Children's agency in interprofessional collaborative meetings in child welfare work

Abstract

A B S T R AC TThe concept of children's agency can be used to understand how children actively shape their lives. While in social work there is a growing body of research on how children experience meetings that involve collaborating professionals, little is known about the ways in which they exert an influence. The purpose of the study is, in a Swedish context, to investigate children's perceptions of their agentic capacity in regulating participation and exerting an influence on outcomes in interprofessional collaborative meetings. Interviews were carried out with 28 children in receipt of social services support. Findings revealed that children perceive professionals' talk as restricting opportunities for input. They also perceive that they have the capacity to exercise agency by (i) conforming to expectations by feigning boredom and seeming disengaged, but at the same time paying close attention; (ii) by using exit strategies; and (iii) by developing 'in-situ' strategies to end meetings. Rather than, as previously suggested, being powerless in such circumstances, the children tell how they carefully assess situations, and, from a position of apparent subordination, talk of ways of acting that reveal their agentic capacity. These insights are of importance for practitioners who are encouraged to look beyond behaviours that first meet the eye.

Adolescents’ Subjective Views about Interprofessional Team Participation

“…Cooper & Spencer-Dawe, 2006;Shaw, 2008;Sitzia, Cotterell, & Richardson, 2006). Oliver et al (2010), O'Reilly et al (2013), Bolin (20142015) and Cooper et al (2016) also emphasize the lack of studies, including opinions from children and adolescent service users, about IPC. Previous research in related fields does exist, such as studies focusing on perspectives of professionals (e.g.…”

“…The two studies identified were by Bolin (2014 and2015), who based her studies on children's agency in IPC. According to Bolin (2014), children respond to IPC meetings in child welfare work by pretending to be disengaged, and appearing to be present in body only.…”

“…The two studies identified were by Bolin (2014 and2015), who based her studies on children's agency in IPC. According to Bolin (2014), children respond to IPC meetings in child welfare work by pretending to be disengaged, and appearing to be present in body only. By adopting these mannerisms, they hide the fact that they notice the information exchanges, views, inequalities in power and their subordinated positions and restricted opportunities for input in these meetings (Bolin, 2014).…”

Parents with troubled upbringings and their perception of childhood

“…The concept of children's agency was introduced in the mid‐1980s within the field of the sociology of childhood (Bolin, ). Children's participation has since been studied from different perspectives, and those studies have given insights into general and specific levels of children's everyday life (Bekken, ; Clavering & McLaughlin, ; Percy‐Smith & Thomas, ).…”

Changing dominance in mixed profession groups: putting theory into practice

“…The challenge of integrating services of different disciplines and organizations is prominent in health care (Hood, 2012;Xyrichis, Reeves, & Zwarenstein, 2017), social work (e.g., Archibald & Estreet, 2017;Bolin, 2016) and information technology (e.g., Bryan Jean, Sinkovics, & Kim, 2014;Gal, Blegind Jensen, & Lyytinen, 2014). Integrated services are the outcome of interprofessional collaboration (Headrick, Wilcock, & Batalden, 1998).…”