Background: Childhood neglect has been associated with various negative short- and long-term consequences. To make sense of difficult experiences, individuals often seek internal and/or external explanations. Children's explanations for why they experience neglect have been identified as a potentially important factor in relation to different adjustment outcomes. Objective: This study examines how young adults explain the childhood neglect they experienced and how these explanations are connected to health problems in adulthood. Methods: The study utilizes retrospective data from a representative Swedish sample of 2,500 young adults, of which 7.5 % reported having been neglected as a child. Results: Our findings revealed that emotional neglect was the most common form of neglect, while physical neglect was the least common. Most participants attributed the neglect to their parents or family circumstances. However, self-blame during childhood significantly increased the risk of self-harm and PTSD symptoms. Blaming either oneself or one's parents was associated with a higher likelihood of self-harm and PTSD, while blaming parents for the neglect was linked to more suicide attempts. Those who attributed neglect to family circumstances showed higher levels of alcohol use as adults. Conclusions: Its important for professionals to recognize that, in addition to neglect itself, children's tendency to assign blame-especially self-blame-can have lasting impacts on their mental health and behavior.

People with cognitive disabilities are often excluded from research due to the inaccessibility of methods and assessment tools. Critical challenges include ensuring self-determination, developing inclusive recruitment methods, and enabling effective communication, all of which are essential to inclusive research. This article describes the use of graphic vignettes—illustrating various forms of violence—combined with semi-structured interviews as a multimodal approach to promote sensemaking and reflexivity related to violence against persons with cognitive disabilities. This methodological study is based on a reflexive thematic analysis conducted with 17 participants with cognitive disabilities (18 years or older). It describes the development of the vignettes and interview strategies designed to elicit participants’ own understanding of violence while supporting their decision-making and sense of control over the interview process. The article also discusses the implications and value of using vignettes and interviews as a multimodal research approach that not only maximizes accessibility and flexibility but also enhances self-determination and actively builds trust; key aspects that support sense-making of sensitive topics, such as violence. In doing so, this study provides key methodological insights that uniquely facilitate reflection and the direct participation of this population in research about their lives.

Information about violence in the family can be challenging for child welfare (CW) workers to assess when parents are simultaneously involved in a family law dispute. The aim of this study is to analyse how assessments of suspected violence in the family are described in CW investigations in Sweden when the child's parents are involved in a family law dispute. Text analysis of 32 CW investigations from six municipalities in Sweden was conducted using a version of a multiple case study. Both physical, sexual and psychological violence against the child, including experiencing violence against a parent or a sibling, were included. Our analysis revealed that the CW workers made individual violence assessments. They assessed either that the child had experienced violence, that the presence of violence could not be definitively established, or that the child had not experienced violence. However, even if the main reason to investigate was violence, the CW workers also discussed aspects of the family law dispute, which impacted the final determination and assessment of risks and the child's primary needs. The violence thus sometimes became less important than the parental conflict. It is important for CW workers to be aware of this and to treat violence as no less important than the parental conflict.

Dialogues between professionals and clients in social work are central to identifying and providing support for violence in close relationships. How professionals approach dialogues about violence in close relationships with clients with cognitive disabilities, and associated challenges to making them accessible, are understudied. Semi-structured interviews with 18 professionals in disability services, domestic violence shelters, social services, and health services in Sweden were conducted. Previous findings and gaps in theory motivated an inductive content analysis which generated four categories that illustrate challenges to accessible violence in close relationship dialogues. Findings: The four categories comprise challenges about : understanding and reasoning about violence; self-determination and protection; adapting assessment tools and approaches; and urgent and long-term approaches. These challenges entail difficulties in creating shared understandings and handling conflicting rights of clients. Furthermore, they included the need to adapt and maintain the validity of assessment tools, as well as organizational restrictions on the use of long-term approaches. Applications: The findings shed light on how professionals must simultaneously handle various aspects of violence in close relationship dialogues. Verbally adhering to a given description of a situation was restricted by the need to maintain a professional-client relationship. When motivating the need to accept support, professionals had to avoid manipulating clients. Furthermore, the findings indicate several weaknesses in current practice that professionals struggle to address individually, such as, overly extensive assessment tools and little guidance on identifying less overt forms of violence in close relationships. Professional guidance is required in social work practice and related fields.

