Caseworkers' Experiences One Year after the Family Group Conference: A Follow-up Study

Objectives: The present paper will describe a study within a larger project on the implementation of Family Group Conference (FGC) in foster care work. The theoretical basis is a democratization and empowerment approach in... [ view full abstract ]

Objectives:
The present paper will describe a study within a larger project on the implementation of Family Group Conference (FGC) in foster care work. The theoretical basis is a democratization and empowerment approach in social work, allowing users of welfare services more authority in decisions, but also demanding new skills and attitudes in the field of practice. The study addresses why FGC is not widely spread as a decision making process despite the overwhelming enthusiasm for the method that is registered among child protection workers and families involved. Our research question: What can we learn from studying caseworkers’ experiences with follow-up work, in order to adjust FGC to become more widespread and applied?

Method:
The empirical data material for the analysis is 16 semi-structured interviews with caseworkers one year after the FGC. Eighteen similar questions were raised and discussed. Important topics such as what is the child’s current situation, is the plan of action made by the FGC participants realized, who in the extended family has contributed and in what way, and what is the quality of your working conditions for the follow-up process? All the interviews have been transcribed and analysis was done using Nvivo. The study was conducted in accordance with international standards for research ethics.

Results:
In FGC a plan of action is made and agreed upon after discussions done by the extended family/network without a child welfare caseworker present. This plan gives the family influence on the following social arrangements for the child. We found that almost every action plan was changed, often concerning significant aspects of care and custody. Many children had moved, and lived in new homes, with other caregivers than the family had agreed upon during their meeting. Very few of our informants payed attention to the action plan. In many cases new caseworkers had taken over the follow-up work, due to the organization of the child welfare office in different departments. We question if the follow-up of the action plan is adequate and if the child welfare system actually undermine the democratic value basis by ignoring the importance of the extended family’s plan of action for the child. Another finding is that arranging a follow-up FGC by inviting the same participants from the extended family is not always done. Ordinary network meetings are often preferred by caseworkers for practical reasons or for the reason to be in control of the discussion in the network.

Conclusions:
Child welfare work today is organized in a linear structure starting with a report of concern about a child’s situation, followed by investigation, intervention implemented or case dropped, and finally evaluation. The results are measured by mapping the effect of the intervention. However, in reality, the cases are moving in circles, rather than in a linear fashion, and more than formed by fixed decisions they are characterized by complex social processes. To carry out the democratic ambition and facilitate empowerment practice for the family, child welfare work could benefit from implementing an organization that accounts for the processual character of the cases.
We argue that more emphasis must be placed on the follow-up work and the processual part of FGC. Thereby the method will be more consistent with the changing character of the cases, perhaps more wide spread, and used - in accordance with the registered enthusiasm.