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Research shows that emotional practices are a basic aspect of social work. This article provides knowledge about emotional practices of care in social work with children and families in Denmark in the context of governmental and managerial expectations of the cost-effectiveness of social work. Based on a Danish qualitative research project Does social work care? Exploring relational, emotional and embodied practices in social services for vulnerable children and families (2018–2023), this article identifies and presents three emotional practices: Creating a feeling of a close and authentic mutual relationship with children and parents; Being tough and maintain professional authority by distributing attention to the child and by demanding parental responsibility, and Emotional endurance based on knowledge, solidarity and sympathy with disadvantaged families. These practices reveal a differentiated socioemotional economy of sympathy and care in social work with families that interact with incentives to take the level and use of services into account. Based on these findings, the article discusses this trend and its implications for social work and suggests further research that can illuminate the broader landscape of emotional practices in different socio-economic context of sympathy and care.

The chapter focuses on the possibilities for sustaining care in social work with vulnerable families during a pandemic lock down in Denmark, and discusses if disruption of normal practices can be a source for learning and transformation. First, we outline a concept of care and argue that a pandemic lock down can disrupt professional care but may also reveal structural weaknesses and offer paths for critical reflective transformation. Next, we introduce to structural challenges in social work with vulnerable families related to expectations of cost-effectiveness and efficiency and analyse, how social workers experience and reflect on the possibilities for sustaining care during the lock down. The analysis shows that prioritising scarce resources to enable care becomes paramount. While the social workers experience moments of enabling and (re)discovering the “essence of social work” as well as a sense of community with families, they also feel “worn out” and wonder what will be the future possibilities for care. For example, will management acknowledge and prioritize the need for resources and time for care in the aftermath of Covid 19, or will conditions during the lock down become “the new normal”. Based on this, we discuss the possibilities for a transformative disruption focusing on governmental, organisational and professional recognition of the caring purpose of and pre-condition to social work.

Globally, social work faces increasingly complex cultural, political, economic, legal, organisational, technological and professional conditions. Critically refecting on the subject, this book heightens critical consciousness among social work researchers, educators, practitioners and students about the structural dimensions of social problems and human suffering; it highlights the inter-relationship between agency and structure and discusses strategies to challenge and change both individual and societal consciousness. Offering the reader an opportunity to gain in-depth understanding of how critical refection is possible in contemporary social work research, practice and education, it will be required reading for all social work scholars, students and professionals.

Automated decision support systems, which incorporate artificial intelligence and big data, are receiving significant attention in the public sector in Europe and in Denmark, where new tech-nologies are being developed and implemented to improve social welfare services under pres-sure. Critical reflection on such systems is paramount since they can cause harm, violate funda-mental rights, discriminate and reproduce social patterns. In this article, we investigate the ra-tionales that shape the development of a decision support system to assess referrals concerning child neglect. The investigation is based on a qualitative case study conducted in 2019-2020 at the Citizen Centre Children and Young People, Copenhagen Municipality, Denmark. The article investigates: How do key actors involved in the development of a DSS for assessing referrals con-cerning child neglect make sense of the technology? Based on that, what rationales, potential for and limits to critical reflection can we discern? The analysis shows that the development of DSS is an organisational and socio-technical experiment that is concerned just as much with creating a governable sense of reality as changing that reality. Reflections touch upon risks related to cat-egorisation and opacity but also constitute organisational limits to critical reflection. The DSS becomes an unquestioned obligatory passage point as a potent solution to multiple complex sys-temic, organisational and professional problems. Due to ambiguity and deep-rooted uncertainty, trust in knowledge about and resources for social workers’ assessment and work with child pro-tection becomes an essential glue and test of the potential of DSSs in social work. Decision support systems, which incorporate artificial intelligence and big data, are receiving significant attention in the public sector. Decision support systems are sociocultural artefacts that are subject to a mix of technical and political choices, and critical investigation of these choices and the rationales they reflect are paramount since they are inscribed into and may cause harm, violate fundamental rights and reproduce negative social patterns. Applying and merging the concepts of sense-making and translation, this article investigates the rationales, translations and critical reflections that shape the development of a decision support system to support social workers assessing referrals concerning child neglect. It presents findings from a qualitative case study conducted in 2019–2020 at the Citizen Centre Children and Young People, Copenhagen Municipality, Denmark. The analysis shows how key actors through processes of translation construct, negotiate and readjust problem definitions, roles, interests, responsibilities and ideas of ambiguity and accountability. Although technological solutionism is present in these processes, it is not the only rationale invested. Rather, technological and data-driven rationales are adjusted to and merged with rationales of efficiency, return on investment and child welfare. Through continuous renegotiation of roles, responsibilities and problems according to these rationales, the key actors attempt to orchestrate ways of managing the complexity facing child welfare services by projecting images of future potentials of the decision support system that are yet to be realised.

Families subject to child protection services are often in a marginalised position with less resources to live up to normative expectations of parenthood. Statutory social workers and parents often hold conflicting views regarding the child’s needs and the family situation, and their relationship is asymmetric leaving the parents with less power to define the situation. This is legitimised in the child’s need for protection and care. However, parents and families can also be vulnerable. Therefore, a core ethical concern is how to act carefully in consideration of different positions and perceptions. In this article, we argue that within such a context of state power and service delivery ethical reflection is crucial, but in a way that makes visible the connection between power and care. Consequently, we offer an analysis of the connection between power and care in statutory social work that captures core ethical, relational and professional dilemmas. This analysis combines notions from care ethics with sociological perspectives on power, conflict, trust, recognition and social suffering, and is illustrated by the case Cecilia and her children. Based on this, we suggest possibilities for care ethics in statutory social work and further research on care and power.

