Make Family Support Appropriate.Qualitative Analysis of Preliminary Consultations

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Martina Richter
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions
• Term: from 2013 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 236921590

Talk and relation-building is a given, but empirically rarely focussed aspect of family support practices (Sozialpädagogische Familienhilfe). Working relations are permanently built by the professional social workers; their shape and the helping process is negotiated with the clients and the professionals to find agreements with the clients on the relevant problems and solutions. Whereas negotation and relation-buildung are seen as indisputable professional competences in family support and social work in general, these communicative practices of case-building get only little attention in current social work research so far. The fact that these services are de facto primarily support systems for mothers are furthermore not being disregarded yet.In contrast, the proposed research is connecting both aspects by focussing on the communicative practices between professional social workers and the mothers in the provision of family support. The aim of the proposed project is an analysis of typical patterns of talk in family support practices (conversation analysis). In the qualitative study the preliminary consultations in the service delivery process will be investigated in two German case studies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants