Persevering professionals: dilemmas of relationships and self-determination in work with people with intellectual disability – a multi-method study based on interpersonal process recall

The article focuses on social educators’ reflections on their own professional practice in encounters with people with intellectual disability receiving services. Drawing on Interpersonal Process Recall, a video-assisted method, together with a focus group interview, the study explores the experiences from in-situ encounters of five social educators employed in a Norwegian municipality. The key findings are that they view relationship-building as integral to their work, they grant primacy to the ideal of autonomy and they strive towards realizing this in their daily work. The study however displays how these emphases might lead to dilemmas, especially between the wish to support the service users’ self-determination and the urge to protect them from harm. Of special note was how the service users’ increasing use of social media was perceived as a particular challenge for social educators, who were left with an experience of being unable to protect.publishedVersio

Moglegheiter og fallgruver: ei utforsking av sosionomar og vernepleiarar sine refleksjonar kring deltaking i ein multimetodisk studie basert på Interpersonal Process Recall og fokusgruppeintervju

Interpersonal process recall (IPR) is a qualitative research method employing video-assisted interviews, originating from training in psychotherapy skills. This method strongly emphasises recall and reflexivity, aiming to explore the interaction experience, primarily between clients and caregivers. It is used to study professions emphasising reflexive practice, such as psychotherapy and counselling but has been absent from research on social work professions. This article explores the experiences and reflections of five social workers and five social educators who participated in research applying a combination of IPR and focus group methods. Overall, the findings suggest that the participants, possessing critical and reflective practice skills, found their involvement advantageous. Their capacity for reflection and reflexivity not only benefited the participants themselves but also facilitated the researchers in gaining new insights into professional experiences in professional and service user interaction.publishedVersio

Balancing responsibility, boundaries and time: social workers’ experiences in service user meetings – a multi-method study based on Interpersonal Process Recall

The article focuses on social workers’ reflections on their own professional practice in conversations with vulnerable service users in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (Nav). Drawing on Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR), a video-based method, together with a focus group interview, the study explores the experiences and reflections of five social workers of in-situ encounters with service users. A key finding is that the social workers, who worked in two different offices within the work and activation field, perceived their professional practice as highly complex, negotiated, and ambiguous. The social workers nevertheless displayed a multitude of knowledge and competences, expressed through practical synthesis in the conversations. The article argues that more attention should be paid to ethical aspects of professional knowledge, such as when balancing contradictory considerations towards national workfare policies and vulnerable service users, and how to set the limits for their own professional responsibility in the work towards the service users. Furthermore, the article also directs the attention to another area of professional knowledge, as it explores time as an embedded and ubiquitous aspect of, and condition for, professional knowledge to unfold.publishedVersio

Peer victimization as reported by children, teachers, and parents in relation to children's health symptoms

-Background Victims of bullying in school may experience health problems later in life. We have assessed the prevalence of children's health symptoms according to whether peer victimization was reported by the children, by their teachers, or by their parents. Methods In a cross-sectional study of 419 children in grades 1-10 the frequency of peer victimization was reported by children, teachers and parents. Emotional and somatic symptoms (sadness, anxiety, stomach ache, and headache) were reported by the children. Frequencies of victimization reported by different informants were compared by the marginal homogeneity test for paired ordinal data, concordance between informants by cross-tables and Spearman's rho, and associations of victimization with health symptoms were estimated by logistic regression. Results The concordance of peer victimization reported by children, teachers, and parents varied from complete agreement to complete discordance also for the highest frequency (weekly/daily) of victimization. Children's self-reported frequency of victimization was strongly and positively associated with their reports of emotional and somatic symptoms. Frequency of victimization reported by teachers or parents showed similar but weaker associations with the children's health symptoms. Conclusion The agreement between children and significant adults in reporting peer victimization was low to moderate, and the associations of reported victimization with the children's self-reported health symptoms varied substantially between informants. It may be useful to assess prospectively the effects of employing different sources of information related to peer victimization.publishedVersio

Deltaking i barnevernet - ein analyse av ungdomar sine forteljingar i lys av posisjoneringsteori

