Rudi Roose
Biographic Data
| ID | 136071 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rudi Roose |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rudi |
| FAMILY NAME | Roose |
| SIGNATURE | ROOSE R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ghent University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7508-4593 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 101 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 334 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 101 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
The DNA of Social Work as a Partner in Primary Health Care
There is a strong focus on primary health care (PHC), as rooted in a commitment to social justice and equity, to reduce social inequalities in health. Within PHC, interprofessional collaboration is emphasized to achieve these objectives. Social workers are a renewed partner within these collaborations, as principles of social justice and human rights are the core of this profession. However, it is unknown if and how social work implements these p…
Aspirations of People With Intellectual Disabilities Living in a Care Organization
This article presents the results of a research project involving 10 people with intellectual disabilities concerning their idea of “a good life” in a residential care setting, within a context of personal budgets. We introduce the capability approach as a framework for focusing on the opportunities personal budgets offer for people with intellectual disabilities. We make use of qualitative interviews following a photovoice project in which peopl…
Prioritising Cases in Youth Care
Social workers must often decide about priority at a case level, in a context of scarce resources. These decisions are disputable and controversial, which raises the question on what grounds are they made in practice. This article addresses that question through an empirical study of real-life case discussions in youth care in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. Toulmin’s argumentation model is used to analyse the data. The study finds …
The bridging role of social work
Primary health care is globally recognised as a key component of health systems. Its commitment to achieving social justice and addressing the social determinants of health is seen as a way to reduce social and health inequalities. As members of primary health care teams, social work professionals place the principle of social justice at the core of their operation by adopting a structural approach. Through this approach, social workers counter a…
Theorizing notions of the participation of people in poverty in social policymaking
Since the 1990s, a paradigm of participation has gained prominence and become a dominant policy rhetoric in anti‐poverty policymaking in Europe, embracing the key idea that people in poverty should participate as equal citizens in political decision‐making processes. Based on a historical case study of the production process of a Belgian white paper, the General Report on Poverty (1994), we investigate who participated in the GRP production proce…
In Search of Transformative Practice
Health services, social welfare, housing and an adequate standard of living are all part of the economic, social and cultural rights which should be accessible to all. These rights are, however, not realised for all and societal resources are not accessible to all. In this respect, outreach work is a promising social work approach as it is often deployed to target, engage and bring individuals back into contact with services. Nevertheless, it is …
Social Work as a Human Rights Profession
Human rights are foundational to social work, as recognised in the global definition, leading many to consider social work a human rights profession. Although human rights has become an important compass for social work, comprehensive frameworks for understanding the ‘practice’ of human rights in social work are still limited. Only recently attempts have been made to fill this gap. This article seeks to continue these efforts and contribute to a …
Researching the Non-Take up of Social Rights
In the face of growing social, economic, political and demographic challenges, many European welfare states have been confronted with barriers in realising the social rights of certain groups of citizens. This phenomenon has often been referred to as ‘the non-take up of social rights’. Considering the core mandate and key principles of social work as a practice-based profession and academic discipline, we argue that social work should have a key …
Transparency in Social Work
During recent decades, the notion of transparency has become a guiding framework in social work policy and practice. Transparency is often approached in this context as a managerial notion. In this article, we approach transparency as a relational notion, a key attitude in social work. Relation transparency is a prerequisite for achieving democratic partnership with service users and their family and social network. Transparency as a key attitude…
Dream ore reality? The presence of Social Practice Development in social work practice
This study explored the extent to which social workers conduct Social Practice Development (SPD), an approach translated from nursing, to foster practice improvement in social work. Alumni of bachelor’s programmes in social work were asked to complete an online survey about SPD. Based on exploratory factor analyses and item analyses, mean scores and standard deviations of SPD activities conducted by social workers were calculated. The results sho…
I’m actually your worst nightmare’
There is an ongoing debate about the depoliticisation of social work. In this debate, the finger of blame is pointed to the newest generation, as they are likely to be more inclined to have an individualised and controlling perspective on clients, and to be less involved in a social justice approach. In this article, we explore intergenerational dialogues as a non-formal approach to this debate. Intergenerational dialogues have a discursive value…
Dealing with risk in situations of poverty
