The impact of political guidelines on participation of children and families’ network in the risk assessment process

ABSTRACT

This paper studies the impact of political guidelines in social work. The paper is inspired by the literature on street-level bureaucracy and uses this perspective in the discussion of whether different risk assessment models regulate the participation of vulnerable children and families’ network in the risk assessment process. The empirical strategy applies mixed methods to the survey data and interviews with social workers. The data are collected in Denmark where the two risk assessment models, Integrated Children’s System (ICS) and Signs of Safety (SoS), have been implemented in most municipalities. These two models are discussed and analysed with a third way of assessing risks – the more traditional way, which in this paper will termed the municipality model (MM). The paper will answer the following research question: How do political guidelines such as risk assessment models regulate the participation of the child and families’ network in the risk assessment process? The discussion is framed from a social worker perspective. This discussion is important since participation of children and families’ network has been on the political and professional agenda. Furthermore, one of the main reasons for implementing the new risk assessment models is more participation and inclusion of the families’ network in the process. However, this study will show that it is mainly the social workers using the newer models who are challenged by the participation of children and families’ network. The study contributes to the discussion about the extent to which political guidelines regulate social work practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Street-level bureaucracy
• risk assessment
• participation
• vulnerable children
• child welfare

Acknowledgments

First of all I would like to thank the six municipalities and all the participating social workers for cooperating with me and for answering my survey. I would also like to thank my supervisors: Karin Kildedal, Aalborg University, Marianne Skytte, Aalborg University, and Mette Lausten, SFI - The National Centre for Social Research, for guiding me in my research process.

Additional information

Funding

The research project is a part of my PhD, which is financed by Aalborg University.