Introduction
There is a growing public concern about the impact of social inequalities in Norway, especially regarding child poverty and the negative effects of social and economic inclusion. It is well documented that low income affects children’s physical and mental health and school achievement and affects their prospects (Bøe et al., Reference Bøe, Serlachius, Sivertsen, Petrie and Hysing2018, Mølland et al., Reference Mølland, Vigsnes, Bøe, Danielsen, Lundberg, Haraldstad, Ask, Wilson and Abildsnes2020). Breaking the generational transfer of reduced life chances is a key societal challenge in Norway (Ministry of Children and Families, 2020). Rising social inequality is also seen as challenging dominant values of egalitarianism and equal opportunities that are symbols of the social-democratic welfare state in Norway (Danielsen and Bendixsen, Reference Danielsen and Bendixsen2020). The welfare state provides social security to its citizens and uses activation policies to promote participation in the workforce to counter poverty. Still, the percentage of children growing up in poverty has risen from 8 per cent in 2008–2010 to 10.7 per cent in 2016–2018 (Statistics Norway, 2021). Therefore, specialised measures such as family intervention programmes are introduced (Malmberg-Heimonen et al., Reference Malmberg-Heimonen, Tøge, Rugkåsa and Bergheim2021; Lundberg and Danielsen, Reference Lundberg and Danielsen2024). Public innovation programmes focusing on poor families can be understood to compensate for the present social welfare system in Norway, characterised by research as a bureaucratised silo-organised system where families meet different institutional logics (Ask and Sagatun, Reference Ask and Sagatun2020). Many service users face difficulties in understanding and navigating the welfare systems (Fauske et al., Reference Fauske, Kojan and Storhaug2018; Hansen et al., Reference Hansen, Lundberg and Syltevik2018; Lundberg, Reference Lundberg2018). The innovation project New Patterns therefore offers selected families a key worker, a family coordinator aiming to work holistically and closely alongside them (Lundberg and Danielsen, Reference Lundberg and Danielsen2024). But how do families experience such extensive interventions?
This article contributes to the growing research field on child poverty and complex family interventions by investigating how long-term poor families in Norway experience intensive intervention in their everyday life. Focusing on Norway allows us to study how poverty, despite favourable conditions in society overall, emerges as an independent factor affecting families and children’s opportunities. Based on broad observation and qualitative interviews with ten parents who have participated in the public innovation project New Patterns, we analyse the participants’ experience of taking part in the project. We especially investigate how they view working closely with a family coordinator. What sorts of changes do the parents identify related to taking part in this intervention, and how can these changes be conceptualised? We will argue that these families’ stories highlight both small moments and turning points they view in a positive light. This finding contrasts much research on users’ experiences of activation measures and welfare service encounters, both in Norway and internationally (Dubois, Reference Dubois2010; Fauske et al., Reference Fauske, Kojan and Storhaug2018; Holler and Tarshish, Reference Holler and Tarshish2022; Author 3).
Although this articles only relies on empirical findings based upon interviews with families, other parts of the New Patterns’ project interview other actors in the project and also use quantitative methods and evaluate effects and outcomes of the programme e. g. employment status, school results, and health for family members (Mølland et al., Reference Mølland, Vigsnes, Bøe, Danielsen, Lundberg, Haraldstad, Ask, Wilson and Abildsnes2020; Haraldstad et al., Reference Haraldstad, Abildsnes, Bøe, Vigsnes, Wilson and Mølland2023; Mølland et al., Reference Mølland, Lundberg, Haralstad, Vigsnes, Bøe, Danielsen, Ask, Wilson and Abildsnes2023), and there is a planned follow-up study of programme effects when participating children grow up. This article, however, is an exploratory analysis of participants’ ‘lived experiences’ in the programme and is one of several empirical contributions from the qualitative work in the research project in which the experiences of participatory actors are explored (Lundberg and Danielsen, Reference Lundberg and Danielsen2024). The aim of the innovation project New Patterns is to offer long-term poor families with complex service needs holistic and targeted services so that fewer children should grow up in poverty and to break the transfer of negative social inheritance over generations (Mølland et al., Reference Mølland, Vigsnes, Bøe, Danielsen, Lundberg, Haraldstad, Ask, Wilson and Abildsnes2020). The innovation project is tested in ten municipalities in southern Norway by assigning family coordinators who provide intensive and personalised family support to selected long-term poor families in a three- to five-year period. Family coordinators work closely with ten families each. Their role differs from other professional roles in the Norwegian welfare system as it is very flexible and aimed at catering to the specific needs in each family (Lundberg and Danielsen, Reference Lundberg and Danielsen2024).
