The visibility of the child in multiprofessional meetings - Italian welfare units collegial discussion under scrutiny

Backgrounds - The child wellbeing is a central issue for social workers and professionals in family welfare services.Child protection decision are often made after consultation in multi-professional teams. With differences according to child protection systems existing in each country, teams have diverse functions and purposes. Nevertheless some topics are commonly debated, one of which is the visibility of the child and the child view when decisions and transitions in the protection project are at stake. Referring to the Italian context, this study aims to highlight how social workers in Italian local welfare units represent children and their view, especially when child protection decisions are discussed. Method - In order to answer to the research questions ten multi-professional meetings in social services (statutory, health and no-governmental) in different Italian regions are investigated through participant observation. The meetings have been recorded and transcribed to capture child protection practices and the nature of child representation with specific regard to child view. A qualitative thematic data analysis has been implemented through NVIVO software. The study is part of a wider research project promoted by CNOAS (National Professional Social Work Order) and FNAS (National Foundation of Social Work) to Investigate qualities and problems of the work of social workers in the field of child protection Findings - Results show that social workers and professional discuss child protection cases for different and concomitant reasons i. e. share professional knowledge and experience to promote understanding and decision making, request for professional contribution and support. The study highlights various levels of representation of child conditions and family life, also adverse experiences are described. It emerges however a limited representation of the child view in collegial discussions. Conclusions and implications - The research highlights the need to improve the capacity to bring the child’s view and to promote competent engaging and listening with children and youth. In some cases, social workers experience challenges in interviewing children due to resistance and stereotypes related to their authoritative functions such as enacting children’s out-of-home placement. Moreover, the study indicates how the organisational nature of professional groups and their aim in the service system influence the professionals discussion, stressing the necessity of the collaboration among social and health service professionals together with teachers and third sector practitioners. References - Bastian Carmela (2020) the child in child protection: invisible and unheard, Child and Family Social Work, 25, pp. 135 - 143. Nybom Jenny (2005) Visibility and child view in the assessment process of social work: cross national comparisons, International Journal of Social Welfare, 14, pp. 315 - 325