Narratives about concerns for child maltreatment

Teachers and other professionals at school meet children almost every day. Sometimes this contact can result in worries for the child´s wellbeing. According to Swedish law all professionals coming in contact with children... [ view full abstract ]

Teachers and other professionals at school meet children almost every day. Sometimes this contact can result in worries for the child´s wellbeing. According to Swedish law all professionals coming in contact with children have an obligation to report child at risk of maltreatment to social welfare authorities.
Objective: To illuminate school professionals’ worries for child maltreatment
Method: As a part of a project, aiming to facilitate the process to help maltreated school aged children a narrative approach was applied. 32 school professionals, of various occupations from six different schools for children 6-15 years old in Sweden, were interviewed.
Results: The participants told about a total of 63 cases of children they had worried for. When worrying for the child they had concerns for the best for the child, their relation to the parents, consequences for the child and told about ongoing worries long after the narrated situation.
Conclusion: There seemed to be many hinders when considering report child maltreatment to the authorities and there is a need to decrease the pressure on the individual school professional during the process. A future intervention is planned to decrease the strain and facilitate the reporting process that may lead to earlier efforts to help children at risk.