This article investigates how care is practised and made possible in social work with vulnerable children and their families in Danish child welfare and protection services. It seeks to contribute to our knowledge of forms of professional care in social work by examining two case-examples of, how social work practice is performed in interaction with families who are subjects of a child examination or a family network-based intervention. By examining caring practices in situations marked by potentially conflicting values, interests and needs in this particular social and political context, the article contributes to illuminating how changes in the relations between the state, family and child on a macro level, are reflected in the way care is practised on a micro level.

Social workers in child protection services must make difficult decisions often based on fragmented knowledge and the inevitable risk of not knowing what is important to know about a child and the family. Cases of severe neglect have been subject to public attention of politicians and media in several European countries often followed by reforms with a strong focus on standardising risk assessment and documentation. This article argues and shows that emotional and embodied processes are an important source of knowledge in child protection. Such processes appear in social workers’ narratives about worries for the well-being and security of children underpinned by moments of silence and symbolic bodily utterances. These ways of communicating emotions help social workers navigate and make sense in child protection cases, where knowledge is limited. The question ‘Does it feel right?’ becomes crucial in terms of identifying and expressing potential risks. However, as a legitimate professional question that can lead to valuable knowledge it remains latent. Therefore, emotional and embodied processes constitute a ‘shadowy epistemology’ (Bruner, J. (1991) ‘The narrative construction of reality’, Critical Inquiry, 18(1), pp. 1–21). Instead of denouncing these processes, we need to develop a professional language of understanding and naming them, and the aim of this article is to contribute to this.

Borgercenter Børn og Unge i Københavns Kommune har i de senere år automatiseret forskellige sagsbehandlingsprocesser med Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for at skabe mere og bedre velfærd for færre ressourcer. Artiklen viser, hvordan den automatiserede sagsbehandlingsproces distribueres og hvordan roller, opgaver og ansvar konstrueres og adskilles. En væsentlig pointe er, at socialrådgiveren tilskrives opgaver og ansvar, der risikerer at gå upåagtet hen.

Inden for den eksistentielle fænomenologi er man optaget af menneskets oplevelsesverden, dvs. den verden som vi oplever i kraft af vores sansende krop og i kraft af den fælles sociale livsverden. Den kropslige eksistens og oplevelsesverden er min, men på et umiddelbart plan erfarer kroppen decentreret, dvs. erfaringen er som et åbent felt man er spredt ud i og sensitiv for. Vores eksistens afgrænses ikke af huden. Derfor kan vi på et æstetisk niveau af mening dele oplevelser på tværs af kroppe. Dette gør indgående forståelse af et andet menneske mulig - og samtidig til noget, vi aldrig kommer til bunds i. Eksistentiel fænomenologi kredser om konkrete oplevelser og mening som kilde til ny erkendelse. Ontologi Videnskabelige begreber og gode beskrivelser kan bruges til at pege på eller forstå aspekter af den levede erfaring, men vil aldrig kunne indfange virkeligheden som den umiddelbart opleves, leves og forandrer sig som helhed. Mennesket er et både historisk, psykologisk, biologisk, socialt og kulturelt væsen. Vi er både unikke og deler en fælles social og kulturel livsverden som baggrund. Mennesket ’står ud’ fra denne anonyme baggrund i kraft af en personlig eksistens, og en kollektiv eksistens, men uden at det kan reduceres til én af disse. Mennesket forstås derfor som hypersocialt og forbundet, og samtidig som adskilt og sin egen. Epistemologi Eksistentiel fænomenologis slagord er Til sagen selv! Når man undersøger et fænomen, må man forsøge at beskrive det, som umiddelbart kommer til syne eller viser sig, så rammende og udførligt som muligt. Men man stopper ikke ved beskrivelser. Teoretiske begreber anvendes til at fortolke aspekter, for at forstå mere. Erkendelsesinteresser leder forskningen. Nøglebegreber - Livsverden og den (de)centrerede eksistens peger på, at vi lever igennem en fælles social og kulturel livsverden, som en både centreret og decentreret (åben) eksistens. - Tre niveauer af mening kaster lys over dybden i menneskers oplevelser. Det praktiske og æstetiske niveau af mening – det vi gør og sanser – udgør et levet hele, som den begrebslige mening kun kan pege på. - Den menneskelige væren er social før den er individuel. Vi fødes ind i sociale og kollektive sammenhænge, og former gennem livet en personlig individualitet.

This article is concerned with the development of social work in advanced capitalist welfare states, where gaining competitive advantages has become the primary goal of public governance and management expressed in a strong focus on competition and productivity. The aim of the article is to contribute to filling out a gap in knowledge about how this affect social services and social work. More specifically, the article present findings from a qualitative study of social services and social work with vulnerable families in Denmark. The study shows how a focus on productivity and competition expressed in public reforms and incentives to promote short-term services fosters a subtle and almost invisible reorganisation of social services changing the time horizon of social work. Time becomes both expanded and compressed demanding social workers to include more potentialities for facilitating future change in the present, without getting more actual time, and consequently they must think and act differently regarding how they perceive and spend time. Certain forms of knowledge and practices regarding the families’ life world risk becoming ‘a waste of time’ if social workers do not compensate, either by ‘keeping the families a little longer’ or by being ‘a little disobedient’. Thus, time matters!.

This special issue of the European Journal of Social Work brings a selection of papers presented at the Seventh European Conference for Social Work Research in 2017 initiated by European Social Wor...