Lieselot De Wilde

Framing the 'child at risk' in social work reports: truth-telling or storytelling?

Summary In the field of child welfare and protection, the notion of the ‘child at risk’ implies a central ground and legitimation for intervention yet is extremely ambiguous, since it can be constructed in radically different ways in practice. This construction process might involve challenges to professional assessment and intervention, since dealing with this complex notion is about more than tools, (risk) management and protocols. We focus on the practice of writing reports as an exemplary practice in which social workers exercise their power while assessing and constructing the child as ‘at risk’. Two approaches of social workers in interpreting the complexity of situations where children are potentially at risk are considered: truth-telling and storytelling. We report on a qualitative study conducted with 152 social work students in which we explore how they construct reports. Findings In our analysis, we identify three major issues in the construction of the ‘child at risk’ when social work students approach report writing as an open-ended and reflexive practice of storytelling: recognisability, comprehensibility and stigmatisation. Applications The normative judgment processes in social work are complex, determined by the analysis of situations in which the child may potentially be constructed as being at risk. Dealing with this complexity therefore requires reflexivity of social workers regarding their perceptions and interpretations at stake in practice. We argue that normative judgment in risk assessment should be an essential area for exploration in social work education.

Remembering the Ghent Orphan Houses: A Never-Ending Contested Space

Our study of Ghent orphanages as a closed space initially led to a (re) construction of this educational site by contextualizing it in time and space. Through oral history research we found that the history of the Ghent orphan houses is still very much alive. Now, the former orphans control and manage the passing on and remembrance of their history. This paper provides an insight into this process by analyzing two sites—a Facebook group and the former orphan league—identifying the contestation that arises in their quest for the truth and recognition about their “mutual” past and the way(s) in which their histories should be remembered.

Puzzling history – the personal file in residential care: a source for life history and historical research

Abstract Since the turn of the century large groups of former institutionalised children have exercised their right to see their ‘personal files’, and this has drawn widespread attention to these documents and their potential in scholarly research. This article explores the meanings of personal files from the period 1945–1984 as sources for both historical researchers and adult care leavers themselves, in the context of the orphanages in Ghent, Belgium. Based on the experiences of those who have consulted their files, we come to the conclusion that the personal files of the Ghent orphans provide some new information but, at the same time, leave a lot of issues unresolved. Although the files offered significant insights for researchers studying the most recent period in the history of the Ghent orphanages, it is difficult to see them as ‘keys to the past’ for former orphans who are trying to (re)construct their own, individual life histories.

Between a contaminated past and a compromised future: the case of the Ghent Orphanages (1945–1984)

In the past decades, a body of international research concerning residential institutions for children emerged. This article focuses on the history of the Ghent orphanages (1945–1984). First, the population of the more than 1200 children and young people resident in the orphanages between 1945 and 1984 is analysed. This analysis illustrates a shift from a legal approach to a normative interpretation of the orphaned child. It becomes clear that the Ghent orphanages functioned, in the second half of the twentieth century, as a system of care for what we today would call youth “at risk” or “pre-delinquent” children and not “orphaned children”. According to this analysis, the focus shifts to the role and the functions of these institutions within the broader community of the city of Ghent. Although the population of the orphanages changed, the local authorities continued to use the name “orphanage”. In that vein, it is argued that concepts such as “orphans” and “orphanages” did not only refer to the classification of certain groups of children, but were also useful tools to protect the social order. An analysis of 45 interviews with both former orphans and educators provides an in-depth insight into the complex relationship between the educators and the orphaned children. In this way, the orphanage was studied not only “from the outside” but also from “the inside”, and by capturing the childhood narratives of former orphaned children it is possible to complement the “official story” with their interpretation of the past.