Strengthening parenting practices and capacity in times of temporariness: A study on preventative social work at family centers with families who migrated to Sweden

Family centers carry out preventative social work with parents with young children.

A kind of targeted social work that has become more common concerns families who have special problems linked to migration. As a result of migration, many families have poor finances, lack networks and have experiences of trauma.

In addition, it has become increasingly common for family centers to meet families living in a new type of vulnerability.

As a result of migration and recent years´ changed asylum rules, many families live in so-called temporality, a type of temporary living conditions due to uncertainty about where to settle, how to support themselves and how long they are allowed to stay in Sweden.

This has been shown to create stress and difficulties for some parents in building a stable parenting capacity and a secure life for their children.

As family centers have met and drawn attention to families living in these vulnerable conditions, the need for knowledge about which initiatives can offer the best support has increased.

In collaboration with stakeholders the proposed research will contribute to service development by generating knowledge about the challenges involved in parental capacity building for parents with migrant experiences and identifying ways in which parents can be supported in making effective use of services offered.

Through a national survey aimed at all family centers in Sweden, the study aims to map preventive social work with families with migration experiences (e.g., scope, activities, and effects of the interventions).

Based on the results, two family centers, one in a metropolitan area and one in a rural area, will be selected for in-depth observations and interviews with staff and parents.

The ethnographic part will focus on how preventive work is designed and adapted to the needs of parents with migration experiences and how parents use and evaluate the effects of the interventions offered.