Title dissertation:
Trust in Child Welfare Services. Understanding trust and distrust in the encounters between immigrant parents and child welfare
Topic trial lecture:
Discuss how child welfare services and child welfare workers can reduce fear and distrust among immigrant parents
Time for trial lecture: 10:15 – 11:15
Time for public defence: 12:15 – 15:30
Place: Bodø, A13 Elias Blix and streaming
Chair of defence: Professor Berit Irene Vannebo
Assessment committee:
- Associate Professor Mimi Petersen, Copenhagen University College
- Professor Berit Berg, NTNU
- Professor Øystein Henriksen, Nord University
Supervisors:
- Main supervisor: Professor Christian Lo, Nord University
- Internal co-supervisor: Associate Professor Emma Seyram Hamenoo, Nord University
- External co-supervisor: Professor Veronika Paulsen, NTNU
The thesis is available for viewing by contacting Anneli Watterud, e-mail: anneli.m.watterud@nord.no.
About the thesis:
Trust between service users and child welfare services is foundational for providing tailored, responsive, and family-oriented interventions, as well as for the legitimacy of the child welfare system. The need for trust is even more crucial in cases involving service users from immigrant backgrounds, as such interventions often involve encounters between competing or conflicting values and perspectives on issues such as good care, parenting, and the child’s best interests. However, building trust in child welfare services appears to be a complex and challenging.
This thesis examines the formation of trust or distrust in the encounters between immigrant parents and the Norwegian Child Welfare Services (NCWS) and its implications for the collaboration between the two. This overarching issue was examined based on parents’ lived experiences of involvement with NCWS due to allegations of child maltreatment and child welfare workers who have relevant experience. While the analysis in this dissertation draws on trust theories as the overarching theoretical framework, other perspectives, such as decolonial and postcolonial theories, are also utilized to enrich and expand the analytical scope of the study in relation to trust.
The main research question is examined through three independent empirical articles, which are integrated into six foundational chapters constituting the doctoral dissertation. The overall findings of the study indicate that the formation of trust or distrust in the relationship between parents and the NCWS are multidimensional, dynamic and processual phenomena, intertwined in complex processes of shifting relations. The development of parents’ trust or distrust in the NCWS appears to have several dimensions that consist of institutional and interactional aspects as well as factors related to individual parents and external actors.
In conclusion, the study suggests that building trust between parents and the child welfare system requires a contextualized understanding of the various dimensions, mechanisms, and actors that shape the formation of trust and distrust in these encounters. Finally, this study contributes to policy, practice, and theory in child welfare services, as well as to the fields of migration, inclusion, and the decolonization of social work.
