Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Participatory social work and report writing

2009; Wiley; Volume: 14; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1365-2206.2008.00599.x

1365-2206

Rudi Roose, André Mottart, Nele Dejonckheere, Carol van Nijnatten, Maria De Bie,

Research in Social Sciences

ABSTRACT Participation of children and parents is a central notion in child and family social work. This paper reports on a research dealing with how the participative paradigm comes to the fore in the practice of report writing in the work with looked‐after children. As social work is essentially a language‐centred activity, report writing is a core skill in social work. A participative practice of report writing would imply that the perspective of the children and parents is present in the reports. The results of our research show that a participatory approach to writing reports is not self‐evident. On the one hand, the practice of report writing shows a big diversity in the way the client's perspectives are given attention. On the other hand, the incorporation of the client's voice does not necessarily stand for a participatory approach because it may be used to strengthen professional views rather than clarify clients' perspectives. The case is made in such a way that a participatory approach of child and family social work demands more attention to the practice of writing reports.