Children helping to co-construct a digital tool that is designed to increase children's participation in child welfare investigations in Sweden. (March 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Blomberg, Helena; Östlund, Gunnel; Lindstedt, Philip Rautell; Cürüklü, Baran
• Is Part Of: Qualitative social work. Volume 21:Number 2(2022)
• Page Start: 367
• Page End: 392
• Publication Date: 2022-03
• Subjects: Narrative -- child welfare -- innovation -- visual ethnography -- welfare technology -- social innovation; Social service -- Periodicals; Social service -- Research -- Periodicals; Social service -- Evaluation -- Periodicals; 361.305
• DOI: 10.1177/1473325021990864
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1473-3250

Abstract

How do children (aged 6–12 years) understand and make use of a digital tool that is under development? This article builds on an ongoing interdisciplinary research project in which children, social workers (the inventers of this social innovation) and researchers together develop an interactive digital tool (application) to strengthen children's participation during the planning and process of welfare assessments. Departing from social constructionism, and using a discursive narrative approach with visual ethnography, the aim of the article is to display how the children co-construct the application and contribute with "stories of life situations" by drawing themselves as characters and the places they frequent. The findings show that the children improved the application by suggesting more affordances so that they could better create themselves/others, by discovering bugs, and by showing how it could appeal to children of various ages. The application helped the children to start communicating and bonding when creating themselves in detail, drawing places/characters and describing events associated with them, and sharing small life stories. The application can help children and social workers to connect and facilitate children's participation by allowing them to focus on their own perspectives when drawing and sharing stories.