About the project
The project researches how child welfare employees and users of child welfare services (parents and children) experience and utilise digital and social media. How is professional practice changing in child welfare due to the way employees use digital and social media? And how is the relationship changing between child welfare employees and users of child welfare services when both digital and social media are being increasingly utilised for communication? These are some of the questions the project is searching to find answers to. The inspiration behind the project is DigiBarnevern (DigiChildWelfare), a digitalisation project that aims to digitalise the child welfare system and the child welfare system’s working processes. The study is qualitative and begins with individual interviews and focus groups of employees and users of child welfare services in four of the largest child welfare services in Norway. In addition, political steering documents are being studied to investigate why the child welfare is becoming digitalised. What are the explicit and implicit political guidelines behind the digitalisation project in child welfare? It is based on a combination of professional theory, ground level bureaucracy, use of discretion or judgment, trust and power.
Project period
2018-2022
Project type
PhD project
Funding
Internal
Research partners
The project is implemented in junction with the PhD program of Social Work and Social Policy at the Department of Social Sciences, OsloMet. Minela Kvakic is a member of the research group Welfare Access Through Technology (WATT)