The family coordinators in New Patterns work with the families based on the ideals of empowering them, cooperating with the families in defining goals, and bettering the conditions for the parents and the younger generation (Mølland et al., Reference Mølland, Vigsnes, Bøe, Danielsen, Lundberg, Haraldstad, Ask, Wilson and Abildsnes2020; Lundberg and Danielsen, Reference Lundberg and Danielsen2024). Family coordinators translate between the families and various state and municipal agencies and non governmental organisations (NGOs) as well as working directly with families and helping with various practical tasks. The family coordinators thus specialise in working holistically with families. Further, they are instructed to only help the families with what the families define as their needs, which will vary among the families and over time within the family (Lundberg and Danielsen, Reference Lundberg and Danielsen2024). Participation in the project is voluntary for the families, and they can quit the project whenever they want to. The family coordinator cannot formally sanction the families; however, the family coordinators hold informal power due to their knowledge of the family and of the various institutions and NGOs they interact with.
The participants in New Patterns share many similarities with long-term poor people in Norway. Norway official statistics state that you are measured as poor if you live on less than 60 per cent of the median income for at least three years in a row, and the participants in the New Patterns project fulfill these criteria. The participants in New Patterns must also meet the criteria of having complex needs to participate in the project, which means that they are already in contact with different parts of the welfare state before they enter the project. Sixty per cent of all children measured as growing up in poor households in Norway had a migration background (Statistics Norway, 2021). Many children grow up with single parents, mostly mothers. Parents often have none or very little paid work, little education, and struggle with their physical and mental health (Østhus and Nielsen, Reference Østhus and Nielsen2020). These characteristics are also features of the families taking part in New Patterns (Mølland et al., Reference Mølland, Vigsnes, Bøe, Danielsen, Lundberg, Haraldstad, Ask, Wilson and Abildsnes2020).
Intensive family intervention and change
The innovation project New Patterns share commonalities with other programmes aimed at altering the lives of families living in sustained poverty. Intensive support or intervention for families with diverse needs has had an emphasis on family-centred (Boddy et al., Reference Boddy, Statham, Warwick, Hollingsworth and Spencer2016) and whole-family approaches (Malmberg-Heimonen et al., Reference Malmberg-Heimonen, Tøge, Rugkåsa and Bergheim2021). In England, the Troubled Families Programme (TFP) first launched in 2011 has instigated much research and debate regarding how to approach families with complex needs (Lambert and Crossley, Reference Lambert and Crossley2017; Wenham, Reference Wenham2017; Ribbens Mccarthy et al., Reference Ribbens McCarthy, Gillies and Hooper2018). The TFP has some similarities with family intervention models tested in Norway, including helhetlig oppfølging av lavinntektsfamilier (Holf-prosjektet) (a comprehensive follow-up of low income families) (Malmberg-Heimonen and Tøge, Reference Malmberg-Heimonen and Tøge2022) and the New Pattern project, albeit there are important differences. Whereas the families are labeled as troubled within the welfare rhetoric in England, and the participants could face sanctions if they failed to change (Brandon et al., Reference Brandon, Sorensen, Thoburn, Bailey and Connolly2016), in Norway the family intervention model signals new patterns, it is less outcome-focused, and it has a longer timeframe for each family than TFP. While the TFP includes families with severe difficulties and uses force, the New Patterns exclude families where the child protection services consider taking children away and the families will not lose benefits if they withdraw from the project.
Many studies of intensive parenting support are focusing on the design and effect of complex family programmes and interventions, both in Norway (Rugkåsa and Bergheim, Reference Rugkåsa and Bergheim2020; Malmberg-Heimonen et al., Reference Malmberg-Heimonen, Tøge, Rugkåsa and Bergheim2021; Bergheim and Rugkåsa, Reference Bergheim and Rugkåsa2022) and internationally (Boddy et al., Reference Boddy, Statham, Warwick, Hollingsworth and Spencer2016; Parr, Reference Parr2017; Barnes and Ross, Reference Barnes and Ross2021). While much research investigates how different targeting measures, methods, and approaches work (Hayden and Jenkins, Reference Hayden and Jenkins2014; Bond-Taylor, Reference Bond-Taylor2015), less attention has been given to the participant’s and service users’ own experiences of taking part in intensive family support programmes (Parr, Reference Parr2016). As stated by Malmberg-Heimonen and Tøge (Reference Malmberg-Heimonen and Tøge2022) and Parr (Reference Parr2016: 26), there is limited research-based knowledge about the processes in the relationship between a key worker and families and how this can facilitate change. Research thus is in danger of silencing those that the interventions aimed at helping (Wenham, Reference Wenham2017). Further, the understanding of what kind of support families with poverty issues need is lacking, and policies and decisions regarding how resources should be allocated to foster positive change may lack foundation.
