“Were You a Monster Today?” Making Assessments with Families: Thoughts and Practices

Abstract

Assessing family care work is an extremely complex task, full of risks (because it concerns people’s life). It requires sensitivity, great self-awareness and awareness of one's own prejudices and of one’s own idea of family. In order to make an assessment professionals must have a curious attitude, capable of constantly seeking connections between interacting subjects, and these subjects include the observer him/herself, his/her thoughts and epistemology. This paper presents the reflections emerging from a high level inservice training course aimed at care and education professionals, based on narrative and reflective methodologies.

Keywords

• child and youth care
• social pedagogy
• complexity and curiosity in relational child care
• risks of assessment
• evaluation ethics