Disclosure and assessment in child abuse and maltreatment cases: young people’s and social work professionals’ perspectives

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper explores young people’s stories of receiving (or not receiving) help for abuse and maltreatment as children. Furthermore, it explores what social work professionals’ say they do, and which knowledge and approaches they emphasise when assisting abused and maltreated children or young people and their parents. The findings show the young people tend to focus on professionals’ ability to talk to them, listen and take them seriously, although they may be ambivalent about disclosing violence. Whereas caseworkers tend to focus mainly on identifying and disclosing abuse through standardised approaches and procedures. Taking these empirical findings into consideration, this paper aims to discuss possible implications embedded in different approaches in child abuse and maltreatment cases within the context of Norwegian child welfare services. Applying the social work concept of person-in-situation as the theoretical lens, this analysis sheds light on the mutual interdependency of the individual and context, and the complexities in each individual child abuse case. Discussing how child welfare workers may enquire about and grasp the complexities in child abuse and maltreatment cases, the paper contributes to the debate on professional discretion in light of the increasing trend to standardise investigative procedures in child welfare services.