Overlooking the most vulnerable: the child welfare research agenda 2005–2010

Abstract

Literature highlighting both the archaeology (chronology) of child welfare developments or genealogy (insight into the discourses shaping such developments) is rare. Even less available are investigations into the research agenda regarding child welfare. This paper attempts to provide a snapshot of the priorities for child welfare researchers as represented in the international literature from 2005 to 2010 and the discourses inherent within these. The qualitative study suggests that issues regarding the identification and responses to child abuse dominate, these concerns being framed individualistically and tending to ignore sociopolitical realities. Such a construction of the research agenda potentially marginalizes systemic factors and limits the relevance of the research agenda in contexts where poverty, community violence (including war) and migration (forced and voluntary) are in the foreground. The lived realities facing the majority of the world's children are thus overlooked. The research agenda must be expanded to address the context of the most vulnerable children and to promote child welfare alternatives that speak to their experiences.

Keywords:

• research agenda child welfare
• international child welfare
• child welfare discourses
• vulnerable children
• global North and South

Notes on contributor

Jeanette Schmid is a social worker who has practised in South Africa (her country of origin), Canada and Switzerland with diverse populations in a range of areas. These include child welfare, developmental delay, early childhood intervention, trauma, oncology, family group conferencing and restorative justice. Her doctorate, focusing on South African child welfare discourses, was completed in 2008. Her research interests include comparative child welfare, developmental social welfare and social policy. She is currently a research fellow at the Centre for Social Development in Africa, University of Johannesburg.