Lecture room: Lögberg – 103. Click for a map.
Working institution
BFE, Asker kommune
Abstract
My team is mainly working on behalf of the Child Protection System in Norway. When we get to know a family we spend some time to find ways of working with the family that will enhance their capability to change. We’re working on behalf of a system that very often see one solution to a problem. We struggle to find ways of working with the family that gives meaning to them. We often experience that either the Protection System, or one person, or more, in the family are so sure they know the truth and what needs to be changed. That the way they see the situation is the correct, and only, way to look at what they struggle with. We often see that many parents forget their children’s needs, especially in those families where there is a heavy conflict between the parents.
We spend quite a lot of time to find ways of working that feels ok for the family. We see it more like working with many truths, and see that we have to deal with parents who look at the same situation very differently.
So our job is to figure out how to be the help that the family needs and how to make them do the changes. We can’t force those changes, they need to come from within. Having the child or children in focus is a point we find very important. It gives the couple a chance to look at what they’re doing in a different view.
Our experience is that in those families where we have had most success is where we have managed together with the family to look for changes in all of them, in the whole system that the family is.