A recent body of research draws on the concept of child welfare inequality and shows that social inequalities, such as poverty, are reproduced in and through child welfare and protection interventions. We therefore examine how the recent preoccupation with risk relates to ways in which frontline social workers in child welfare and protection deal with poverty. Our contribution is based on a qualitative research project in a governmental organisat…
No more colouring outside the lines? Exploring young people’s navigational agency in education
This article highlights the inequality in the Flemish education system, which disproportionately affects youngsters with low socioeconomic status. This inequality is attributed to the human capital approach characterising current educational policies, putting emphasis on educational outcomes. This results in education that homogenises and limits acceptable student behaviour and in which deviations from the norm are met with exclusionary and punit…
Making the Iceberg Visible Again
Under a third-party government regime, NPOs are largely funded to implement social policies and have open lines of communication with policy makers. When performing their advocacy role, questions may, however, arise about whether NPOs actually strive for policy change to structurally improve the lives of their clients or rather aim to secure these organizational benefits. Based upon a case study of 6 youth care organizations in Belgium, this arti…
Choice and opportunity on the welfare care market
Individual funding schemes are increasingly implemented to organize public welfare services and can be considered as a prime example of the marketization of social care. Clients receive a budget and can “shop” on the welfare market. Current knowledge about the impact of individual funding schemes on choice opportunities for people with an intellectual disability is inconclusive. We conducted a vignette experiment in the context of the Flemish (Be…
Personal budgets and the pedagogical project of care institutions in Flanders
The care for disabled people in Flanders is currently undergoing a major social policy reform under the introduction of a personal budget scheme. Disability services in Flanders are explicitly expected to develop a demand-driven provision of care services. This transition stems from the urge for autonomy and self-determination of disabled people and is aimed to deinstitutionalise the care for people with disabilities. The central question address…
The relevance of practice development for professionalisation of social work
This article explores the relevance of Practice Development (PD), as developed in nursing, for fostering practice improvement and the external recognition of social work. The findings of a Delphi study among 17 social work experts reveal that PD in social work is framed as a collective endeavour embedded in a professional learning community of social workers aimed at systematically developing their practice with regard to shared recurring complex…
Lessons from Ricoeur’s ‘capable human being’ for practices of personalisation in three European countries
Personal budget schemes for people with disabilities are imbued with a conception of autonomous and rational individuals. The policy objective to enlarge people’s opportunities conflicts with the presumed capacity of cognitive rationality. We present an analysis of 15 social work professionals’ reflections on the practical implementation of three personal budget policies. Through a conceptualisation of ‘a capable human being’, we deepen our under…
Developing a positive living climate in residential youth care
The Caged Bird Sings
Social work literature suggests that three depoliticisation tendencies characterise the youngest generation of social workers. First, they exhibit less interest in the structural level of social problems. Secondly, they are supposed to incline towards the idea of welfare conditionality. And thirdly, they are evolving towards increasingly shallow technical, box-ticking professionals. As such, this generation of social workers seems to conform with…
Developing a Poverty-Aware Pedagogy
Social work scholars have argued that poverty reminds us of the necessary commitment to educate professional social workers. Being inspired by a conceptual framework that captures how poverty-awareness can be the subject of teaching in social work programmes, this article offers a qualitative analysis of the reflections being made by a cohort of students about their learning process in a post-academic course. Five common themes are discussed: (i)…
Social work during the Covid-19 pandemic
For several months now, social practitioners – like many other professions – have been on the frontline fighting the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the health and well-being of many service users and
The Discursive Construction of Accessibility and its Implications for Outreach Work
Homeless individuals often find that welfare services are inaccessible, despite being designed to meet their needs. This frictions with access which is a fundamental principle in western welfare states. Adaptations in social policy and service delivery are therefore made to deal with the problem of inaccessibility to services and welfare rights. One such adaptation is outreach work and is often developed to engage with homeless people and link th…
Documenting Practices in Human Service Organisations through Information Systems
Over the last decades, transparency about what is happening on the ground has become a hot topic in the field of social work. Despite the importance of transparent social work, the realisation in practice is far from obvious. In order to create this transparency for a diversity of stakeholders, legislative bodies and human services increasingly rely on so-called electronic information systems. However, it remains unclear how frontline managers ma…
The DNA of social work as a human rights practice from a frontline social workers’ perspective in Flanders