However, there are also important research contributions focusing on the families’ perspective and lived experience of working with intensive intervention projects (Bond-Taylor, Reference Bond-Taylor2015; Wright, Reference Wright2016; Parr, Reference Parr2017; Parr and Hayden, Reference Parr and Hayden2019; Parr and Churchill, Reference Parr and Churchill2019). This article will expand further on these by analysing the families’ experiences of having a family coordinator. Further, building upon qualitative methods, this article especially focuses on how the parents experience change rather than referring to objective measures of change. Some of the concepts coining transitions and change have tended to privilege social categories, like transitioning to college or getting a job, over subjective experiences of change (Thomson et al., Reference Thomson, Bell, Holland, Henderson, McGrellis and Sharpe2002: 337). There are, however, also several concepts coining subjective experiences of change. Among these concepts we have chosen small moments and turning points. There is the concept of epiphany (Denzin, Reference Denzin1989), which describes a sudden realisation, which does not cover the gradual processes of change often conveyed by the families. The concept of critical moments points towards biographical events that are narrated as having important consequences for lives and identities (Thomson et al., Reference Thomson, Bell, Holland, Henderson, McGrellis and Sharpe2002: 339). This concept of critical moments fits the content of some of the stories from the participants. However, we prefer the concept of small moments as coined by Lareau (Reference Lareau2015) as it also captures events that are not narrated as very important, although they can have important consequences in the long run.
The concept of small moments is presented in an article by the family sociologist Annette Lareau (Reference Lareau2015) where she mainly discusses the interconnectedness of cultural knowledge and social inequality and how that reproduces class differences. She argues that many studies of class reproduction have focused on key turning points whereas she puts forward that ‘ “small moments” may be critical in setting the direction of life paths’ (Lareau, Reference Lareau2015: 1). Her argument is that small moments also can turn out to be significant (Reference Lareau2015: 4) as they can add up to key moments and turning points, but they get little attention from researchers as they are difficult to capture in representative surveys with predefined categories. The concept of small moments is a way of understanding crucial parts of the families’ stories, and we will argue an underlit concept when it comes to understanding how change happens in everyday life and regarding how a positive outcome is understood and defined.
Whereas the concept of small moments (Lareau, Reference Lareau2015) alludes to a limited change, we also need a concept that refers to a decisive or fundamental change, and the concept of a turning point is interesting to use when discussing the participant’s stories. A study of a related public intervention project with family coaches in London allocated to families for six months as part of the Troubles Families initiative, found that the participating families ‘related their work with the coach to potential turning points’ (Brandon et al., Reference Brandon, Sorensen, Thoburn, Bailey and Connolly2016: 57). Although it can happen through a gradual process, a turning point often refers to an event, a positive change that can have life-altering consequences (Brandon et al., Reference Brandon, Sorensen, Thoburn, Bailey and Connolly2016: 61). One way of understanding turning points is to focus on the perceived change that actors identify (Thomson et al., Reference Thomson, Bell, Holland, Henderson, McGrellis and Sharpe2002: 61) ‘since it is the process of interpreting and making sense of an event that renders it significant.’
The reason why we choose to discuss such a strong word as a turning point concerning the informants’ experiences of being part of New Patterns, is that all the participants we interviewed consistently talk about being part of the project as a before and after story, although in different ways. While some highlighted major events or strong emotional processes, others told us about smaller moments and processes while some talked of both these forms of change. We will thus discuss both small moments and turning points in the participant’s stories of their relationship with the family coordinator.
