In Norway, labour market politics and welfare politics are increasingly linked together. Accordingly, the municipality of Trondheim has been trying out new forms of social work for several years and this kind of work includes enhancing the occupational skills of clients and the personal resources they need in order to compete in the labour market. A parallel goal for this work has been to enhance clients' capacity for inclusion into society in general. In 2004, the Department of Social Work and Health Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) was invited by the management of the municipality of Trondheim to conduct a research project into one of these social work programmes with the aim of developing the capacities of the long-term unemployed and young people in receipt of income substitution. Research results established the relevance of the concept of recognition in terms of identifying the most effective elements in the social work programme. The subject of identity in late modernity was also found to be a highly relevant matter which, together with recognition, describes and explains the underlying processes and factors which make possible the enhancement of self-confidence as experienced and reported by programme participants.Arbeidsmarkedspolitikk og sosialpolitikk henger nøye sammen i et land som Norge, ikke minst ser vi dette i gjennomføringen av den pågående NAVreformen hvor arbeidslinja

This review explores the conceptualization of “child participation” in a child welfare context. The analyses are based on the theories, models and concepts researchers apply when framing their studies. Central to the authors’ conceptualizing is the understanding of why children should participate. Children’s rights are a common starting point for many authors, but they differ on whether children should participate out of consideration for children’s intrinsic value (e.g., concern for their well-being) or for the instrumental value of the participation itself (e.g., service outcome). The analysis also focuses on how authors measure participation level. The analysis showed that most authors presented a limited rights-focused goal for the collaboration with children, while a minority group problematized the concept. Although several researchers emphasize that participation requires a process, few authors see the meaning-making process as the main purpose of child participation.

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In this article, we theorize and reflect based on former research into professional practice and discretion as well as use some results from working together with practitioners in child protection services to explore the phenomenon of non-performing. Regulation lies at the heart of the contemporary child protection discourse. On the one hand we have seen a trend towards systematization of assessment content and procedures, on the other hand it is assumed that rational management approaches can secure consistency of performance. Social workers may be weary of the constraints all this imposes, but seem generally content to comply. Our reasoning was that social workers in child protection should be helped to get to grips with modifications to practice so that multi-challenged families could be accorded priority. These changes would include a reframing of assessment to take account of family needs as well as the needs of children. Follow-up would also require much more attention. Additionally, the choice of help provided for children and families would have to come into better focus, despite the limitations often experienced in practice. The question we asked was whether these types of reframing could be fostered within local child welfare units. We conducted a field trial in which child protection units were encouraged to reframe their practices, with the support of an expert group. The idea was to enhance and enable innovation through the combination of a more thorough dialogue with the families involved, as well as critical reflection based on available knowledge related to the identified challenges. We do a critical discussion of the work and the results from this in order to enhance knowledge on innovation in child protection.

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The concept of evidence based practices and research are diffusing into the social work discourse. The concept operates in politics as well as within science and practice. There seem to be an urgent need for clarification of the content. The author traces the concept back to its origin in medicine and show how different meanings are attached depending on the interest of the agent using it. By discussing the relation between the critique of positivism versus phenomenology the author illustrates how different interpretations of evidence-based mirror competing epistemological positions. The author discusses the dissemination of knowledge within the evidence based school and questions its heavy reliance on web-databases. May be there is a need to merge the idea of evidence based practices and research with the ideas of learning organizations, and that this may evolve into a mind for learning rather than a mind for research?