Societal and political developments in European welfare states challenge the core principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversity that underpin social work. At the same time, however, in many European countries, there is a revival of a more transformative social work discourse aimed at the fight for social justice and the realisation of human rights. Gaining insight into the implementation of this h…
Outreach social work
A recurring feature of outreach work is that outreach tries to reach people who are left without care and not effectively reached by existing services. In this article, we discuss the importance of outreach practices in the context of changes in society. We suggest that the pressure on the managing of access to social services is increasing along with the demand to avoid an unnecessary inflow, and make a distinction between a residual and structu…
Social work as a policy actor
A long-standing critique on social work is that it is ‘a dog that doesn’t bark’ meaning that social work doesn’t live up to the challenge of changing unjust policies, and as such is merely an affirmative practice of the status quo. This article builds upon the premise that social workers still lack the conceptual frames and knowledge to enable them to fully understand what social policy is about and how social policy measures are formulated, shap…
From parental engagement to the engagement of social work services
Social work has moved from a child protection discourse towards a child welfare discourse that views the relationship between social workers and families as a partnership. Partnership with families in the field of child protection and child welfare, however, mirrors diverse ideological motives of social policy, civil society and practice. We engage in a theoretical discussion of different interpretations of partnership. We draw a primary distinct…
Irony and Social Work
The logic of managerialism is seen as a rationale for the limited scope for discretion of social workers and also complicates the recognition of the inherently ambiguous nature of social work. In this article, various strategies in dealing with managerialism and ambiguity are identified: social work can either attempt to escape from ambiguity or embrace (the discussion on) ambiguity as an opportunity. It is stated that, although social work can r…
On the frontline or on the side-line? Homelessness care and care avoiders
Homelessness is a social problem which is subject to many definitional issues and problems. These problems can be discerned on both the conceptual and the practical level (Hopper, 1997). Based on research carried out in Ghent, Belgium, this article deals with ways in which social workers involved in homelessness care construe the problem of ‘care avoiders’, who seem to be perceived as a separate category within the homeless population. We show th…
From participative research to participative practice—a study in youth care
In this contribution the development in action research of a participative care practice in youth care is discussed. The study was prompted by the intention of the Flemish government to reform youth care. The initial research‐question was how youth care can be organized in such a way that it (also) represents an added value for the client(s). The aim was to find out to what extent the reorganization of youth care could contribute to a social serv…
Implementing a strengths perspective in child welfare and protection
Although it can be observed that the popularity of a strengths perspective in social work is increasing, social work researchers have articulated the necessity to gain empirical knowledge about actual social work practice that claims a strengths perspective. We explore the findings of recent research into a strengths-oriented pilot project in the field of child welfare and protection in Flanders (the Flemish speaking part of Belgium), in which we…
Children's rights
English A children's rights approach to social work might have adverse consequences for children and parents when it ignores a view on rights as a lever for commitment and the question of how these rights can be realized in different contexts and with respect for the rights of other actors involved. French Une approche de travail social centrée sur les droits des enfants peut avoir des conséquences négatives auprès des enfants et des parents lors…
In Search of Social justice-informed Services
One of the main characteristics of social work is the fundamental tension between the profession’s conservative and critical rationales. In the last three decades, this tension has informed the development of critical resistance to the deprofessionalisation effects of neo-managerial rationality, which establishes cost reduction and fiscal accountability as the basis for professional practice. However, the theoretical conceptualisation of such cri…
Reconstructing the Foundations of Joined-Up Working
In a diversity of European countries, an ambitious pursuit of organisational reform is stressed in the field of social work policy and practice, which is rhetorically rooted in ‘joined-up thinking’. Emerging criticism about joined-up working has been identified in the body of available research, particularly in terms of the construction and pursuit of joint goals. In this article, we discuss the empirical findings that were acquired during a rece…
Do Children Have Rights or Do Their Rights Have to be Realised? The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Frame of Reference for Pedagogical Action
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is presented and understood as the primary reference point regarding questions of children’s rights. However, the UNCRC is not a neutral instrument deployed to meet the rights of children: it embodies a specific perception of the child, childhood and citizenship. The interpretation of the UNCRC from the point of view of children’s legal status emphasises the autonomy of children; th…
The DNA of social work as a human rights practice from a frontline social workers’ perspective in Flanders
