Föräldrars erfarenheter av barnavårdsutredningar - om mötet med samhällets yttersta skyddsnät

Sammanfattning: Parents' experiences of child protection investigations - a meeting with society's safety net. The aim of this study was to explore how parents experience child protection investigation processes and further to examine what those investigations are perceived to do and consist of. The study was conducted through a social constructionist approach through which parental experience is seen as a central knowledge base that can tell us about what child protection investigations consist of. By cooperating with a local municipality it became possible to conduct in-depth interviews with 13 parents who had experienced child protection investigations. The analysis was developed with inspiration from grounded theory, meaning that the research questions and objectives were formulated once the interview material was collected. The analysis showed that the investigative process was perceived as a problem-re-formulating process. During this process some of the parents perceived (or from others assumed) troubles was re-formulated into processable problems - while other troubles was sorted out and hence ”disappeared”. This problem-formulating process was further described as being conducted and controlled through the professionals formulations in speech and writing but also through interventions, i.e. the solutions that was tested during the investigation time. As a consequence of the volatility of the problem definitions, the child protection investigation process was experienced as conducted in a seemingly unpredictable and cursory way.