Co-creating desired outcomes and strengthening the resilience of multi-challenged families

• Published in: CEPS journal 2016, Vol.6 (4), p.51-72
• Main Authors: Mesl, Nina, Kodele, Tadeja
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Adults; Armut; At Risk Persons; Auswirkung; Case Studies; Caseworkers; Children & youth; co-creative working relationship; Collaboration; Community Relations; Early Experience; Fallstudie; Familie; Families & family life; Family Environment; Family Life; Family Needs; Family Problems; Family Programs; Family Relationship; Family Structure; Foreign Countries; Hausaufgabenhilfe; Home Programs; individual working project of help; Intervention; Interview; Interviews; Kind; Pilot projects; Pilotprojekt; poor school performance; Poverty; Program Effectiveness; Qualitative Forschung; Qualitative Research; Resilience (Psychology); Resilienz; Schulerfolg; Slowenien; Social exclusion; Social Work; Social workers; Sozialarbeiter; Soziale Arbeit; Soziale Benachteiligung; Soziale Unterstützung; Student Records; working with the family at home
• ISSN: 2232-2647; 1855-9719; 2232-2647
• DOI: 10.26529/cepsj.53

Families facing poverty suffer from many other stresses, with children's school performance being one of the common topics. A life of poverty and the related unfavourable circumstances should not define children's life stories. Ensuring this is not the case is partly the responsibility of professionals working with families. It is important to overcome the problem of the frequently dispersed help given to multi-challenged families. We proceed from the premise that the vicious circle of failures can be broken by providing support and help to the family and by establishing a co-creative working relationship involving all of the participants in a joint working project. The results of the plural case study confirmed the importance of working with multi-challenged families, which includes dealing with the children's poor school performance, in their homes. They also showed the inadequacy of the often dominant discourse claiming that families do not want to receive help. The results prioritise the role of social workers and the relationship established at the beginning of the collaboration with the family. The presence of a social worker who persists with a joint project even in the case of failure represents an important new experience for families. Although multi-challenged families are resilient, they sometimes need an interlocutor to help them recognise and strengthen that resilience. (DIPF/Orig.).