Societal and political developments in European welfare states challenge the core principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversity that underpin social work. At the same time, however, in many European countries, there is a revival of a more transformative social work discourse aimed at the fight for social justice and the realisation of human rights. Gaining insight into the implementation of this h…
Social Work as a Human Rights Profession
Human rights are foundational to social work, as recognised in the global definition, leading many to consider social work a human rights profession. Although human rights has become an important compass for social work, comprehensive frameworks for understanding the ‘practice’ of human rights in social work are still limited. Only recently attempts have been made to fill this gap. This article seeks to continue these efforts and contribute to a …
Pawns or Pioneers? The Logic of User Participation in Anti‐poverty Policy‐making in Public Policy Units in Belgium
Since anti‐poverty policy‐making in Belgium is embedded in a logic of user participation, social policy has shown interest in employing users with experience of poverty as experts in public policy units in order to implement and monitor anti‐poverty policies. In this article, we discuss this recent development as a relevant case for contemporary public service delivery in the European context. In the light of the ambiguous practices of user parti…
The Emerging Social Pedagogical Paradigm in UK Child and Youth Care
This article is prompted by the finding that social pedagogy—although not a familiar concept in the UK—is now being taken up with greater interest ( Petrie et al., 2006; Lorenz, 2008), especially in the field of early childhood education and residential child and youth care. Social pedagogy is believed to be able to promote shared values and skills across different fields in education and care that were, until recently, sharply distinguished from…
Making the Iceberg Visible Again
Under a third-party government regime, NPOs are largely funded to implement social policies and have open lines of communication with policy makers. When performing their advocacy role, questions may, however, arise about whether NPOs actually strive for policy change to structurally improve the lives of their clients or rather aim to secure these organizational benefits. Based upon a case study of 6 youth care organizations in Belgium, this arti…
Tackling social inequality and exclusion in education
Both in the international context and in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), research shows that many young people experience social exclusion in relation to education. However, research evidence concerning structural social inequality in education is predominantly underpinned by an outcome-based approach, since educational policies and practices are largely informed by a human capital model. Inspired by the theoretical insights of the…
Poverty and Decision Making in Child Welfare and Protection
The influence of socio-economic background factors, such as poverty, on the risk of children to be disproportionately represented and placed in residential care has increasingly been the subject of international research. This article reports on the findings of a research project that focused on the relationship between poverty and child welfare and protection (CWP) interventions in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). Using logistic re…
Data Recording and Social Work
Social workers operate in an increasingly informational context (Parton, 2008, 2009). In this context, registration and data recording are becoming an important condition for the funding of social work organisations (Jones, 2001). In this article, we argue that the debate on data recording and social work mainly focuses on the question of whether data recording is a threat to or an opportunity for the relational aspects of social work practice. B…
Participatory social work and report writing
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 c…
Developing a positive living climate in residential youth care
Towards a clearer understanding of the transformational potential of outreach work
Access to social services is a major concern in welfare policy, service delivery and social work. Outreach work is a social work approach described as an ‘active mode of access’. However, the literature on access differentiates between a universal and a transformational view on access. In the first view, access refers to inclusion into the mainstream, for ‘them’ to become more like ‘us’. In the second view, access refers to the transformation of …
Enabling the recognition of people in poverty through social work practice. From being on a par to participating on a par
In its engagement towards anti-poverty-strategies, social work has become strongly embedded in a politics of recognition and respect. Nevertheless, this raises critical questions in regard to how such a politics connects to the socio-economic and political dimensions of poverty. We build on an intensive qualitative study in five Associations where People in Poverty Raise their Voice (Belgium), to reveal how practitioners attempt to provide this c…
Dealing with Risk in Child and Family Social Work
The rhetoric of risk has become a prominent issue in the field of child and family social work. As a consequence, an emerging politics of fear has re-oriented this field towards managing, controlling, and securing social work practice against risk, rather than responding meaningfully to the needs and concerns of children and families. In the available body of research, it is argued that this general tendency creates "anxious" professionals. As a …
Researching child poverty
Childhood research with children in poverty involves a diversity of dilemmas and complexities. In the context of a recent research project in Belgium, the authors attempt to embrace child poverty as a normative issue created a crisis of representation. In order to untangle this, they situate different methodological approaches in relation to the constructed epistemological windows on child poverty. The authors differentiate between research in wh…
From participative research to participative practice—a study in youth care
