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Child abuse and maltreatment have been described as wicked problems. A type of problem that is highly consequential, has shifting definitions, is difficult to solve, and poses risks for those who attempt. As a result, making decisions to prevent or stop child abuse and maltreatment often involves acting under uncertainties. To deal with uncertainties and to act responsibly, care workers need a reliable frame of reference. Too often these heuristics are grounded in ideologies that remain unquestioned in the everyday of care provision. The presentation acknowledges the need to act under uncertainty, spotlights the role of ideologies, and at the same time makes an appeal for a clear mandate: children need to be directly addressed if child well-being is in question.

Background: In the Swiss child protection system, when child well-being is endangered, social workers are often assigned to the family both to assist the family in improving the situation and to monitor the best interests of the child. We examined how caregivers and adolescents perceived these “child guardianships” in terms of participation, fairness, and impact. Methods: A client survey was combined with in-depth case studies. The survey included 213 caregivers (31 % fathers) and 86 adolescents (51 % girls). In the case studies, 19 caregivers and 10 adolescents were interviewed. Findings: A minority of caregivers had strong reservations about the fairness and efficacy of the guardianships. Fathers and German native-speaking caregivers perceived the guardian-ships as significantly less fair than did mothers and non-native speakers, respectively. More than half of adolescents reported they did not fully understand the objectives of the guardianship, and a majority said the support was not generally effective in improving their own situation or their family’s. In the interviews, adolescents often seemed to trust the social worker to be assisting the parent in some way, but they rarely saw the social worker as any help to themselves. Conclusions: The study examines a key challenge to child protection practice: how to directly include children and adolescents in support processes that are occasioned by perceived problems in the parents’ actions towards their children. Our findings reveal that under present circumstances in Switzerland, adolescents often feel detached. We conclude by considering cases that seemed to defy that rule.

Intergenerational relationships and their inherent power structures have become an object of public and scientific scrutiny. In recent decades, the increasing interest in the views of children and the mantle of meeting the daily challenges set forth by the Convention on the Rights of the Child has been taken up in the realm of children and youth services. As a result, acknowledging and understanding the perspective of the child in practice and research has become a core issue for advancing social work. The challenges and opportunities that arise from this fundamental task have been in the centre of this closing keynote speech at the XVI international EuSARF conference 2021.

Giving children a voice, listening to their concerns and letting them participate in political, professional and social issues is not only asserted in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but also offers an important orientation for decisions related to childhood, youth and family. The international research project Children's Worlds is designed in this spirit. For Switzerland, participating in the third survey wave, which involves research teams from 35 countries, was a great opportunity to generate knowledge about the needs and life situation of young people and to raise public awareness. The research team from the Institute of Childhood, Youth and Family at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) has been assigned the Swiss part of the study, which will be realized with the support of Fondation Botnar and the Office for Youth and Career Guidance of the Canton of Zurich. The ZHAW project is part of a worldwide project initiated and internationally coordinated with the support of the Jacobs Foundation. Children's Worlds has been running since 2011 and has set itself the task of closing research gaps on children's well-being and life situation by interviewing children themselves. By means of a thematically wide-ranging questionnaire, children between the ages of 8 and 12 can provide information on important aspects of their lives. The national report sums up findings from initial statistical analyses.

Workshop Care arrangements for children growing up in families with multiple problems need to be of high quality to ensure child safety and well-being. Services like these rely, in turn, on high quality research to provide meaningful guidance for practitioners in their complex decision-making processes. Conducting research in families with multiple problems, however, can be considered particularly challenging, which is not surprising if one considers that they are also known in social work practice as one of the hardest target groups to reach. The problems these families face are often severe and complex and sustained problem solving often involves various family members, social network partners and professionals. The goal of our symposium, therefore, is to do justice to both: (1) the distinctiveness and complexities of providing family based services in multi problem situations, and (2) the methodological rigor needed to provide scientifically sound evidence on problem specifics, as well as, on possible benefits and the harm of the interventions offered. The symposium will be open to discussions that involve all attendees, held in the form of a dialogue that explores boundaries and possibilities of different research approaches, mainly focusing on quantitative methods, though being open for inputs on qualitative research perspectives as well. Topics such as: (a) target group characteristics, (b) control group designs (in randomized trial settings or not), (c) regression to the mean, and (d) missing values will be addressed. Moreover, if possible, topics submitted by the attendees beforehand will also be addressed.

Children in families with multiple problems are from a child and youth care point of view a very vulnerable target group. Yet we still know relatively little about these families and the effectiveness of interventions for them. What we know from research indicates that most types of intervention have up to now not sufficiently succeeded in facilitating sustainable change for the children in these families. In this paper we propose that this might be due to two main reasons: 1. that most interventions durations are too short to deal with complex problems, and 2. that there is not enough direct support for children in home-based family interventions. Based on research related to Pinkerton’s model of the care continuum we argue for long-term visions on the effectiveness of child care interventions and the implementation of dual care worker approaches, which offer direct support for children at the same time as for the parents. The care activities and outcomes of such interventions need to be monitored by further research.

[Workshop]

Gezinnen met meervoudige, ernstige en langdurige problemen op verschillende leefgebieden staan in de Nederlandse jeugdzorg bekend als multiprobleemgezinnen. Hoewel er aanwijzingen zijn dat kortdurende crisisinterventie-programma’s positieve effecten kunnen hebben voor deze gezinnen, slaagt de hulpverlening er tot dusverre onvoldoende in om de problemen van multiprobleemgezinnen duurzaam op te lossen. Als alternatief zijn langdurige programma’s ontwikkeld die geïntegreerde zorg op verschillende leefgebieden kunnen bieden. Er is echter nauwelijks evaluatieonderzoek naar dit soort programma’s gedaan. Wij onderzochten daarom een langdurig hulpverleningssprogramma, genaamd ‘Tien voor Toekomst’, dat op grote schaal in Nederland wordt toegepast. Het design van het onderzoek was longitudinaal en prospectief. In het onderzoek werden 122 gezinnen geïncludeerd over een periode van ruim vierenhalf jaar. De resultaten laten zien dat toepassing van 'Tien voor Toekomst' gepaard gaat met een duidelijke afname van ouderlijke stress, met name in het eerste jaar. Bovendien blijken gezinnen met een aanvankelijk lager stressniveau een grotere kans te hebben om het programma eerder te beëindigen. Gedragsproblemen bij kinderen en het functioneren van het gezin als geheel tonen een minder coherent patroon van verandering. De focus van gezinscoaches op de begeleiding van ouders, meer dan op de begeleiding van kinderen, lijkt hiervoor een goede verklaring. Geconcludeerd wordt dat het hulpverleningsprogramma ‘Tien voor Toekomst’ ouderlijke stress kan verminderen en dat het programma een parallel aanbod dient te creëren van directe hulp voor kinderen, naast en in aanvulling op de hulpverlening voor ouders.

Children in families with multiple problems are from a child and youth care point of view a very vulnerable target group. Yet we still know relatively little about these families and the effectiveness of interventions for them. What we know from research indicates that most types of intervention have up to now not sufficiently succeeded in facilitating sustainable change for the children in these families. In this paper we propose that this might be due to two main reasons: 1. that most interventions durations are too short to deal with complex problems, and 2. that there is not enough direct support for children in home-based family interventions. Based on research related to Pinkerton's model of the care continuum we argue for long-term visions on the effectiveness of child care interventions and the implementation of dual care worker approaches, which offer direct support for children at the same time as for the parents. The care activities and outcomes of such interventions need to be monitored by further research.