To Navigate the Normative and the Not-Normative Family Therapists Negotiating Their Professional Identities with Parents Whose Children are Placed in Public Care

Abstract

This article negotiates family therapists´ professional identities in the Family Counselling Services (FCS) in Norway and their experiences when following up parents whose children are placed in public care. A qualitative study following seven family therapists in the FCS, through focus groups and individual interviews, found that they struggle with contradictory positions within their professional identity when following up with these parents. This struggle involves a dichotomy between their personal feelings and their theoretical orientation as systemic therapists. Their dilemma becomes evident when the two systems emphasise different interpretations of the 'truth', and when they react to how the welfare system, in general, treats these parents. This study argues that the systemic family therapy approach seems to be useful both for handling the parents' often fragmented stories, and for reconnecting these parents to society through allowing them to tell their own stories. A particularly demanding challenge for therapists in these situations is that the help they have to offer is inadequate in relation to the complexity and enormity of the needs of these parents. Thus, collaboration with other welfare instances is particularly important in these cases, but this collaboration brings its own complications. Knowledge about each other's service and mandates is therefore particularly important for constructive and non-judgmental collaboration.

Building relational trust and hope: The experiences of counsellors in a service for birth relatives whose children have been adopted or taken into care

“…The reports from counsellors that these relationships were often fragile or problematic are worrying. It has often been highlighted in the literature (see, for example, Cox, McPherson and Blumenfeld, 2021; Syrstad and Ness, 2019) that the material realities of birth relatives’ lives can have a determining impact on whether therapeutic intervention can be established, sustained and of use. Therefore, attending to matters such as benefit claims, housing, employment, contact with the child, Letterbox contact and relationships with social services should be defined as part of the practitioner’s role.…”

“…Syrstad and Slettebø (2019) have highlighted the importance of allowing birth parents to be something other than deviant individuals or failing parents – this can reduce shame and foster collaboration rather than defensiveness and resistance. Focusing on birth relatives’ strengths and abilities, including in their parenting identity, has been highlighted as one way to do this (e.g., Boddy et al., 2014; Syrstad and Ness, 2019). Furthermore, the idea of ‘bending the frame’ of counselling (Morgan et al., 2019) to disrupt the power differences and foster relational reciprocity and ease captures the stance the counsellors aimed to adopt.…”

“…Similarly, a narrative therapy approach (White, 2007; White and Epston, 1990) has been suggested as potentially helpful in working with birth relatives (Kielty, 2008; Robinson, 2002; Syrstad and Slettebø, 2019) and seems to align with counsellors’ values and intentions for their work. This approach invites ‘therapists [to] play on the same “team” as parents, so the parents do not have to spend energy convincing and winning therapists over’ (Syrstad and Ness, 2019: 209). Narrative therapy has been seen as enabling restoration of dignity and a preferred sense of self through a re-authoring process (White, 2007), which supports the development of a rich, multi-storied narrative of birth relatives’ lives, beyond the problem-saturated, single story of ‘bad or deviant parent’ (Morgan et al., 2019).…”

“…A tension was highlighted between the need for counsellors to offer an independent service to birth relatives alongside a need for close collaboration with other agencies. Syrstad and Ness (2019) highlight how collaboration often requires navigating what could be experienced as contradictory values, commitments, perspectives and priorities, and can lead to splits and polarisation. For counselling services offering support to birth relatives, investment in establishing good working relationships with relevant local agencies and transparency with birth relatives about the nature of these seem essential.…”

“It is not just about doing or saying the right things”: Working systemically with parents whose children are placed in public care

“…However, it can also be understood as a manifestation of dysfunctional communication between parents and CPS (Höjer, 2011;Sykes, 2011). This type of collaboration can be understood as a form of power over, as described by Dumbrill (2006), and could further contribute to limiting parents' meaning-making process with caseworkers in which parents will be left feeling inadequate and disempowered (Syrstad and Ness, 2019). In such situations, Dumbrill (2006) observed that parents tended to either fight against the perceived authority or enter into collaboration with it because they found it useless to fight.…”