Through social secretary's eyewear : A qualitative study of social services collaboration with various government agencies at a child protection investigation

Abstract

The aim of this study is to understand the collaboration at a child investigation and the actions that may be encountered as a result of the investigation, based on the Social Secretaries experiences of collaboration with other agencies such as schools, police, health visitor and child psychiatry. In the study, eight social workers from different municipalities was interviewed at a total of six occasions. One of the occasions was a group interview with three social workers at the same time. Through the interviews, it appears that the collaboration has an important role in social work and the necessity is something that manifests itself in the social secretaries stories but also in the earlier research done in this area. The results show that social workers extensively want to interact but that the purpose of interaction varies depending on the nature of the matter. Social workers also explain that there may be differences depending on who or which interacts which also means that the child be ultimately affected in one way or another