Relationell delaktighet i familjehemsvården:

Ungdomars strategier i mötet med en ständigt föränderlig publik

Abstract

This article is based on interviews with youth in foster care, exploring their experiences of participation in interactions with social services. The study examines how youth perceive invitations to participate—both formal and informal—and how these invitations shape their sense of agency. The analysis elaborates Henze-Pedersen and Bengtsson’s (2024) theoretical model of children’s participation within the statutory context of social work, which conceptualizes various types of audiences for young people’s voices. We identify two principal audience types: the responsive and the unresponsive. The responsive audience is characterized by attentiveness, loyalty, and a problem-solving orientation, whereas the unresponsive audience is perceived as distant, uncomprehending, and inaccessible. The findings demonstrate that the youth develop and employ strategies such as relational influence and strategic networking to manage and affect their circumstances. These are interpreted as active forms of participatory agency. In contrast, the decision to withdraw from relational engagement is understood as a passive coping mechanism in response to a persistently shifting and often unfamiliar audience. By elucidating the characteristics of different audience types, the article highlights how young people must continuously position themselves in relation to multiple audiences. This includes the strategic use of relational influence to enhance their participation. The role of the social worker emerges as particularly complex, functioning as a constantly changing audience—at times responsive, at other times unresponsive. This article contributes to a deeper understanding of children’s agency and the relational constitution of participation within the context of social services.