La vulnérabilité au prisme d’une situation d’entretien en protection de l’enfance

Abstract

The issue of vulnerability in child welfare is highly related to intervention practices and analysis is possible both on the level of written documents that mark out the measures and on the level of the multiple situations of interaction that take place between families and social workers. The approach developed here on this topic focuses on an interview between a social worker and a mother (Mrs. Yvon) whose child has been placed under a protection measure. The purpose of this interview is to render the content of the report written by the educator for the juvenile judge to Mrs. Yvon and also to discuss the child’s non-attendance at school. The structurally asymmetrical positioning between speakers is studied, and more specifically the way it is organized around the two poles that characterize vulnerability, namely the wish for autonomy and the reality of dependence linked to some forms of fragility. The first part of the results concerns the analysis of the content of the report and reflects this tension by highlighting the use of many contrasting statements. The second part focuses on the interactive dynamics and highlights strong variations in the positioning between the professional’s help, control, advice and the mother’s acceptance, refusal, argumentation. The two interlocutors are concerned with maintaining the dialogue even though transparency, which is an inherent condition to it, is temporarily called into question. This episode reminds Mrs. Yvon. That she must be "irreproachable" as a mother. On a conceptual level, it also indicates that vulnerability remains strongly linked to the notions of personalization and empowerment.

Keywords

• child welfare
• vulnerability
• autonomy/dependence
• interactions
• positioning