsson, Linnéa Åberg, Sabine Gruber, and Eva Norström. The issue expanded our knowledge and perspectives on the importance of language and its use in social work that crosses national and linguistic barriers on daily basis. Importantly, it provided valuable insights into the sorts of complicated notions of culture and integration that come to the forefront in everyday life. This year, following our commitment to creating space for in-depth debates, we plan to publish two special issues addressing vulnerable groups. In the first half of the year, we will publish a special section on Knowledge, skills, and values in welfare-to-work with vulnerable clients. In the second half of the year, we plan to publish a special issue on Coordinated Intervention Against Violence in Close Relations. In addition, we have 2 active calls for a special issue: Rethinking Social Work (manuscript submission deadline: 15 March 2024) following the FORSA/NASSW conference in Bodø on June 14–16, 2023, and Antiracist social work in Nordic countries (abstract submission deadline: 01 April 2024).

Nordic Social Work Research promotes high quality social work research that opens for new voices and perspectives in a methodological, practical, and theoretical sense. The aim is to explore newly emerging discussions in social work as well as to challenge our thinking and understanding about those that are already well-known and established fields. One such field is child and youth welfare. We therefore begin the year with publication of an issue that offers insights into current challenges, developments and problems facing child welfare services in general as well as children and young people whose lives follow unorthodox pathways.

The current issue is comprised of twelve articles that broadly address the field of child and youth welfare, bringing the notion of relations to the forefront. In his seminal book on relational sociology, Pierpaolo Donati (2011) explains the notion of social life, stating that ‘in the beginning there is the relation’ (p. 17) and ‘we are what we care about, and if we do not relate to significant others, we are nothing, we become nothing’ (p. xvi). The importance of relations within social work is not new. Yet the importance of understanding life as deeply relational and applying a relational perspective to social problems and related to that design and provision of social care and services are yet to be fully explored within social work. This issue sheds light on some of the intricacies of the ‘relational’ in social work, it taps into unused potential of the ‘relational’ in social work, and it cautions against simplistic views on the meanings and types of relations that are relevant to social work practice. The issue, thus, provides new insights on a conversation about the relational in social work with children and youth.

This conversation includes a focus on family relations as one of the key relations that occupy child welfare. The issue of what counts as family, who count as family and under which circumstances is far from simple. For example, Skoglund, Thørnblad and Holtan (2024), in their interview study of young people from foster families, demonstrate that the notion of family, especially in relation to biological ties, is not always straightforward. The article provides an overview of various ways in which biology may or may not determine the way we think about family and kinship. In contrast, the article by Ponnert (2024) illuminates the difficulties and dilemmas of social workers who manage custody cases. One of the major findings of the study is that social workers are often trapped in a biology discourse that dominates thinking about families and the relations between parents and children. Similar to findings from previous studies (e.g. Boddy 2019; Enell and Wilińska 2022), it appears that young people with unorthodox life pathways exhibit more flexibility than child/youth welfare professionals in how they define family, challenging established norms regarding family life, and identifying new relations.

The struggles of social work/welfare professionals and their relations with children and young people in their everyday practices are highlighted by Kjellgren, Lilliehorn and Markström (2024). In their study of school social workers, they demonstrate the importance of establishing good relationships with pupils. Yet this also, however, coupled with a professional concern of not getting too close and not becoming too important in the lives of the young people with whom they work. Similarly, as Stretmo (2024) finds, welfare professionals working with unaccompanied minors in their efforts to prepare them for their adult lives in Sweden tend to privilege practical assistance over relational support, due to the belief and strong professional norm that this is most important from the point of view integration. These findings can be contrasted with Alstam and Forkby’s (2024) study of gang leavers in which, by tracing the stories of former gang members, the authors emphasize the importance of role models who are in close proximity to young people, as well as the need for imaginary work that provides an opening for looking beyond one’s immediate situation. These types of preventive measures and approaches signify the importance of a strong relational foundations in this sort of work.

The emergent difficulty concerning relations in social work is heightened in practices that are subject to divergent institutional and structural forces. For example, the goals of efficiency and transparency can lead to a narrowed professional vision and an emphasis on the use of analytical skills, as Sletten (2024) concludes in her study of the ways in which the use of standardized assessment instruments in child welfare affect professional practice. Kapstad and Øvrum (2024) deem such important reflections on the complicated nature of the ‘relational’ in social work as crucial when establishing high quality social work education. Otherwise, as they caution, social work education risks equipping students with ideational visions of relations that are not always based on in-depth understanding and reflections about everyday practice.

In the voices of young people, the relational, professional, and practical does not seem to be contradictory. For example, unaccompanied minors in Stretmo’s (2024) study of institutional care express their longing for both practical help, but also for relationships and closeness. As Moberg Stephenson and Herz (2024) demonstrate, these relations are especially crucial in social work with unaccompanied minors whose precarious positioning is shaped by institutional and legislative forces that create high levels of vulnerability. The role of professionals working in such institutions is tremendous and their way of relating to young people has immense consequences for their lives. In their article, Studsrød and Enoksen (2024) focus on the extreme cases of malpractice in such contexts and demonstrate how deeply institutional abuse affects the lives of young people, not only during, but also years after leaving the institutional walls. Listening to the voices of those who have applied for redress, the authors provide testimony to the enormously painful process for young people with such experiences of regaining belief in own worth and rights.

The issue also includes several articles that offer important insights on preventive work and indirectly, on the ways in which various relations not only with young people but also around young people are indicative of the success or failure of such initiatives. For example, two studies by Blomqvist Mickelsson (2024) and Höglund and Bruhn (2024) focus on the role of sport-based programs in integration work. These emphasize the importance of local embeddedness and good collaboration between actors who are involved in such work, both directly and indirectly. This also resonates with Jönsson and Scaramuzzino’s (2024) conclusions regarding integration work in general. Their study of civil society organizations in the field demonstrates the creative power of good relations and collaboration between public and private actors that among may lead to more personal and informal understandings of integration, opening in this way a path for new solutions.

We end this editorial with recent updates on Nordic Social Work Research readership. According to the latest reports from our publisher, Taylor & Francis, our readership numbers have been steadily increasing over the past few years. In 2023, NSWR reached a notable number of 152 948 downloads, almost triple since 2020, when the number was 56 658. We thank all our authors, readers, and reviewers for their continuing engagement with the journal!

Disclosure statement

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