Which children are of concern? Process and challenges of identifying child welfare issues from the perspective of practitioners
Datos Bibliográficos
| ID | 10895507 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Seigo Kai (0009-0002-4893-0445, Department of Information and Communications Engineering, School of Engineering, Institute of Science Tokyo , 4259 Nagatsuta-cho , Midori-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 226-8501, autor de correspondencia), Momoko Nakatani (0000-0002-6059-0829, Department of Information and Communications Engineering, School of Engineering, Institute of Science Tokyo , 4259 Nagatsuta-cho , Midori-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 226-8501) |
| Año | 2025 |
| Volumen | 56 |
| Número | 3 |
| Páginas | 944-963 |
| Fecha de publicación | 2025-09-15 |
| Open Access | Sí |
| Tipo | ARTICLE |
| Revista | The British Journal of Social Work (JOURNAL) |
| Identificadores de la revista | ISSN: 0045-3102 • E-ISSN: 1468-263X |
| Editorial | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/bjsw/bcaf175 |
| OpenAlex | W4414346959 |
| Idioma | EN |
| Referencias citadas | 45 |
Early identification of children facing welfare-related concerns is essential for providing timely and appropriate support. In real-world settings, however, challenges such as maltreatment, poverty, and disability often overlap and interact, complicating both recognition and interpretation. This qualitative study investigates how practitioners—teachers, school social workers (SSWs), and nonprofit organization (NPO) staff—engage in early identification within such complex environments, and what obstacles they encounter. Based on semi-structured interviews with 41 practitioners in Japan, thematic analysis revealed two main processes involved in recognition: gathering fragmentary information and interpreting that information to infer underlying welfare concerns. Practitioners collected subtle cues through observation and everyday conversation and interpreted them either by referencing familiar case patterns or by forming hypotheses from multiple angles. The study identified two types of challenges: structural barriers (e.g. limited communication across roles, children’s reluctance to disclose problems) and individual-level difficulties (e.g. low perceptual sensitivity, reliance on intuitive categorizations, and difficulty generating interpretive explanations). By clarifying both the process and the limitations involved in recognizing children with overlapping welfare concerns, this study contributes to understanding how recognition unfolds in practice and highlights the need to strengthen interpretive capacity in practitioner training
Conversation · Identification (biology) · Perception · Perspective (graphical) · Process (computing) · Qualitative research · Thematic analysis · Child Abuse and Trauma · Early Childhood Education and Development · Social Work Education and Practice
Common errors of reasoning in child protection work
The effect of multiple adverse childhood experiences on health
Teachers’ Responses to Child Maltreatment
The ‘cost’ of collaborating and other challenges in inter-organizational child welfare practice
Overlooking the most vulnerable
Social work, poverty, and child welfare interventions
Children with disabilities
Pathways to prevention
How school staff hesitate to report child maltreatment in Japan
Evaluating implementation strategies in a community model to facilitate early identification and treatment of developmental and social-emotional problems in young children in out-of-home placement
The Role of Deliberation in Correcting and Validating Intuition
The Role of Uncertainty in Professionals’ Thinking about Children Who Harm Other People
Using thematic analysis in psychology
| Altamente citado | No |
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