Abstract
Although there have been developments in family and child welfare services, these have not been prioritized from a sustainability perspective. This article aims to provide a framework for supporting sustainable provisions for family and child welfare. We demonstrate how the need for a socially sustainable stance on family and child welfare arises from the recognition of global changes that constantly influence families as well as children’s rights, which ground child- and family-centered actions. The conceptual framework includes three overarching dimensions and four levels of actors that provide a body for 16 conceptual entities in providing socially sustainable family and child welfare. The analysis showed that functional child welfare and family policies, systems, and practices appear essential elements, even necessary preconditions, of sustainability and sustainable development in general. Leaning on the concept of children’s rights, we conclude that the idea of child welfare promises citizens that society has committed to promoting all children’s wellbeing. Implementation of this requires a shared understanding that the conceptual framework provided in this paper urges to actualize.
Highlights
A sustainability perspective focusing on family life has not been given precedence
As the social, economic, and environmental aspects of sustainable development intertwine, there is a good reason for discussing child welfare from a broader point of view, within a comprehensive conception of sustainability
We have presented how family and child welfare are understood from the viewpoint of social sustainability
Summary
Sustainability has been linked with families from the perspective of adopting an ecological way of living or with children from the viewpoint of educating about an eco-sustainable lifestyle [1]. It has beneficially focused on preventing poverty among families and children. Our purpose is to discuss the concept of child welfare as an element of sustainable social development and provide a conceptual framework for the provision of support for socially sustainable family and child welfare. Sustainable family and child welfare requires the recognition of values that consciously and unconsciously affect our practices, the recognition of interdependence and that family and child welfare practices take place in a specific time and place and affect the other practices and environment reciprocally, and the recognition of resilience that is needed and that can be strengthened at an individual and group level to accommodate constant changes in a sustainable way
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