Parents' collaboration and participation in a residential child care setting

Abstract

This study addresses user participation as a democratie right as well as a means to promote service users' citizenship. The aim of this study is to explore parents' (n = 6) experiences of collaboration and participation with professionals working in a child protection service in Norway. The empirical material was collected through open interviews with the parents of young people with psychosocial problems who were accommodated in residential care. The collaboration was structured around core group meetings held approximately every six weeks attended by professionals, parents and sometimes the young people involved. Content analysis was used to analyse the interviews and the emerging themes were concentrated around four categories: 'support the child', 'fight for help and services', 'struggle for an ordinary daily life', and 'keep up self-esteem'. The over-arching concept was identified as 'reconstruction of parenthood'. The findings show the emergence of two levels of collaboration and participation: 1) the formal level, also contributing to the parents' status as citizens, and 2) the interactional level, also contributing to active citizenship.