Children’s Participation in Teledialogue www.teledialog.au.dk Download talk: larsbo.org/pit.pdf
The problem Social workers and placed children often only talk every 6 months at pre-scheduled meetings. 1) social workers are responsible for monitoring the welfare and wellbeing of children 2) it limits the possibility of including children in decisions affecting their own life
The purpose To design a concept describing ❏ organisational, ❏ legal, ❏ economic, ❏ technical, ❏ communicational and ❏ social (socialfaglige) dimensions... .. of children and social workers talking through different forms of IT (sms, Skype…)
The process 24 children, 24 social workers 1. Started with ethnographic interviews 2. Test-run with standard and cost-effective software 3. Workshop 4. Test-run experimenting with new uses 5. Workshop 6. Test-run experimenting with new uses 7. Workshop
Research ★ Vulnerable users with various social and psychological problems ★ Legal conditions, economic scarcity, contractual relations and organisational setups constrain and interferes with design (~the context as participant) ★ Displacements and transformations following design - designing for a world that will transform in consequence ★ The governmentality of placed children in a welfare system
Participation as a matter of concern What is ‘participation’? (foucault, marx, heidegger, luhmann, vygotsky….?) We suggest Actor-Network Theory (ANT) - Participants are networks rather than subjects
Participation as partial and overtaken 1. Action is not taken by you or me, it is overtaken by you and me in conglomeration with numerous others 2. Existence is not binary (100% <> 0%) but relational and partial => Participation unfolds throughout the project in various forms.. it is never fully realised or completely absent
Children’s participation Report children overtaking the participation of workshop children “I started writing mails to her because I always got her answerphone and she never called back (...) That was really annoying, that you couldn’t just call her and get through” ”I really want a computer so I can maintain contact with my friends, because it is difficult for me now” Children (partially) participated already in planning Teledialogue
Always part of children’s participation
The right participant is multiple ...10-12 årige er interessante – de kan noget med IT og er ikke noget til et punkt hvor de er ligeglade. De 15-16 årige når os alligevel. ...vi vil gerne de 13.-18 årige. Man skal op i en vis alder for at man kan forstå hvad der kan ske... ..har det relevans for nogen, der er anbragt på eget værelse? ...det barn kan selvfølgelig ikke være med. ...jeg sidder jo med [kriminelle unge] de har et specifik tidsrum de må ringe i… ...vores IT-afdeling er ikke interesseret i at supportere borgere…
“I prefer not to” … or the ambiguous stance of children “I don’t think he [a participating child] likes talking to me, I represent the “system”. (Social worker 2014) Interviewer: ….do they [personal problems] concern your social worker? Girl: No, it is something we deal with ourselves! Interviewer: What would you like to do from now on with the social worker? Girl: I want more contact! Interviewer: About what and in which ways? Not necessarily about anything? Girl: No, just more. Interviewer: But how should that contact be like? Girl: Just that we talked more. Interviewer: Simply a general interest in what you are doing? Girl: Yes.
In summary: how to include a network? An insoluble yet productive problem ● Networks are not contained or controlled by participatory methods / events ● The network-participant is neither an individualised actor nor a trustworthy spokesperson ● Participation must be evaluated through immanent criteria
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