Knowledge about children’s experiences of staying at domestic violence (DV) shelters, and their quality of life while living there, is limited. This study aims to examine how children describe staying at DV shelters in Sweden, and to identify important aspects of such experiences, both positive and negative. Thematic analysis was used to analyze 12 interviews with children aged 7–17 years. The findings show that the shelter environment, activities, and social relations are important for their quality of life, and that when these are lacking there is a risk that children will feel bored and isolated. Thus, although staying in a DV shelter for a period of time may be necessary to ensure children’s safety, it often comes at a cost; therefore, shelters need to be adapted to meet children’s needs. Safety and basic prerequisites, such as a clean and hygienic environment, are key to children’s quality of life at a shelter. Lack of amenities such as toys, activities, and outdoor space can make the shelter feel less like a “safe haven” and more like “safe storage” for children. For children, a shelter stay is characterized by disruption and the loss of various forms of social relationships. Placement authorities and shelter staff need to take each child’s preferences and needs for protection and support into consideration.

Children interviewed by the police in cases of suspected child abuse may experience emotional distress. Simultaneously, parents face the dual challenge of being suspects in the investigation while also striving to support their child's well-being. To offer children and their parents information and support in such cases, social workers in Sweden developed the model After the Child Forensic Interview (ACFI, sw. Efter barnf & ouml;rh & ouml;ret). This study aims to explore the model from the perspective of family social workers to understand its relevance for supporting children and parents. Twenty family social workers from eleven Swedish municipalities were interviewed about their experiences of working with ACFI. The analysis revealed that working with ACFI (a) requires preconditions such as resources and cooperation, individual/professional knowledge and experience, and the parents' receptivity, (b) demands adaptations such as changes and additions, and (c) entails side effects. Overall, family social workers describe the model as beneficial as it can improve client-worker relationships and facilitate further interventions. However, it is required that the municipalities have a plan for implementation and allocation of resources.

Purpose The aim of this study is to investigate children’s sense-making about their fathers’ attitudes about using violence against the child’s mother. More specifically, we examine various ways in which the children reflect on whether, and if so how, their father showed regret. Method This study used data from interviews with 31 children (14 boys and 17 girls) aged between 10 and 14 years, using a semi-structured interview guide. The children’s narratives were analyzed using discourse analysis. Results We found that most of the children in this study positioned their fathers as regretful in relation to two discourses—on violence and on fatherhood—that are prominent in the interviews. Some children, however, positioned their fathers as inconsistent or non-regretful, saying they did not express regret emotionally, did not change their behavior, did not communicate regret, or communicated it in a self-contradictory way. In their narratives the children sometimes used interpretative repertoires—about feelings, actions, and communication—to explain why they thought their father did or did not regret his use of violence. Conclusion Positioning one’s father as regretful after having committed IPV can be a way to make the father’s attitudes about the violence understandable, both to the children and to others. Discourses on violence and fatherhood can, however, constrain children’s narratives about their fathers’ violence, which is important to keep in mind when working with children who have been exposed to IPV and making decisions that concern them.

People with cognitive disabilities are exposed to significantly higher rates of violence in close relationships than the general population. However, social workers may find it challenging to identify victims among them, make risk assessments, and provide support. This study contributes to the field by describing and analysing social workers' practices with victims of violence in close relationships among people with cognitive disabilities in Sweden. Analysis of five focus-group discussions including 20 social workers revealed four main themes that describe the practices used with these victims, 'Competency', 'The system of collaboration', 'Protective and supportive measures' and 'Instruments and tools'. Sub-themes illuminate the differences in competency and resources offered to victims of violence in close relationships between mainstream victim services and disability services. Mainstream victim services have a lack of practices adapted for people with cognitive disabilities, and disability services have a lack of practices for victims of violence. Additionally, these services were found to have insufficient collaboration. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research and theory. We suggest that future research should investigate the prerequisites for services to collaborate.

