Savannah De Boer, Carl Lacharité, Karine Dubois-Comtois
{"title":"What Is Vulnerability? Quebec Community Family Workers' Perceptions of Family Situations in Cases of Child Neglect","authors":"Savannah De Boer, Carl Lacharité, Karine Dubois-Comtois","doi":"10.1111/cfs.13183","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n <p>Although vulnerability is a somewhat nebulous concept, the term is widely used in child protection, and child protection workers often refer to vulnerability when describing the situations of families they work with. Because perceiving families as vulnerable or as living in vulnerable conditions may impact interventions, it is important to know what child protection workers mean when they talk about vulnerability. To this end, we explored community family workers' conceptions of the vulnerability of families involved with Quebec's child protection system for reasons of child neglect. Thematic analyses of semistructured interviews with nine community family workers revealed two main components to their conceptions of vulnerability: (1) a distinction between vulnerability, viewed as an intrinsic characteristic of all human beings, and (2) a heightened vulnerability caused by the cumulative effect of lacking resources in several domains. We discuss the impact of these conceptions of vulnerability on community family workers' perceptions of families and of the child protection system.</p>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":10025,"journal":{"name":"Child & Family Social Work","volume":"30 3","pages":"433-443"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Child & Family Social Work","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cfs.13183","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"FAMILY STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Although vulnerability is a somewhat nebulous concept, the term is widely used in child protection, and child protection workers often refer to vulnerability when describing the situations of families they work with. Because perceiving families as vulnerable or as living in vulnerable conditions may impact interventions, it is important to know what child protection workers mean when they talk about vulnerability. To this end, we explored community family workers' conceptions of the vulnerability of families involved with Quebec's child protection system for reasons of child neglect. Thematic analyses of semistructured interviews with nine community family workers revealed two main components to their conceptions of vulnerability: (1) a distinction between vulnerability, viewed as an intrinsic characteristic of all human beings, and (2) a heightened vulnerability caused by the cumulative effect of lacking resources in several domains. We discuss the impact of these conceptions of vulnerability on community family workers' perceptions of families and of the child protection system.
期刊介绍:
Child and Family Social Work provides a forum where researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and managers in the field of child and family social work exchange knowledge, increase understanding and develop notions of good practice. In its promotion of research and practice, which is both disciplined and articulate, the Journal is dedicated to advancing the wellbeing and welfare of children and their families throughout the world. Child and Family Social Work publishes original and distinguished contributions on matters of research, theory, policy and practice in the field of social work with children and their families. The Journal gives international definition to the discipline and practice of child and family social work.