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Analysis of Social Work with Families in the Chilean Child Protection System: Difficulties and Challenges for the Consolidation of the Clinical Approach

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Ximena de-Toro Consuagra
Ximena de-Toro Consuagra
Ximena de-Toro Consuagra
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Dariela Sharim Kovalskys
Dariela Sharim Kovalskys
Dariela Sharim Kovalskys
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Josefa Fombuena Valero
Josefa Fombuena Valero
Josefa Fombuena Valero
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
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Abstract

One of the fields of social work where the clinical approach is highly relevant is family intervention. In the case of Chile, such intervention mainly occurs in programs for prevention, repair, and protection of children and their families. However, while family support programs have been extensively studied in Anglo-Saxon countries, yielding valuable information that has allowed for the adaptation of intervention models and the improvement of services provided, studies in this area and linked to the protection system are scarce in Chile. This qualitative longitudinal research aims to analyze the practice with families carried out by social workers to assess the extent to which the clinical approach is deployed within such practice and what would be required to advance in greater legitimacy. For eleven months, six dyads formed by a social worker and a family caregiver were followed. Data were collected both at the documentary level, with an in-depth analysis of the reports issued to courts, and at the level of empirical collection through observation, in-depth interviews, discussion groups, and session-to-session interviews. Finally, a thematic analysis was conducted. The results show that the clinical approach of social work in Chile is present in practice, but further training is required to advance its consolidation and legitimacy. It is observed that interventions that reach a higher level of reflexivity are those that would facilitate greater subjective change than those of an exclusively socio-educational nature. This could impact the relevance of Clinical Social Work in the field of child protection. Then, challenges for training and the relevance of a relational-collaborative, contextual-anti-oppressive, and feminist perspective are discussed to facilitate new paths of transformation where families are considered experts in their own lives.
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Clinical Social Work Journal
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-024-00935-0
ORIGINAL PAPER
Analysis ofSocial Work withFamilies intheChilean Child Protection
System: Difficulties andChallenges fortheConsolidation
oftheClinical Approach
Ximenade‑ToroConsuagra1 · DarielaSharimKovalskys2 · JosefaFombuenaValero3
Accepted: 22 April 2024
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024, corrected publication 2024
Abstract
One of the fields of social work where the clinical approach is highly relevant is family intervention. In the case of Chile, such
intervention mainly occurs in programs for prevention, repair, and protection of children and their families. However, while
family support programs have been extensively studied in Anglo-Saxon countries, yielding valuable information that has
allowed for the adaptation of intervention models and the improvement of services provided, studies in this area and linked
to the protection system are scarce in Chile. This qualitative longitudinal research aims to analyze the practice with families
carried out by social workers to assess the extent to which the clinical approach is deployed within such practice and what
would be required to advance in greater legitimacy. For eleven months, six dyads formed by a social worker and a family
caregiver were followed. Data were collected both at the documentary level, with an in-depth analysis of the reports issued
to courts, and at the level of empirical collection through observation, in-depth interviews, discussion groups, and session-
to-session interviews. Finally, a thematic analysis was conducted. The results show that the clinical approach of social work
in Chile is present in practice, but further training is required to advance its consolidation and legitimacy. It is observed that
interventions that reach a higher level of reflexivity are those that would facilitate greater subjective change than those of an
exclusively socio-educational nature. This could impact the relevance of Clinical Social Work in the field of child protec-
tion. Then, challenges for training and the relevance of a relational-collaborative, contextual-anti-oppressive, and feminist
perspective are discussed to facilitate new paths of transformation where families are considered experts in their own lives.
Keywords Child protection system· Clinical social work· Families· Longitudinal study· Relational approach
Introduction
The Clinical Approach andSocial Work
The clinical approach is understood not as an exclusive field
of one profession, but as an approach that various disciplines
have incorporated. In the case of the social sciences, the
use of the clinical approach refers to working with unique
cases, which not only pertains to individuals but also to
groups, organizations, events, particular social situations
that are considered from their specificity (Sevigny in Tara-
cena, 2010). The clinical approach is thus understood as an
epistemological stance that allows one to know the other,
put oneself in their place, and at the same time observe what
happens to oneself in that intersubjective space, or listen to
oneself from the resonances with the other, sustaining the
incoherences, contradictions, and opacity of what is ulti-
mately revealed over a temporal axis (Andreucci, 2012).
* Ximena de-Toro Consuagra
ximena.detoro@uautonoma.cl
Dariela Sharim Kovalskys
dsharim@uc.cl
Josefa Fombuena Valero
josefa.fombuena@uv.es
1 Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Doctorados, Universidad
Autónoma de Chile, Pedro de Valdivia nº425, Providencia,
Santiago, Chile
2 Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de
Chile (PUC), Santiago, Chile
3 Departamento de Trabajo Social, Universidad de Valencia,
Valencia, Spain
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
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