In this contribution the development in action research of a participative care practice in youth care is discussed. The study was prompted by the intention of the Flemish government to reform youth care. The initial research‐question was how youth care can be organized in such a way that it (also) represents an added value for the client(s). The aim was to find out to what extent the reorganization of youth care could contribute to a social serv…
Do Children Have Rights or Do Their Rights Have to be Realised? The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Frame of Reference for Pedagogical Action
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is presented and understood as the primary reference point regarding questions of children’s rights. However, the UNCRC is not a neutral instrument deployed to meet the rights of children: it embodies a specific perception of the child, childhood and citizenship. The interpretation of the UNCRC from the point of view of children’s legal status emphasises the autonomy of children; th…
Children's rights
English A children's rights approach to social work might have adverse consequences for children and parents when it ignores a view on rights as a lever for commitment and the question of how these rights can be realized in different contexts and with respect for the rights of other actors involved. French Une approche de travail social centrée sur les droits des enfants peut avoir des conséquences négatives auprès des enfants et des parents lors…
Participatory social work and report writing
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 c…
The Pointer Sisters
In this article, acquired knowledge is considered as a temporary reflection that expresses the enactment of a social life that produces and reproduces social realities. Researchers need to engage with an open-ended process of de- and reconstruction of meanings between many players of the social world. As the poststructuralists Deleuze and Guattari reveal, our knowledge base is inherently trapped in lines of flight, on a voyage for which there pre…
The Emerging Social Pedagogical Paradigm in UK Child and Youth Care
This article is prompted by the finding that social pedagogy—although not a familiar concept in the UK—is now being taken up with greater interest ( Petrie et al., 2006; Lorenz, 2008), especially in the field of early childhood education and residential child and youth care. Social pedagogy is believed to be able to promote shared values and skills across different fields in education and care that were, until recently, sharply distinguished from…
Data Recording and Social Work
Social workers operate in an increasingly informational context (Parton, 2008, 2009). In this context, registration and data recording are becoming an important condition for the funding of social work organisations (Jones, 2001). In this article, we argue that the debate on data recording and social work mainly focuses on the question of whether data recording is a threat to or an opportunity for the relational aspects of social work practice. B…
Working with volunteers in victim support
We address the role of volunteers in victim support in regard to the growing issue of specialization. We argue for a generic basis of victim services and that working with volunteers and professionals holds chances and pitfalls. Volunteers can function as camouflage or as a mirror for professional social work
Implementing a strengths perspective in child welfare and protection
Although it can be observed that the popularity of a strengths perspective in social work is increasing, social work researchers have articulated the necessity to gain empirical knowledge about actual social work practice that claims a strengths perspective. We explore the findings of recent research into a strengths-oriented pilot project in the field of child welfare and protection in Flanders (the Flemish speaking part of Belgium), in which we…
On the frontline or on the side-line? Homelessness care and care avoiders
Homelessness is a social problem which is subject to many definitional issues and problems. These problems can be discerned on both the conceptual and the practical level (Hopper, 1997). Based on research carried out in Ghent, Belgium, this article deals with ways in which social workers involved in homelessness care construe the problem of ‘care avoiders’, who seem to be perceived as a separate category within the homeless population. We show th…
From parental engagement to the engagement of social work services
Social work has moved from a child protection discourse towards a child welfare discourse that views the relationship between social workers and families as a partnership. Partnership with families in the field of child protection and child welfare, however, mirrors diverse ideological motives of social policy, civil society and practice. We engage in a theoretical discussion of different interpretations of partnership. We draw a primary distinct…
The rhetoric of disability
In this article the authors introduce a rhetorical perspective into disability studies by exploring the work of Kenneth Burke (1969). Specifically, the focus is on how Burke's theory of dramatism can be used in disability research as well as in teaching disability studies, as it holds potential for the production of a diversity of social interpretations of the relationship between ‘impairment’, ‘disability’ and a disabling society. The focus shif…
Pawns or Pioneers? The Logic of User Participation in Anti‐poverty Policy‐making in Public Policy Units in Belgium
Since anti‐poverty policy‐making in Belgium is embedded in a logic of user participation, social policy has shown interest in employing users with experience of poverty as experts in public policy units in order to implement and monitor anti‐poverty policies. In this article, we discuss this recent development as a relevant case for contemporary public service delivery in the European context. In the light of the ambiguous practices of user parti…
Reinventing the Employable Citizen
