Peer-reviewed article
Changes to assessments of child well-being brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic – Finnish family services and child welfare services supervisors’ perspective
Eveliina Heino, Minna Helena Veistilä, Tuuli Lamponen ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines how COVID-19 changed child well-being assessment practices in Finnish family and child welfare services. Researchers interviewed 17 supervisors responsible for organising assessments in 2021 and 2022. The pandemic created three main changes: increased remote communication, delays in accessing social and health services, and challenges to meeting assessment deadlines. The research identifies how limitations on face-to-face contact affected social work practice during the pandemic.
Key points
- COVID-19 forced a shift to remote communication in child welfare assessments
- Delays occurred in the availability of social and health services needed for assessments
- Assessment deadlines became harder to meet during the pandemic
- Data collected from supervisors responsible for organising child well-being assessments
- Study based on 17 interviews conducted in 2021 and 2022
Limitations
The study describes supervisors' perspectives on practice changes but does not assess whether these changes affected outcomes for children or families. It does not evaluate whether remote assessments were effective or harmful compared to face-to-face contact.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted social work practices, given limitations to practitioners’ possibilities to meet with clients face-to-face since spring 2020. In this article, we examine the kinds of changes the COVID-19 pandemic brought about in relation to assessment practices in Finnish family and child welfare services. Collected in 2021 and 2022, data consist of 17 interviews with supervisors who work in family and child welfare services and who are responsible for organising the assessment of children’s well-being. To analyse the data, we employed a thematic analysis. As a result of our study, we identified and named three different themes to describe changes to practices from different perspectives. These themes are moving to remote communication, delays in the availability of social and health services and assessment deadlines as well as the challenges of conducting assessments.