The world is rapidly changing with new truths and paradigms. Society is no longer dominated by clearly defined categories of social class, sex and age, and normative dichotomies of good and bad, black and white, and sick and healthy (Foucault, 1982). These categorisations have not only been contested and lost their previous authority; rather, the whole mechanism of social control by categorisation would seem to be under review and individuals rather than groups are these days at the centre of the guidelines of social policy. People follow their own course and are not determined by the grand narratives. Change and multiformity have become positive values (Lyotard, 1984) and people are judged on their acquired rather than on their traditional roles. The existent is put into perspective by the understanding that everything might have been different; the world is contingent and our understanding is ambivalent. There is no underlying, objective truth to be sought in everyday human affairs. ‘Truth’ is unmasked as the product of our activities and observations.
A constructive approach may lead to multiformity and qualification, but there is also the danger that it can easily lead to relativism and the pessimistic idea that there is nothing beyond a fragmented world, while local and temporary descriptions offer no coherent account by which one can structure everyday life. Constructivist descriptions are local and provisional, but within this context there is no reason why they should not be coherent and useful. Fay (1996) proposes a critical intersubjectivity that allows for the description and discussion of different theories of observation of all kinds of phenomena, in an ‘ongoing dialogue among rival inquirers each of whom accepts to understand the others in a manner genuinely open to the possibility that their views may have merits’ (p 213). ‘Reality’ as we perceive it is constantly changing, but that does not mean that a provisional truth cannot be found in local configurations. Constructivism does not negate the idea of the subject, nor does it imply the futility of all hopes of realising social coherence. It is rather the acknowledgment that people start from different historical backgrounds and try to forge meaningful communities without anyone having the right to assert the priority or authority of any of the choices that are made.
This view has consequences for the way we look at development, at raising children, at the source of family problems and at how to solve them. The following chapters are concerned with continuity and discontinuity in child development and parenthood, and with the attempts by child welfare agencies to restore continuity. A constructivist and dialogical view of child welfare is allied to a critical and problematising approach with regard to the ‘facts’ and ‘certainties’ about these lives and relationships in families with problems. People construct their interpretations of reality in daily interactions, their relationship with the child welfare agent being a salient example. That is why this book pays particular attention to the dialogical character of the helping relationship. In this context, the term ‘constructive’ refers to the fact that there is no single, optimal way to carry out child welfare with perfect strategies and techniques, but rather that child welfare is a productive and positive process in which new narratives may help clients to restore the continuity in their lives (Parton and O’Byrne, 2000).
Parents and children often have a long history of relational disappointment, family problems and social isolation. The child’s first confrontation with child welfare is the start of a period with new breaches and interventions. I start from the idea that there is no single solution for all the problems that families face, for the difficulties of child welfare agents or for the problems that child welfare agencies are confronted with in their efforts to organise family interventions in a professional manner. Neither there is one ideal interactive pattern between parents and children, between professionals and clients and among professionals themselves (compare Hall and Slembrouck, 2009). Pursuing the single, optimal strategy, intervention or communication would be a risky approach that would be more likely to create new problems than to solve them. Agency – whether of individual children, their parents or child welfare workers and their agencies – cannot be perfect. Just as children need ‘good enough’ parents, society needs a ‘good enough’ child welfare practice.
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