A scoping review of research on coordinated pathways towards employment for youth in vulnerable life situations

ABSTRACT

For youth in vulnerable life situations, pathways to employment can be challenging, suggesting the need for coordinated services. The aim of this review is to explore the existing research on coordinated services for youth in vulnerable life situations. Considering the heterogenous nature of the literature, we adopted a scoping review methodology. We selected works from a base of 92 papers on youth, coordinated services, and pathways to work that were published in English during the period of 1990–2018. Additionally, to identify research streams, we performed a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer to create network maps based on shared terms in the papers’ titles and abstracts. The synthesised findings show two streams of research that we refer to by the following narrative titles: (1) ‘Enabling transition to adulthood for youth with disabilities or severe health problems’, and (2) ‘Preventing the social exclusion of youth at risk’. The first stream seems to represent a more established area(s) of research, while the second stream appears to be more fragmented. The life situations of the youth in both streams, however, overlap, indicating possibilities for knowledge exchange, such as social workers engaging in policy practices and advancing efforts towards enacting system changes.

SAMMENDRAG

For ungdommer med komplekse problemer kan veien frem til arbeid være utfordrende, noe som viser til et behov for koordinerte tjenester. Målet med denne litteraturstudien er å utforske forskningen om koordinerte tjenester for ungdommer i sårbare livssituasjoner. Ettersom denne litteraturen er mangfoldig, valgte vi den metodisk tilnærming ‘scoping review’. Vi selekterte artikler fra et grunnlag på 92 engelskspråklige artikler som omhandler ungdom, koordinerte tjeneste og veier frem til arbeid, publisert i perioden 1990 - 2018. For å identifisere forskningstilnærminger, gjennomførte vi i tillegg en bibliometrisk analyse ved å benytte VOSviewer for å lage nettverkskart basert på felles bruk av termer i artiklenes titler og sammendrag. De syntetiserte resultatene indikerer to forskningsretninger som vi refererer til ved narrativtitlene (1) ‘Å muliggjøre overganger til voksenlivet for ungdom med funksjonshemminger eller alvorlige helseproblemer’ og (2) ‘Å forhindre sosial eksklusjon for risikoutsatt ungdom.’ Den første forskningsretningen ser ut til å representere (et) mer etablert(e) forskningsområde(r), imens den andre forskningsretningen fremstår å være mer fragmentert. Livssituasjonene til ungdommene i begge forskningsretningene overlapper imidlertid. Dette tyder på potensiale for utveksling av kunnskap på tvers av områdene. Et eksempel av relevans for sosialarbeidere er aktivt engasjement i politisk praksis (‘policy pratice’) og innsats for å fremme systemendringer.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth in vulnerable life situations
• interagency collaboration
• pathways to employment
• scoping review

NØKKELORD:

• Ungdommer i sårbare livssituasjoner
• interorganisatorisk samarbeid
• veier mot arbeid
• litteraturstudie

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway under Grant number 269298.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 ‘Peer-reviewed articles’ was an optional limiter only in Academic Search Premiere and SocINDEX.

2 https://www.annualreviews.org/about/impact-factors

3 Institute for Community Inclusion. https://www.communityinclusion.org/project.php?project_id=35 (retrieved, 27.08.2020).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Research Council of Norway [Grant number 269298].

Notes on contributors

Therese Saltkjel

Therese Saltkjel is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University. Her field of research is comparative social policy and social work, recently with a particular focus on interagency collaboration and integrated services.

Tone Alm Andreassen

Tone Alm Andreassen is Professor at the Centre for the study of professions, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University. Her field of research is organisational studies, public services, political reforms and implementation, interorganizational relations, professionalism and the involvement of service users.

Sølvi Helseth

Sølvi Helseth is Professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences, OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University. Her field of research is nursing science, health care, quality of life, children, youth, pain, mixed methods, complex interventions, and online interventions.

Renate Minas

Renate Minas is Associate Professor at the Department of Social Work, University of Stockholm. Her field of research is welfare state reforms, social inclusion and poverty with a particular focus on institutions and organizational solutions, and on integrated delivery of social services.