Abstract Family violence is an act or threat of physical, sexual, or psychological violence perpetrated against one individual by another who is related through marriage or family. Family violence encompasses child abuse and neglect, sibling abuse, parent/in-law abuse, elder abuse, and intimate partner violence. Children exposed to family violence may experience negative short- and long-term physiological and psychosocial effects. Family violence, its prevalence, and its impacts have been studied worldwide. This chapter reviews global rates of family violence, how conceptualizations of family violence vary across countries, and how different types of family violence contribute to short- and long-term consequences for children. We focus on Mexico and Sweden as case studies to examine how families and children are affected by family violence in these unique cultural contexts.

This study explores and analyzes how adult women in Sweden exposed to childhood maltreatment describe wellbeing, by using a thematic analysis of 22 semi-structured interviews with women maltreated as children. The results show that wellbeing was described as relative to both social norms and the childhood experiences and constituted four dimensions: Material and/or economic; Social and relational;Emotional; and Physical and/or mental. This study concludes that it is important to consider the relative and multiple ways wellbeing can be experienced and understood and to problematize norms of wellbeing, acknowledging the various ways people appraise their lives.

The chapter discusses (1) how varying experiences of domestic violence affect children's and young people's need for professional support and interventions, (2) particular needs to be addressed in interventions, (3) the intervention models currently available, (4) what we can learn from children and young people about what they value in support interventions, and (5) challenges to developing and implementing interventions for children and young people. It concludes, among other things, that typologies of domestic violence can help us understand the different needs that children and young people have. Children who have experienced violence may especially need help to overcome perceptions that a relative perpetrated the violence out of hatred toward the child or as punishment, to become free from feelings of guilt and self-blame, and to be able to feel warmth from a parent. Programmes that have been evaluated and found to have robust designs and to produce good results are available, but strong evidence is still limited outside North America, and transferring programmes between cultures requires careful consideration. Assuming that for children and young people to willingly engage in intervention activities the activities must appear meaningful to them, the chapter suggests that the next steps for programme development include matching interventions with individual needs and balancing a child's need to talk against the value of respecting the child's integrity, and that more research is needed that examines which interventions or intervention components are most effective in addressing the unique parenting needs of women subjected to domestic violence as well as the differing individual needs of their children.

Intimate partner violence is a pervasive problem and many children and adolescents live under such circumstances. The aim of this research is to qualitatively explore variations among adolescents' reactions to violence occurring at their homes by trying to identify specific patterns in how these adolescents reacted to the violence and how this is related to the length of time they have been exposed to the violence. Fifty-eight adolescents (26 boys and 32 girls, 13-18 years of age) recruited in their schools completed a self-report questionnaire including qualitative open questions regarding the beginning of the violence and their reactions to it. Adolescents often described having reacted to the violence by attempting to distance themselves from it, or by interfering to protect their mother. Only the adolescents who began witnessing family violence at a specific point in time, when something significant happened in their families or because of changes in society, expressed not wanting to think about it or described being impeded from interfering or protecting their mothers because they felt distressed. Among the adolescents who had experienced family violence for their entire life, they often described that they did nothing to prevent the violence or they avoided thinking about it.

Research Findings: This study aimed to investigate the developmental path of social skills in early childhood, the associated predictors, and its impact on later school performance. This prospective longitudinal study included 2,121 children, ages 3-5 at baseline, from the general population in a mid-sized Swedish municipality. Results show both stability and change in social skills. Stable low social skills increased the risk for poor school performance, while stable high social skills increased the chance for good school performance in primary school. With some notable gender differences, both individual and family factors were significant predictors of stable low and stable high paths of social skills during early childhood. Practice or Policy: Whether the goal is to improve children's social skills or their performance in school, this study provides important clues for prevention. We identified several potential targets for interventions to promote early social skills development, which may in turn promote positive school performance. It is also notable that there seem to be gender differences in which factors are important, indicating the need for gender-differentiated interventions.

