Assessing violence in the family – social work, courts, and discourses

Abstract

This article investigates social work, decision making, and gendered violence in the family in Finland. Discourses on gendered violence in the family are compared in custody disputes, handled in district courts, and out-of-home placements, dealt with in administrative courts. Both data sets altogether include 237 cases. Proceedings in both courts share a legislative emphasis on the "child's best interest" principle, and both contexts also rely on documentation provided by social workers. The examination of the two studies is based on discourse analysis, through which we have identified hegemonic discourses that are active in both courts. The study found that violence was often disregarded or described only vaguely in the court documents. The results suggest that the victim's perspective is often overlooked in court decisions, and that the abuser is rarely blamed for the abuse. The discourses enable violence to be overlooked or underplayed when deciding on children's living arrangements, since these discourses centre on either the parents' conflicts (in both courts) or the failure of the mother to protect the child (in out-of-home placements). Furthermore, it is also important to acknowledge the experiences of the victimized parents, who in these studies were most often the mothers.

International perspective on guidelines and policies for child custody and child maltreatment risk evaluations: A preliminary comparative analysis across selected countries in Europe and North America

“…Unlike in many other countries, the great majority of child maltreatment allegations, including cases of corporal punishment, are investigated by the police in a pretrial investigation process, where the child is in a position of an injured party, which is governed by specific pretrial investigation legislation (Criminal Investigation Act, 805/2011; for further country-by-country descriptions see Supplementary Table S1). The challenges posed by parallel, but separate family law, criminal law and child protection procedures, as well as the varying definitions of the children's best interests in the different legal systems have been previously discussed (e.g., Bala and Kehoe, 2013;Hiitola and Hautanen, 2017).…”

Negotiating client positions: parents with custodial disagreements talking about their experiences with child welfare workers

“…According to Ingrid, the caseworkers on one hand criticised the father for his aggressive temper, but on the other hand, after talking to the boy, they also concluded that it was 'not very likely' that the father had manipulated the boy into moving to his house. Based on the case record excerpt, the troubles seemed primarily to be categorised within a discourse of conflict (Hiitola and Hautanen 2016), portraying both parents as equal contributors to the difficult situation and as equally responsible for solving the problems. The professionals' focus when understanding the 'troubles' seemed also primarily to be directed at the disagreements on time per se, and not why Ingrid disagreed on residency.…”

Migrant parents talking back – Stigmatised identities and doing being ordinary

“…Some studies touch upon the issue that authorities may categorise people as problematic based on their race and ethnicity. Those categorisations may lead to an understanding of 'cultures' as homogeneous and unchangeable, which then results in encounters where people are assumed to have a set of values and characteristics (Anis, 2012;Hiitola and Hautanen, 2017;Keskinen, 2014;Mulinari et al, 2009). These categorisations are similar to what feminist scholar Sara Ahmed (2000: 4) describes as recognising some bodies 'as stranger and more dangerous than other bodies'.…”