In this article the question about what counts (as results and evidence) in public services for the welfare of vulnerable children is discussed with reference to interviews with three former child protection clients. The purpose of the interviews was to learn how former clients experienced `being under care', and what short- and long-term consequences or results they found it had in their case. The question that is being raised here is whether basic care, being cared for and loved without too much concern about obtaining specific goals, is in danger of being given less priority in result-oriented and evidence-based child welfare services. The context of the interviews which are referred to here is Norwegian child protection services, but the question that is raised on the basis of this study relates to a more wide-spread and general debate about what should count as evidence in child protection and welfare.
Professor, Aalborg Universitet, mbh@dps.aau.dk I 2005 blev Nav-reformen, en af de største forvaltningsreformer i Norge i nyere tid, vedtaget af det norske Storting. Det blev samtidig besluttet, at der parallelt med reformen skulle gennemføres en evaluering. Den havde flere målsaetninger bl.a. at understøtte og korrigere implementeringen af Navreformen. Artiklen forholder sig kritisk til den udbredte ambition om, at evalueringer kan anvendes i praktiske handlesituationer og indkredser de saerlige udfordringer, der kan vaere forbundet med instrumentel evalueringsanvendelse i forbindelse med større forvaltningsreformer. Der tages afsaet i en teoretisk analyseramme, der både inddrager indsigter fra evaluerings -og policy-laeringslitteraturen. StikkordEvalueringsanvendelse, Nav-reformen, meta-evaluering, velfaerdsreformer, policy-laering, evalueringskultur
Many adolescents in residential care have a history of traumatization, often with consequences on regulating emotions, thoughts, behaviors, as well as on establishing healthy relationships. Such evidence-based knowledge has paved the way for various traumainformed models of care that emphasize the adolescents' need to be other-regulated through caring adults. Being a "regulating other" requires the ability of self-regulation, which may be challenging for staff faced with intense emotional and behavioral expressions from the adolescents. In this qualitative study, fifteen social workers at a residential care unit for adolescents in Norway were individually interviewed on themes addressing what they perceived as necessary prerequisites for maintaining a regulated state in their context of work. Descriptions were analyzed in accordance with principles for thematic analysis. The informants regarded self-reflection and self-acceptance as essential prerequisites for self-regulation. Other salient themes were associated with having a regulating work environment and a trustworthy theoretical model to be guided by. These findings are important for institutions involved in offering competence building in residential care units and academic institutions that educate social workers, as to include systematic training in self-reflection and self-acceptance skills, to strengthen the ability to be a mature regulating other.
This chapter analyses the challenges related to evaluations of large-scale public sector reforms. It is based on a meta-evaluation of the evaluation of the reform of the Norwegian Labour Market and Welfare Administration (the NAV-reform) in Norway, which entailed both a significant reorganization of the central, regional and local government and a social policy reform. Meta-evaluations assess the usefulness of one or more evaluations and should not be confused with meta-analyses. The purpose of this meta-evaluation was to identify general principles for organizing the evaluations of large-scale public sector reforms.Based on the analysis, eight crucial points of attention when evaluating large-scale public sector reforms are elaborated. We discuss their reasons and argue that other countries will face the same challenges and thus can learn from the experiences of Norway.
The manager as innovator and equilibrist: a qualitative study of the experiences of Norwegian managers in health and welfare service taking part in research partnership with higher educationManagers in health and welfare services have overall responsibility to develop the services according to official regulations and the needs of society. They are expected to provide high quality, research based services. Higher education is expected to transform education and research that improve the services, and to develop research collaborating with the practical field. This study investigates experiences of managers in health and welfare services taking part in research collaboration with higher education. Data were collected through focus group interviews with altogether 14 participants involved in 21 projects, and analysed by using qualitative content analyses. The experiences of the managers can be summarised as “Being an innovator and equilibrist in order to develop the service”. Managers appear to play an important role in bridging between health and welfare services and higher education. In order to enhance research partnerships between health and welfare services and higher education formal collaborative structures should be established.
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