Recognising children’s involvement in child and family therapy sessions: A microanalysis of audiovisual recordings of actual practice

Abstract

Children’s right to involvement in practices that address their well-being is frequently highlighted, yet how children exercise involvement in face-to-face encounters has remained fairly unknown. To fulfil our aim of identifying, describing and defining children’s involvement, we conducted an inductive microanalysis of face-to-face dialogue on audiovisual recordings of naturally occurring therapy sessions with children attending social services departments and mental health clinics. The resulting operationalisation generated six dimensions of children’s involvement: participatory, directive, positional, emotional, agentive and narrative. By operationalising how children exercise involvement, we render the abstract concept more amenable to fine-grained analysis, systematic evaluation and criticism. The domains also offer tools to recognise children’s involvement in practice. Lastly, the article discusses practical implications and presents a compass for orientation. Since many conversational elements in institutional talks are generic, the dimensions are potentially transferable to other settings, including school counselling, child protection investigation and clinical psychology. A high inter-analyst agreement, together with similar findings on utterance functions and interactional dominance in other types of dialogues, also enhance the dimensions’ transferability.

Facilitating children’s in-session involvement in child and family therapies: A dynamic framework of clinical practices.

“…From their perspective, children's involvement is more complex than single acts and consists of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional elements. Similar to Edman et al (2022), Morris et al (2016) also argued that children's involvement in child and family therapies is multifaceted and may extend beyond the therapeutic setting.…”

“…While emphasizing that involvement is more complex than any single act, Morris et al (2016), like B. C. Chu and Kendall (2004) and Cederborg (1997), approached children's involvement as measurable and concluded that a greater degree of children's involvement is desirable. In contrast, Edman et al (2022) proposed that children's involvement in child and family therapies is inevitable and identified six nonmethod-specific dimensions to children's involvement: participatory, directive, positional, emotional, agentive, and narrative. In line with the other scholars (e.g., Ovenstad et al, 2023;Tambuyzer et al, 2014), Edman et al (2022) argued that children's involvement behaviors are not innately positive and that practitioners need to be mindful of the implications that the various dimensions to children's involvement may bring.…”

“…Our collective experience indicated that children's involvement tends to equate to children being present during care planning and their voices being heard and considered. After inductively operationalizing how children exercise involvement in child and family therapies (Edman et al, 2022), we recognized that there is more to involvement and that involvement is not innately good or bad. To identify and manage our perspectives and experiences, we used sensitizing concepts, memo-writing, and a thorough research procedure (cf.…”

“…In contrast, Edman et al (2022) proposed that children’s involvement in child and family therapies is inevitable and identified six nonmethod-specific dimensions to children’s involvement: participatory, directive, positional, emotional, agentive, and narrative. In line with the other scholars (e.g., Ovenstad et al, 2023; Tambuyzer et al, 2014), Edman et al (2022) argued that children’s involvement behaviors are not innately positive and that practitioners need to be mindful of the implications that the various dimensions to children’s involvement may bring. For instance, at times, it may be more beneficial to accept that a child emotionally distances hirself from what is being addressed in a session rather than trying to upgrade the child’s emotional involvement.…”

Audiovisual Recording in the Inpatient Setting: A Method for Studying Parent–Nurse Communication

“…Audiovisual recordings have been utilized in research studies in other disciplines such as music, history, education, and the social sciences (Duan et al, 2019; Maltese et al, 2016; Martin et al, 2021; Pallotti et al, 2020). In health care settings, audiovisual recordings are often used for training purposes or for observing staff workflow (DiGioia et al, 2012; Edman et al, 2022; MacLean et al, 2019; Van Gelderen et al, 2016), or more recently, to conduct research utilizing video or telehealth platforms with families (Bogulski et al, in press; Holuszko et al, 2022; Lobe et al, 2020). Often, audio-only recordings or observations are used to study interactions between nurses and families, particularly in pediatrics (Choe et al, 2021; Walter et al, 2019).…”