Methods and data
This article is based on qualitative methodology, consisting of interviews with ten families, and fieldwork in the form of observation of multiple families in the project in the period between 2019 and 2022. We did fieldwork on four different occasions where we observed how the families interacted with a family coordinator or representatives from the welfare system. This way, we could follow some of the families over time. The qualitative interviews were semi-structured with open questions, lasting typically between one and two hours. Two of the families were interviewed twice. The interviews were transcribed ad verbum. The study is part of the larger research project New Patterns, which is based on both quantitative and qualitative methods, including shadowing and interviews with family coordinators (Mølland et al., Reference Mølland, Vigsnes, Bøe, Danielsen, Lundberg, Haraldstad, Ask, Wilson and Abildsnes2020, Reference Mølland, Lundberg, Haralstad, Vigsnes, Bøe, Danielsen, Ask, Wilson and Abildsnes2023; Lundberg and Danielsen, Reference Lundberg and Danielsen2024). For a detailed description of methods and samples throughout the whole research project, see Mølland et al., Reference Mølland, Vigsnes, Bøe, Danielsen, Lundberg, Haraldstad, Ask, Wilson and Abildsnes2020. So, while this article investigates empirical data covering the parents’ experiences, we can interpret these considering also the broader empirical material in the research project.
The researchers gained access to the participants via the family coordinators who worked with them. The families got a flyer with info about the research, and they were informed that it was voluntary to take part before they signed the consent agreement. There are both disadvantages and advantages when using those who work as public helpers as gatekeepers for participants. The participants may experience an obligation to endorse the project and loyalty to people who have helped them or have informal power over them. These disadvantages were outweighed by the advantages for us. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, for the researchers to get in touch with this group of participants in any other way. The researchers found that the trust the family coordinators had spent years to achieve among the users was transferred to the researchers, allowing us to visit them in their homes or in other places of their choice.
As noted by other researchers, the families’ narratives may have adopted, applied, or resisted scripts about poor families, transforming or reinstating scripts (Ribbens McCarthy et al., Reference Ribbens McCarthy, Gillies and Hooper2018). It was surprising to the researchers that the participants talked about the intervention project in very positive terms, compared to previous research projects (Lundberg, Reference Lundberg2018). The participants in this study could be affected by a loyalty to the New Patterns project. Some said directly that they appreciated the intervention project and feared that it would be shut down. They wanted to tell others how much help they had received and saw the interview as a possibility to do that. Others clearly wanted to convey bad experiences in the welfare services before they became part of New Patterns.
We did not come across participants who expressed critique of New Patterns as an intervention. Also, parents who were dissatisfied with New Patterns had the opportunity to drop out of the project without repercussions. Thus, we did not meet the families who had left. Families experiencing trouble taking part in New Patterns might not want to be interviewed. The researchers, however, explicitly invited the research participants to offer bad experiences and critical insights in order to help the research project become better. The research participant’s stories can thus be read as stories directed toward the general public, where the parents seemed motivated to convey some of their positive experiences to promote the innovation project they took part in.
The two researchers who together did fieldwork and interviews, partly together and partly individually, also analysed the fieldwork and the interviews together with the help of inspiration from thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, Reference Braun and Clarke2021). We have read and re-read the interviewed transcripts, discussed them regarding our insights from other data sources in the project and identified central themes in the data material. For this article’s analysis, we took a special interest in how the families perceived working with a family coordinator and stories about change in the family’s everyday life, what forms of change the parents identified after they took part in the project, and what did not change. For this thematic analysis we found the concepts of small moments and turning points valuable. The presented empirical material in this article has been selected to show a variation among participants regarding the changes they identified. All informants are anonymised and treated following ethical standards as approved by SIKT (Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research).
From being a number in a line to being seen
By delving into the stories of the parents, we will give an insight into the very experience of having a family coordinator. All the interviewed parents participating in New Patterns talked about their family coordinator with warmth, like this mother: ‘The one that has given us the best help is certainly Marie (the name of the family coordinator).’ The participants always talked about the family coordinator by mentioning their name, not the title as part of the social welfare system. A study of a similar project with family coaches in London also underlined how they were approached by their names (Brandon et al., Reference Brandon, Sorensen, Thoburn, Bailey and Connolly2016). The use of the family coordinator’s name alludes to perceiving the family coordinator as a human being, not a representative of a system.
