Research programme: What works?
Early identification of children and youth at risk: Developing knowledge and methods in collaboration with social services, schools, the police and service users
Details
- Period: 2024-02-01 – 2029-12-31
- Budget: 23,800,000 SEK
- Funder: Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare
Description
The overall purpose of the What Works? project is, in collaboration with practitioners and service users, to establish a long-term model for knowledge and method development focusing on the social services’ preventive and early interventions for children and youth. The four included work packages (WPs) focus on:
- Early interventions for parents with infants (WP1)
- Preventive work with pupils in elementary school (WP2)
- Measures against juvenile crime and delinquency (WP3)
- Assessments and interventions regarding honour-related violence (WP4).
These WPs were chosen as they are of specific relevance for children and youth facing the risks of negative development or maltreatment.
More about the project
Three broad research questions guide the programme:
- To what extent do the methods used achieve their objectives from the perspective of both service users and professionals?
- How can the work be developed?
- How can knowledge from the projects be transferred and implemented for long-term and continuous knowledge development?
The programme brings together perspectives from different disciplines to gain a deeper understanding of how preventive and early work, as well as interventions at a later stage, can support children and young people at risk of socially destructive behaviour or who are victims of violence or other forms of maltreatment. In addition, the initiative for the programme comes from our partner organization, Uppsala municipality, which is a large municipality that has been struggling with severe social problems and marginalization for many years. The proposed programme lies at the centre of the call, as it was initiated by and designed in close collaboration with social work practitioners, and builds on research questions that are relevant to users’ needs and to the social services’ areas of responsibility. As a key point is to implement new knowledge in practice and to create a long-lasting model for knowledge transmission and implementation, the programme also aims for quality improvement.
WP1, early interventions for parents with infants, is led by Eva Randell. WP2, preventive work with pupils in elementary school, is led by Hassan Sharif. WP3, measures against juvenile crime and delinquency, is led by Katarina Alexius, and WP4 is led by Siv-Britt Björktomta.
Societal challenges around children and young people in the risk zone - how can we take responsibility together?
At the end of June, the seminar “Societal challenges around children and young people at risk − how can we take responsibility together?” was recorded. The video is below.
Note: it is in Swedish.