Tineke Schiettecat

Implementing a strengths perspective in child welfare and protection: a challenge not to be taken lightly

Although it can be observed that the popularity of a strengths perspective in social work is increasing, social work researchers have articulated the necessity to gain empirical knowledge about actual social work practice that claims a strengths perspective. We explore the findings of recent research into a strengths-oriented pilot project in the field of child welfare and protection in Flanders (the Flemish speaking part of Belgium), in which we examined whether the strengths-oriented discourse in social work actually took place in the relationship between social workers and families in practice. The research reveals an ambiguous picture of the ways in which the strengths perspective can be implemented in practice, because social workers walk a tightrope between responsibilizing and governing families. We argue that the implementation process needs a conceptual and theoretical foundation that goes beyond mere eclecticism. We also argue that this demands a broadening of the focus of strengths-oriented social work from a relational to a political level, as this strengths-oriented social work practice remains situated within the broader social, economic, and political context.

Do families in poverty need child and family social work

This article attempts to contribute to the historically relevant debate about the role of social work in poverty situations, focusing on the emblematic and radical question whether the poor actually need social work. In the context of the currently dominant policy framework in European welfare states, that is underpinned by the emerging paradigm of social investment, we argue that it is extremely relevant to readdress this question. Within this development, the eradication of child poverty has been considered a key target of poverty reduction strategies and child and family social work has consequently been assigned a pivotal role in the fight against the intergenerational transmission of poverty. We demonstrate that the rhetoric of social investment has found a practical implementation in social work constructing the problem of poverty in terms of education and activation of both the child and the individual parent. Based on an extensive review of literature, we discuss underlying assumptions, consequences and pitfalls of the paradigm of social investment for social work and tease out whether, and on which conditions, poor families need child and family social work.

Capturing life histories about movements into and out of poverty: A road with pits and bumps

In order to take into account the power imbalances typically implicated in knowledge production about the complex social problem of poverty, social work researchers have increasingly acknowledged the importance of grasping the viewpoints and perspectives of people in poverty situations. In this contribution, we accordingly reflect on a current life history research project that retrospectively explores the life stories of parents with young children with regard to their mobility into and out of poverty that is examined in dynamic interaction with social work interventions. In this article, we discuss methodological and ethical challenges and complexities that we unexpectedly encountered in our research venture, as illustrated by three exemplary vignettes. These examples demonstrate issues of power between the researcher and the research participants that are not only inevitable, but also generate dilemmas, struggles and ambiguities that often remain underexposed in the ways scientific insights are reported. Rather than disguising these pits and bumps, we argue for a reflexive research stance which makes these issues of power in knowledge production susceptible to contemplation and scrutiny.

Social work research as a practice of transparency

Social work research is inherently normative and as such the assumptions about social problems in social work research should be open to scrutiny and contestation. But although researchers often face tussles and huge contradictions, they rarely articulate them. In this article, we report on a small research project in which a collective of social work researchers in Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium) tried to think critically through some of the questions and complexities they were confronted with in social work research, more specifically in research on poverty. Our research aim implied that we tried to discuss the choices that were made during a diversity of research projects, including making explicit the grounds on which this happened. We learned that the choices made, although they seem to be very obvious ones, often remained implicit during the different research processes. We conclude that social work research requires that researchers attempt to realize a practice of transparency. The pursuit of such a practice of transparency refers to the importance of the creation of reflexive space in research communities to collectively embrace and discuss the complexities of social work research.