Cash-for-childcare. The consequences for caring mothers

The Relationships Between Local and National Childcare Policies – A Comparison of Nordic and Southern European Cities

We start by comparing the childcare systems in the 11 European cities, looking particularly at whether the childcare provision in these cities follows national provision levels or not. We then focus on analyzing the relationships between local and national childcare policies in four European cities: Bologna (Italy) and Terrassa (Spain) from Southern Europe, and Jyvaskyla (Finland) and Aalborg (Denmark) from the Nordic countries. The availability and use of childcare services are analyzed, as are other factors influencing the possibilities and obstacles of labour market participation for mothers with young children. The aim of this analysis is to demonstrate the significance of local welfare…

The academic identity and boundaries of the discipline of social work : reflections of social work professors on the recruitment and research of doctoral students in Finland

Finland has a strong and long tradition of research-oriented doctoral education in social work. Recent general changes in doctoral education, such as increased regulation, internationalisation and time pressures, have had an impact on social work as an academic discipline. This article examines the recruitment of social work doctoral students and the perceived value of doctoral dissertations as academic research. The data consist of written responses by Finnish full professors of social work to open-ended questions presented in an electronic questionnaire. The analysis is based on the idea of ‘boundary work’ within and between disciplines, and between science and society and on the professo…

Toppuuttelua, kannustamista ja kehittämistarpeita : jatko-opiskelijoiden rekrytointi ja väitöskirjojen luonne sosiaalityön professorien kuvaamana

Sosiaalipalveluiden eurooppalaisia muutossuuntia

The contested concept of vulnerability – a literature review

The concept of vulnerability is widely used in the social sciences as well as in policy making, health and social care services and in social work, referring to a variety of groups or individuals, ...

Finnish welfare service system from the standpoint of women in vulnerable life situations

In this chapter, the authors analyse how the Finnish welfare service system, as it consists of different institutions and professionals, meets or fails to meet the needs of women in varying vulnerable life situations. The participants are women with severe substance abuse problems, women sentenced for committing a crime and poor lone mothers living on basic social benefits. The findings show that women’s experiences of encounters with welfare professionals as well as their access to and use of the services share a number of characteristics. They described several barriers and problems related to the complexity of the service system. These included receiving only limited support for basic ne…

Lastensuojelun sijaishuollon epäkohdat ja lasten kaltoinkohtelu 1937–1983

Selvityksen tavoitteena oli saada käsitys suomalaisen lastensuojelun sijaishuollossa tapahtuneista kaltoinkohtelusta ja väkivallasta ensimmäisen lastensuojelulain aikana (1937–1983). Tavoitteena oli 1) tuottaa tietoa kaltoinkohtelusta ja väkivallasta, niiden luonteesta ja niiden ilmitulon ja puuttumisen mekanismeista, 2) tuoda näkyviin kaltoinkohtelu ja osoittaa sen hyväksymättömyys sekä 3) luoda rakenteita ja käytäntöjä, joilla lastensuojelun sijaishuollossa vältettäisiin aiemmin tehdyt tehdyt virheet. Selvitystyössä haastateltiin 299 henkilöä, joista suurin osa oli itse perhehoidossa, lastenkodeissa tai koulukodeissa kaltoinkohtelua kokeneita. Mukana oli myös muutamia lastensuojelun paris…

Institutional ethnography as a feminist approach for social work research

The aim of this chapter is to introduce Institutional Ethnography (IE) as a valuable feminist approach for social work research. It first describes how IE found its way through the women’s studies to the academic arenas in Finland, and how it has influenced author’s own research. The second part focusses on social work research, where IE has been used to investigate how the welfare service system transforms the experiences and everyday world of its service users into generalised categorisations and definitions. However, in its focus on institutions and social relations of ruling instead of individuals, IE allows seeing the professionals embedded in the same institutional relations and pract…

The contested concept of vulnerability : a literature review

The concept of vulnerability is widely used in the social sciences as well as in policy making, health and social care services and in social work, referring to a variety of groups or individuals, but it has rarely been theoretically defined or analysed. This article provides a literature review on how vulnerability has been used and defined in academic, peer-reviewed articles published in international social science journals between 2000 and 2016. The aim is to analyse and clarify critically the concept for social work research. The article analyses themes and topics connected to vulnerability, how gender is related to vulnerability and how vulnerability is conceptualised in these article…

Sosiaalityön historiallisia käänteitä paikallistamassa

Ero yhteiskunnallisena kysymyksenä

Encountering ethics in studying challenging family relations

This article focuses on ethical considerations in the study of challenging family relations. Our perspective derives from multidisciplinary family studies, including social sciences, psychology and educational sciences. Our concerns include why and how to apply a sensitive approach in studying challenging family relations, and what the key ethical issues are in studies of this kind. We examine questions of multiplicity in family relations, the particularity of vulnerable family relations and the roles of researchers and gatekeepers in the research process. The article is based on a research project where informants were both children and adults, and both qualitative and quantitative data we…

Dysleksiariskilasten lukivaikeudet ja niiden kuntoutus

Vertical Governance, National Regulation and Autonomy of Local Policy Making

International audience; This chapter introduces a categorization of the 11 European countries according to their general vertical governance structures between national, regional and local levels in welfare policy making. It investigates the extent to which, and how, local policies and service provision are regulated and controlled from the national state level, and how much space this leaves for local policy actors in welfare policy formation. The analysis takes into account that local welfare policies are formulated in the context of national and to some extent international policies. The 11 countries can be divided into three groups, having a centralized (England, Ireland), multi-level (…

Concluding remarks : a need for women-specific services

The empirical findings presented in this book convincingly show that despite differences between the service systems and welfare state models in Finland, Canada, Israel, Slovenia, Spain and the UK, the difficulties that women face with the welfare service system and in their encounters with it have striking similarities. Women find it difficult to know how to apply for and receive the services, social support and protection they need to cope in the vulnerable situations they struggle with in their daily lives. They describe service systems as complex, fragmented and complicated, with no clear logic and rules about how to work with them. For these women, the systems look like ‘a jungle with …