UiS Open Journals (Univ. of Stavanger)
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To tell the right story: Functions of the personal user narrative in service user involvement
From the starting point of narrative ethnography, this article explores a specific kind of service user involvement in psychiatry: staff training activities in which patients and former patients are invited to “tell their stories”. A core feature of these stories is that they are based on the narrators’ self-perceived experience, and they all have a highly personal character. I call these stories service user narratives, and these are the topic of study in this article. The narratives’ disposition, content and functions are explored, as is the role played by the personal aspects of the stories. This article investigates two functions of the service user narrative: the narrative as a means (1) of creating alternative images of mental ill health, and (2) of enabling a critique of psychiatry
Participants’ home as an interview context when studying sensitive family issues
This article considers the meaning of the participants’ home as an interview context when studying sensitive family issues. The article is based on two qualitative family studies by the authors on foster children’s perspectives on their home and their family relations and client families’ experiences of preventive family support. Both studies address sensitive family issues, in particular Finnish child welfare. The first author’s interview data consist of interviews with foster children, social network maps and diaries and the second author’s data of interviews with six client families. Most of the interviews were conducted at the participants’ homes, but in the second author\u27s study two interviews were conducted at the university
The financial crisis and recent family policy reforms in Finland, Germany and the United Kingdom: Is there a connection?
The turmoil created by the financial crisis and economic recession in Europe has served as an impetus for austerity measures in many countries. In this article, we ask whether these crises have also triggered reforms in family policy, and we focus on three European welfare states – Finland, Germany and the United Kingdom – countries that are often considered members of different family policy regimes. The article addresses two main research questions. The first one relates to the number, direction and magnitude of family policy reforms in these three countries since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008/2009, while in the second we discuss whether the reforms observed during this period can be seen as being related to the financial crisis and its later repercussions on the Euro-zone area, or if there are other explanations
Online and face-to-face role-play simulations in promoting social work students’ argumentative problem solving
This paper reports on a teaching experiment in which social work students (n=38) practiced problem solving through argumentative tasks. A teaching experiment was carried out at a Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences in Finland in connection with a course concerning preventative work against alcohol- and drug abuse. This quasi- experimental study investigated whether role-play simulation conducted either online (15 students) or face-to-face (14 students) improved students’ problem solving on social issues. As a pre-test, the students wrote an essay after having watched a dramatization of problematic cases on elderly people’s use of alcohol. The students also attended lectures (30 x 45 min) on the effect of substance abuse and preventive work, and after the role-play simulation they wrote another essay (post-test). Nine controls wrote an essay without participating in the role-play simulation. Lastly, the students filled out feedback questionnaires
A case of what? Methodological lessons from a reanalysis of conflicts within Swedish Juvenile Care
“Collaboration” is generally portrayed as being beneficial to authorities, even if previous collaborative research shows that conflicts are common between authorities who are supposed to cooperate. What takes place when different actors in the collaboration meet in practice? And what is the best way to analyse this? In qualitative studies, it is often problematic to go from an exhaustive analysis of individual empirical instances to an overall picture of the context or phenomenon in which all instances taken together can be viewed as a case. Years of close engagement with the data may interfere with the analyst’s capacities and opportunities to contextualize a study more broadly and theoretically, and detailed knowledge about a range of situations in the field may make novel contextualizations difficult. This article discusses how to overcome such obstacles, using examples from a study about a “collaboration” project in Swedish youth care
"You child is just wonderful!”: On ethics and access in research with children
This article discuss the consequences of the ambiguous view of children in the ethical guidelines – the ambitions to “give voice” while also “protect” – with a point of departure taken in the Swedish context, and in an actual research process of a project on children and care. It shows how the regulation of informed consent through the parent compromises the ideals of child-centred research; firstly, by limiting the child’s possibility to opt in to research; secondly, by affecting the relationship between researcher, child and parent in the research encounter; and thirdly, by jeopardizing the child’s right to confidentiality. The author argues that we should view not only the child’s but also the adult’s consent as a “continuous negotiation” and discusses strategies for strengthening the child’s right to opt in and participate in research on equal terms
Shweta Singh (Editor): Social Work and Social Development : Perspectives from India and the United States
Katherine S. van Wormer and Lorenn Walker: Restorative Justice Today : Practical Applications
The Role of Social Work in Palliative Care: A Comparison across Canada’s Three Northern Territories
A qualitative research study was conducted in northern Canada in 2007 which examined the realities and issues surrounding palliative care with seniors in remote northern settings. As a profession with a recognized role in supporting those who are dying and those who are bereaved, social work has been integral to the development of palliative care support services in northern Canada. However, in regions of the North where the social work profession is less developed and less recognized, the role for social work remains understated