Project Details
Projekt
Scientific support in expert fields concerning cases of child abuse and neglect as well as the development of interprofessional teamwork in child protection
Subject Area
Sociological Theory
Education Systems and Educational Institutions
Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine
Education Systems and Educational Institutions
Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine
Term
from 2014 to 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 252195651
Pursuant to Section 8a SGB VIII [German Social Security Code] youth welfare services and health care providers are dedicated to protect young people from risks to their wellbeing. The youth welfare offices in the counties of Heidenheim, Nordvorpommern, Ostholstein, and Saalfeld-Rudolstadt as mentioned in the project proposal used to be cooperation partners in a precursor study within the SFB 580 [Special Research Area] on the social developments in post-socialistic societies in Germany since 1990 (individual resources and professional support in coping with radical changes in political systems in contrasting rural environments in East and West Germany 2001-2012). Furthermore, one of these youth welfare services (Saalfeld-Rudolstadt) has been partner of the Thuringia model program to optimize the cooperation models regarding child protection. These cooperative connections allow for a transfer project on forms of interventions and network structures of a professional child protection. As many youth welfare services fail to implement their task, practice has to rely on support and new knowledge having dissemination potential. Transfer should refer to (1) knowledge on casework which allows for understanding a case when working on boundary objects within child protection and to (2) knowledge and appropriate practices regarding organizing principles and inter-institutional and multi-professional relationships in child protection.Direct transfer of knowledge to casework level helps the professionals working for social services and providers establish a culture of speaking about mistakes and understand cases methodically.The aim is also to further the efforts of the medical child welfare agencies in Thuringia (TAKS) to furnish a sustainable interdisciplinary communication between health care and youth welfare services as well as to establish cooperative settings for case-related risk management having dissemination potential. This process will be facilitated and evaluated by the research team. So far, our research outcomes show that there organizational coping strategies in child protection have their own logic which reflects county-specific cooperation principles when handling risks of child abuse as well as the organization of child protection and affects institutional routines and habitual patterns of action and guidance in high-risk spheres of action.Outcomes from the study of an exemplary county (Saalfeld-Rudolstadt) will then be transferred to the partnering youth welfare services of the precursor project in order to improve the culture of coping with problems when shaping child protection on location within the context of state-specific legal and organizational parameters. The use of the concepts of Family Group Conference and Dialogic Workshops (Tom Erik Arnkil) provides touchstones of a professional child protection. They also serve as a test of our initial hypotheses concerning local development potentials of the counties under study.
DFG Programme
Research Grants (Transfer Project)
International Connection
Finland, Switzerland