I artikkelen utforskar vi vi korleis unge gjev meining til erfaringane sine knytt til deltaking i barnevernet. Det empiriske materialet er basert på intervju med 13 ungdomar om å delta i barnevernet. Ved å nytte narrativ analyse og posisjoneringsteori, har vi analysert korleis dei unge posisjonerer seg sjølv og barnevernet i forteljingane, og korleis dei fortel om relasjonen til barnevernarbeidaren. Forteljingane til dei unge viser stor variasjon. Alt frå forteljingar om samarbeid i ein trygg relasjon, der den unge fortel seg sjølv fram som aktiv og deltakande, til forteljingar om avmakt, der relasjon og deltaking er fråverande. Posisjoneringsperspektivet kan bidra til auka forståing for dei unge sine posisjoneringar i samarbeid med barnevernet, og vere eit nyttig analyseverktøy for praksisfeltet i arbeidet med å legge til rette for barn og unge si deltaking

Balancing responsibility, boundaries and time: social workers’ experiences in service user meetings – a multi-method study based on Interpersonal Process Recall

The article focuses on social workers’ reflections on their own professional practice in conversations with vulnerable service users in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (Nav). Drawing on Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR), a video-based method, together with a focus group interview, the study explores the experiences and reflections of five social workers of in-situ encounters with service users. A key finding is that the social workers, who worked in two different offices within the work and activation field, perceived their professional practice as highly complex, negotiated, and ambiguous. The social workers nevertheless displayed a multitude of knowledge and competences, expressed through practical synthesis in the conversations. The article argues that more attention should be paid to ethical aspects of professional knowledge, such as when balancing contradictory considerations towards national workfare policies and vulnerable service users, and how to set the limits for their own professional responsibility in the work towards the service users. Furthermore, the article also directs the attention to another area of professional knowledge, as it explores time as an embedded and ubiquitous aspect of, and condition for, professional knowledge to unfold

Peer victimization as reported by children, teachers, and parents in relation to children's health symptoms

Abstract Background Victims of bullying in school may experience health problems later in life. We have assessed the prevalence of children's health symptoms according to whether peer victimization was reported by the children, by their teachers, or by their parents. Methods In a cross-sectional study of 419 children in grades 1-10 the frequency of peer victimization was reported by children, teachers and parents. Emotional and somatic symptoms (sadness, anxiety, stomach ache, and headache) were reported by the children. Frequencies of victimization reported by different informants were compared by the marginal homogeneity test for paired ordinal data, concordance between informants by cross-tables and Spearman's rho, and associations of victimization with health symptoms were estimated by logistic regression. Results The concordance of peer victimization reported by children, teachers, and parents varied from complete agreement to complete discordance also for the highest frequency (weekly/daily) of victimization. Children's self-reported frequency of victimization was strongly and positively associated with their reports of emotional and somatic symptoms. Frequency of victimization reported by teachers or parents showed similar but weaker associations with the children's health symptoms. Conclusion The agreement between children and significant adults in reporting peer victimization was low to moderate, and the associations of reported victimization with the children's self-reported health symptoms varied substantially between informants. It may be useful to assess prospectively the effects of employing different sources of information related to peer victimization.</p

Peer victimization as reported by children, teachers, and parents in relation to children's health symptoms

Background Victims of bullying in school may experience health problems later in life. We have assessed the prevalence of children's health symptoms according to whether peer victimization was reported by the children, by their teachers, or by their parents. Methods In a cross-sectional study of 419 children in grades 1-10 the frequency of peer victimization was reported by children, teachers and parents. Emotional and somatic symptoms (sadness, anxiety, stomach ache, and headache) were reported by the children. Frequencies of victimization reported by different informants were compared by the marginal homogeneity test for paired ordinal data, concordance between informants by cross-tables and Spearman's rho, and associations of victimization with health symptoms were estimated by logistic regression. Results The concordance of peer victimization reported by children, teachers, and parents varied from complete agreement to complete discordance also for the highest frequency (weekly/daily) of victimization. Children's self-reported frequency of victimization was strongly and positively associated with their reports of emotional and somatic symptoms. Frequency of victimization reported by teachers or parents showed similar but weaker associations with the children's health symptoms. Conclusion The agreement between children and significant adults in reporting peer victimization was low to moderate, and the associations of reported victimization with the children's self-reported health symptoms varied substantially between informants. It may be useful to assess prospectively the effects of employing different sources of information related to peer victimization