A mother with a migrant background expressed that ‘the social services, Anna (the name of family coordinator) is my family in Norway,’ alluding to her experience of being dumped by her Norwegian husband without any family or friends in Norway to rely on. Anna became crucial as a guide in her everyday life. The family coordinator helped the parents in ways that resemble what a parent or relative could have done. The participants experienced getting help with small and large things, from various practical tasks and navigating systems, like help to apply for a debt scheme, and planning and pursuing education or pathways to paid work, to discussing concerns regarding their children. Parents frequently mentioned developing better digital competence through the help of the family coordinator, such as appying for available public support that families did not know about, helping to communicate with teachers, organising leisure time activities and vacation for children, and helping to organise children’s birthdays. Also, some participants mentioned that actors in various services met them with more respect and support when the family coordinator assisted them in their approach to the services.
As the families were selected to take part in the project due to poverty and complex needs, they had extensive experience with the welfare system and other public institutions and services before they took part in New Patterns. The family coordinator was overwhelmingly portrayed as a positive contradiction to the contact with the social welfare system that they had depended upon in the past. A mother explains how she felt that her needs had not been met before she became part of the New Pattern project:
There is no one in the system who asks what we need, what help we need or what support we need, they just serve something… like, if you fancy tacos for dinner, you will rather be served traditional meatballs.
Many of the participants expressed that they felt more heard and seen after they joined New Patterns, resulting in them receiving the help they needed.
Many participants talked about their perceived changes in a subdued manner, like this father of three: ‘I feel like I can lower my shoulders a bit more, and I don’t have to panic anymore because I’ve got someone there who can help me with the different challenges I have.’ Knowing that someone was there for support, despite his history of mental illness, had given him the courage to cautiously try to go back to paid work. His wife had also received help to re-enter paid work. ‘It’s had a lot to say to meet someone who trusts and who believes in me,’ she said. The couple commented that they now had fewer financial worries and better self-esteem and said that their parental confidence had been given a boost after successfully overcoming some challenges.
The participants often connected positive changes they themselves experienced, small or large, to a better situation concerning their children, like the single mother: ‘It has helped for the children that I have been helped. When I’m doing better, they become better too.’ She explained that her sons became much livelier and happier after she, with the help of the family coordinator, finally received help for her mental illness; it wasn’t as hard as before to get the children ready for school. She further said that it was only after she became healthier, although not well, that she was able to understand how much her illness had affected her children. To help her, the family coordinator had initiated and assisted a shift to a new general practitioner (GP) and accompanied her to appointments with the GP, which improved the communication and her treatment. There were several small steps taken to enhance her situation.
A mother who had been part of the project for five years and thus recently left the project held forward that she had learned to trust professionals and ask for help through contact with the family coordinator. As an example, she was now able to initiate contact with teachers when a new crisis happened in the family, as she had witnessed how the family coordinator had done that earlier. She now gave sensitive information to the teacher that could help explain the child’s behaviour.
Some of the participants told us about larger, more life-altering changes in their stories. The contrast between the help she had before and after she was assigned a family coordinator is profound in this mother’s eyes: ‘If it hadn’t been for Marie (family coordinator), I don’t know, I might have been dead by now.’ This emotionally strong expression of the value of help from the family coordinator points to a turning point connected to being part of the New Patterns project; she does not want to commit suicide anymore. She still had weak bonds to paid work, and she struggles with her health, but she and her children’s overall situation is more stable and slightly better as they now also had better housing and an overview of the finances. The improvement of this mother’s emotional well-being was probably beneficial to her children as well. This rather strong story was not unique; although we did not ask about suicidal thoughts three out of the ten interviewed participants told us that after taking part in New Patterns, they no longer feared that they would commit suicide.
The wide span of changes the participants held forward shows that the family coordinators seem to have adjusted to the individual family’s needs. Also, the families appreciated the relationship with the family coordinator.
Different needs for help, different changes
Delving deeper into two stories will showcase the different needs the parents convey that they had and how the family coordinator contributed to changes in their life. Jenny is a single Norwegian mother to five children, all born and raised in Norway and dependant on social welfare benefits. The children’s father has very limited financial resources and little contact with the family. Jenny had an upbringing marked by neglect and therefore has a minimum of contact with her biological family. She almost completed primary school and has tried various vocational educations over the years. She has failed to take professional certificates and faced many disappointments regarding education and paid work. Jenny’s health is characterised by various chronic physical illnesses that were difficult to diagnose, and she also had some mental ailments. She has lived on social assistance and lone parents benefits back and forth for ten years, between periods of work assessment allowance. Her latest caseworker in the social services had confessed to being shocked by reading about her hardships and lack of help from the welfare state in her casefile. Jenny appears resourceful in many ways; she is good at telling stories, her language reveals that she is self-reflexive, and she has vocal justifications for her actions. ‘I am not A4,’ she says, alluding to her life being different from the norm as she has more children than usual in Norway. She brings them up a bit differently than the ideal, according to herself, and she does not have paid work.
