Aiming for participation of foster children within organizationally specialized social services: a bureaucratic or a relational act?

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, we analyse how social workers within a specialized social service understand and ‘do’ participation for children placed in foster homes. Does specialization and division of labour affect how children’s participation is understood and done and, if so, how? The study is based on focus group interviews with social workers in three different professional roles involved in the care process: investigative social workers (ISWs), appointed social workers (ASWs) and foster care social workers (FCSWs). The interviewees describe several strategies they use to provide an adequate environment for children to be able to share their views; but also reveal how their encounters with children are clearly informed by requirements to gather information in bureaucratic processes. Collaboration between the different types of social workers is one strategy used to ensure that children are informed about their different professional roles. The ASW is described as ‘the spider in a web’, coordinating a multitude of threads, including diverse interests from various stakeholders, such as the child’s biological family; however, this leaves less time for focusing on the children. Our conclusion is that children’s participation is understood by all professionals as a relationship, but in practice mainly takes the bureaucratic form of administration and documentation. The specialization of social services, in time, space and professionally, drives the endeavour for children’s participation to adapt to and focus on collaborative and administrative requirements, which paradoxically result in additional need and focus on the bureaucratical work also for appointed social workers.