Background Despite the high prevalence and severe consequences for health and wellbeing, epidemiological research of neglected emotional needs during childhood is scarce and little is known about its relation to parental socioeconomic position (SEP). This study investigates the prevalence of family violence and parental unavailability in childhood and its association with parental SEP and parental psychological problems in four strata of young Swedish women examined 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2013. Method The sample comprised 976 women (mean age 22, range 20–25) living in Sweden. Secular trends for family violence, parental rejection and unavailability were analyzed using logistic regression as a function of year of examination. The associations with parental SEP and parental psychological problems were assessed using logistic regression with results in terms of odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals. Results Gendered patterns were observed in the associations between parental psychological problems and family violence and parental unavailability. Maternal psychological problems were associated with maternal rejection OR 6.8 (3.5–13.0), maternal lack of time OR 2.4 (1.2–5.0), and paternal rejection OR 1.9 (1.1–3.5). Paternal psychological problems were associated with paternal rejection OR 4.0 (2.1–7.7), paternal lack of time OR 4.9 (2.3–10.6), and experiencing family violence OR 4.9 (2.1–11.6). Low and medium parental SEP were associated with experience of family violence in childhood OR 3.1 (CI 1.1–8.5) and OR 3.4 (1.7–6.9), respectively. No changes between 1990 and 2013 were observed for the prevalence of any of the outcomes. Conclusions A stable prevalence of family violence and parental unavailability was reported by young women examined between 1990 and 2013. Lower socioeconomic position was associated with family violence while the association with parental unavailability was non-significant. Gendered patterns were observed in the association between parental psychological problems and family violence, where paternal but not maternal psychological problems were associated with family violence. Further, maternal psychological problems were associated with paternal rejection while paternal psychological problems were not associated with maternal rejection. Gendered patterns of parental unavailability need further studies.

Young migrants defined as ‘unaccompanied’ tend to be constructed as a homogeneous group with specific vulnerabilities and strengths in social work practice. ‘Unaccompanied’ young migrants placed in kinship care in Sweden are constructed with further vulnerabilities. Such constructions of these young people and their situations may have consequences for how social support for them is designed. The aim of this study is to explore how the social workers employed at a non-governmental organisation mentoring programme construct young migrants’ situations in kinship care in a Swedish suburb, and if and how these constructions change during the course of the programme. Methods used are semi-structured interviews with the social workers at the youth centre where the mentoring work takes place and analysis of the non-governmental organisation’s policy documents. The results consist of three constructions of situations the young people are in: (1) loneliness and (a lack of) support in the kinship homes; (2) alienation in the local neighbourhood and the kinship home and (3) social, cultural and family contexts creating a sense of safety. The results show variation in how the mentors describe each situation with both vulnerabilities and strengths. This highlights a complexity in the constructions that contests the image of young migrants in kinship care as merely vulnerable. These results reveal consideration of individual differences and contexts, and are used to discuss how people’s struggles and resources can be dealt with in social work.

For young people who have migrated unaccompanied by parents or other legal guardians, it is important to feel a sense of belonging. However, belonging is not fixed to one place. This study aims to explore how young migrants in kinship care in a Swedish suburb describe what different places mean to them and what these descriptions can tell us about their sense of belonging. In this study, semi-structured interviews with 11 young migrants between 16 and 21 years of age who took part in a mentoring programme are analysed by thematic analysis. Our analysis reveals that (a) the young people described four "levels" of place as meaningful in different ways-their kinship homes, the local community, the country they currently inhabit, and the world and that (b) it was through the interrelationships between these levels that their described sense of belonging emerged. To counterbalance young migrants' uncertain future, social interventions are needed that can help them to meet other people and get wider social networks in order to gain a sense of belonging in the new country.