In workfare-as-welfare regimes, welfare states attempt to increase efforts to employ economically inactive individuals, such as people with chronic ‘mental health problems’, through a wide range of activation strategies. In this article, we draw upon insights obtained from a recent research project in Belgium, in which social workers are charged with managing labour market training programmes. In the project, we explored the experiences of people…
Irony and Social Work
The logic of managerialism is seen as a rationale for the limited scope for discretion of social workers and also complicates the recognition of the inherently ambiguous nature of social work. In this article, various strategies in dealing with managerialism and ambiguity are identified: social work can either attempt to escape from ambiguity or embrace (the discussion on) ambiguity as an opportunity. It is stated that, although social work can r…
The Greatest of Equalisers’
There is a large consensus among international organisations (e.g., United Nations and the World Bank) in considering Early Childhood Care and Education a prominent policy to equalise opportunities. Moreover, it is common opinion that interventions in early childhood aiming at equalising ‘opportunities’ rather than ‘outcomes’ will overcome political dissent. These two claims draw upon a particular interpretation of the work of contemporary egalit…
Researching child poverty
Childhood research with children in poverty involves a diversity of dilemmas and complexities. In the context of a recent research project in Belgium, the authors attempt to embrace child poverty as a normative issue created a crisis of representation. In order to untangle this, they situate different methodological approaches in relation to the constructed epistemological windows on child poverty. The authors differentiate between research in wh…
From Vagrancy to Homelessness
For centuries, the debate about homelessness concentrated on the ways in which the issue of vagrancy could be dealt with as a criminal problem. In recent decades, this perspective faded out and alternative approaches to dealing with vagrancy were argued for and implemented. In this article, we discuss the emerging reconceptualisation of a repressive approach into a welfare approach to the issue of vagrancy—which is called homelessness later on—as…
Voluntariness as legitimation for social work interventions
Based on research into homelessness care, in this article we discuss the dominant interpretation of voluntariness as an individual characteristic. It will be demonstrated that this conceptualization runs the risk of becoming a tool to select those clients for whom short-term reachable goals can be set, and that clients are obliged to accept the conditions which are set by social work initiatives. We argue for an understanding of voluntariness as …
Dealing with Risk in Child and Family Social Work
The rhetoric of risk has become a prominent issue in the field of child and family social work. As a consequence, an emerging politics of fear has re-oriented this field towards managing, controlling, and securing social work practice against risk, rather than responding meaningfully to the needs and concerns of children and families. In the available body of research, it is argued that this general tendency creates "anxious" professionals. As a …
We Make the Road by Walking
In this article, we discuss a research project focusing on the ways in which children in poverty spend and experience their leisure time. We argue that the dominant conceptualisation of leisure time participation reduces poverty to a lack of social and cultural capital, marginalising poor children as passive objects of socialisation. Inspired by the interpretative paradigm of lifeworld orientation, three insights are identified throughout poor ch…
Constructing the ‘Child at Risk’ in Social Work Reports
In the context of the changing relationship between children, parents and the welfare state, professionals have to deal with notions of the ‘child at risk’. In child welfare and protection, the issue of normative judgement in (risk) assessment and documentation is an essential area for exploration for social workers. We examine the practice of report writing in which future professionals exercise power while assessing, documenting and judging the…
Social work research as a practice of transparency
Social work research is inherently normative and as such the assumptions about social problems in social work research should be open to scrutiny and contestation. But although researchers often face tussles and huge contradictions, they rarely articulate them. In this article, we report on a small research project in which a collective of social work researchers in Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium) tried to think critically through s…
Poverty and Decision Making in Child Welfare and Protection
The influence of socio-economic background factors, such as poverty, on the risk of children to be disproportionately represented and placed in residential care has increasingly been the subject of international research. This article reports on the findings of a research project that focused on the relationship between poverty and child welfare and protection (CWP) interventions in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). Using logistic re…
Outreach social work
A recurring feature of outreach work is that outreach tries to reach people who are left without care and not effectively reached by existing services. In this article, we discuss the importance of outreach practices in the context of changes in society. We suggest that the pressure on the managing of access to social services is increasing along with the demand to avoid an unnecessary inflow, and make a distinction between a residual and structu…
Sociology (87 works) · Political science (86 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (69 works) · Law (56 works) · Public relations (56 works) · Social Work (56 works) · Psychology (41 works) · Law (35 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (32 works) · Healthcare innovation and challenges (31 works)