During the first interview, she was in a very precarious economic situation as her disability benefits application was recently rejected: ‘It’s one day at a time and firefighting and emergency resolutions,’ she said, explaining that she also was supposed to receive a transfer from the children’s father that he failed to send. This was a full-on economic crisis, one that she experienced occasionally, although saying that she usually managed quite okay on her small budget. Further, she explained, ‘I have communication difficulties with public bodies,’- she felt they will not listen to her, and she feels distrusted by the welfare systems. The main reason she wanted to take part in the project was to receive help to navigate these systems. She did not want help regarding her five children. Her hope and dream for the future during the first interview was to get disability benefits as that would give her a more stable although still low income, and thus provide more safety and stability.
At first, Jenny’s story lacked major turning points. There was, however, something going on in a good direction; she had developed a sense of trust in the family coordinator, and expressed that she knew the family coordinator would fight for her. Learning to trust was a long process for Jenny: ‘It takes a lot for me to trust people, but that is natural. One has become disappointed so many times, throughout, so you are careful with what you give.’ After several refusals, two years after our first meeting, Jenny finally got the disability benefit she wanted. In her life, that became a turning point that in turn made other turning points possible. In the last contact we had with Jenny, she was happy that one of her biggest dreams, which she had barely dared to hope for, had come true: with the small regular income that the social benefit guaranteed her, it became possible for her to buy her own flat. The family coordinator gave crucial advice in that process, as Jenny did not have other contacts to turn to who would know the nitty-gritty of buying a property. Jenny was still poor, but she had provided her children a stable home. Also, she spoke of a new dream of entering paid work when the children grew older.
Another interviewee, Seba, is a single mother of two children, coming to Norway as a refugee. When the family coordinator came into the picture, Seba and her children’s lives were very chaotic. She has a very limited social network in Norway and appears to be wary of trusting others, she explicitly avoids people from her country of origin as she fears their gossip. She has suffered traumatic experiences both in her home country and in Norway. When she went through the mandatory introduction programme for refugees, her mental health was very poor and thus she did not learn as much as expected of her. She had to learn to read and write in Norway, and that was a challenge she still struggled with; we used an interpreter whom she trusted during the interview.
Seba conveys that she has confidence in the family coordinator: ‘She sees me, reads me. Sometimes when we meet, she starts by asking questions; is there anything I can help you with?’ Seba further explains that the family coordinator is involved in all sorts of arenas in her and her children’s life, helps with contact with schools, follows up with her general practitioner and psychiatric health service, and intermediates in the relationship with the child welfare services. ‘She is in all arenas that concern me,’ and is there for her children. In contrast to this, she says, upset, that ‘I can’t call it help, what I have received from the social services. They treated me like I understand their routines, and I don’t get it. They send me letters in Norwegian – I don’t know what it says or where to turn to.’ The difficulties in contact with various public bodies contributed to major challenges for her and her children.
I didn’t answer the phone and was threatened with eviction. The kids and I were about to end up on the street. I had no welfare system person, no caseworker, they were always gone. So, the communication was horrible. The child benefit was stopped because there was something I hadn’t submitted. I desperately came to the social services, and they said they have been sending letters for a long time. But how could they stop the money for me and the kids?
The family coordinator became the key to better communication with public agencies and services she depends on. The children have been helped, too, as the family’s housing, with the help of the family coordinator, became more favourable. The children have been using the family coordinator for their individual needs, e.g. when navigating school transitions, organising birthday celebrations, obtaining their first summer job, or getting health care.
Seba said that she was at the point of breaking down for many years, she wanted to give up on everything because of hardship, loneliness, and disappointment as she did not master learning the Norwegian language: ‘Compared to that situation, life has gone from hell to heaven.’ Seba underlines this by saying that she has now left behind the suicidal thoughts she carried in the turbulent years leading up to her participation in New Patterns. Her dream for the future is foremost to provide a better life for her children, and for her own sake, to be able to achieve better mental health.
