The flexibility of family co-ordinators in complex family interventions: building relations over time with families living in sustained poverty
(Publisert i European Journal of Social Work, vol 27 nr. 3, 2024)
Complex family interventions represent innovative yet contested policy approaches to child poverty and their follow-up with families with complex needs laid down in several national policies. Across welfare state regime contexts, the role of the family co-ordinator is central to these approaches. In this article, we explore the role of the family co-ordinator in the Norwegian family intervention programme, NewPatterns – Safe Upbringing. Family co-ordinators were followed in their everyday work practices, and they were interviewed over several rounds. In our analysis, we look at how the family co-ordinator role and relations with families evolve over time as knowledge increases and the family situation changes. Our research findings demonstrate the importance of flexibility and temporality in complex family interventions, including their role for instigating trust in the relationships between family co-ordinators and families, their role as cultural and system interpreters, and as such providing means for successful targeted support.