Comparing Jenny and Seba, it becomes visible that help was not accessible to them within the rather generous welfare-state in Norway. They both experienced structural barriers to receiving help they were entitled to, connected to their working-class and migrant backgrounds. Structural barriers within the employment and welfare system, and how they create thresholds for immigrant and working class groups are documented in other studies as well (Hansen et al., Reference Hansen, Lundberg and Syltevik2018, Lundberg, Reference Lundberg2018; Volckmar-Eeg, Reference Volckmar-Eeg2022). The critical ingredient of the family support work seems to be recognising the users’ needs and working alongside them to ensure their entitlements. Further, they succeed in using the family coordinator in different ways, according to how they view their own needs. Once small goals had been achieved, new goals could become a reality. How they view the future may change over time. Small moments, as described by the participants, may lead to bigger events that shape their lives in new directions.
Discussion: small moments and turning points
The long-term poor families’ experiences point to severe cracks in the social services and highlight how the Norwegian welfare-state failed to help them. The family coordinators are compensating for silo organisation and different barriers hindering the families from getting help they are entitled to. Focusing on family contact with a family coordinator shows how participants in New Patterns view that this relationship has contributed to practical, emotional, and social support. Participants narrate their experience of taking part in the New Pattern project as a contrasting before-and-after story, emphasising positive developments after connecting with a family coordinator.
Qualitative methods provide a unique possibility to investigate processes where change happens rather than seeing change as the outcome of a particular process, thus capturing decisive events and highlight changes that are not usually visible in public statistics (Lareau, Reference Lareau2015; Lister, Reference Lister2015). The families talk both about small moments, gradual improvements, and bigger turning points connected to the relationship with the family coordinator. They say that they have achieved a more stable everyday life, through a better or more stable economy, and more suitable housing. They talk of better communication and relations with various public institutions and agencies they interact with, such as kindergartens, schools, child protection services, GPs, and specialist health services.
As noted in other studies investigating families’ perceptions of ‘getting support’ through the welfare state (Dolan and Holt, Reference Dolan and Holt2002: 239; Boddy et al., Reference Boddy, Statham, Warwick, Hollingsworth and Spencer2016; Parr, Reference Parr2016), the families value the relationship with the family coordinator and its positive effects: that is, for the first time for many of the participants, to be seen and heard from someone in a public role and taken seriously. In line with findings from studies of families’ experience of working with a key worker (Parr, Reference Parr2016, Thomson et al., Reference Thomson, Bell, Holland, Henderson, McGrellis and Sharpe2002), having a family coordinator allowed the families to develop a trust-based relationship with another human being. As noted by Parr (Reference Parr2016), this can better their psychological well-being, especially for those participants in the project who report having small or almost lacking social networks around them. Taking part in a trust-based relationship can contribute to an improvement of participants’ sense of self and belief in long-term goals. To be seen was conveyed as an important experience, for some a turning point, as these families had felt the opposite through many years of hardships, with the added feeling of not being understood or believed. To be seen further contributed to get help and opportunities that are adapted and targeted to their and their children’s situation through public services and institutions.
However, these changes may not result in the parents getting paid work, and they may continue to be poor. Some gained a new connection to the labor market, and some increased an existing attachment to the labor market. The narratives of the families show that the road to a better financial situation through paid work is very rocky and seems unattainable for others. There are, however, as we have seen, other ways to stabilise the family economy and improve the families‘ living conditions, both for parents and children. The stories of the families highlight their vulnerable position, in turn affecting the children growing up in these families. As stated by other researchers studying the experiences of families with complex needs, this necessitates that positive change is not linear or easily achieved (Hayden and Parr, Reference Hayden and Parr2019: 37).
The families’ experiences and feelings regarding the family coordinator as a helpful friend or even a lifesaver should, however, not be dismissed. Their narratives resonate with other research (Berg and Rugkåsa, Reference Bergheim and Rugkåsa2022; Parr, Reference Parr2016), illustrating that targeted measures such as intensive family support can be experienced as helpful; or by comparison more helpful than the general support before the participants took part in the New Pattern project.
Projects aiming at intervention in poor families are criticised for working superficially with symptoms rather than root causes of poverty (Lambert and Crossley, Reference Lambert and Crossley2017) and for responsibilising and disciplining poor families instead of providing better solutions (Nunn and Tepe-Belfrage, Reference Nunn and Tepe-Belfrage2017; Parr, Reference Parr2017). However, when sticking to only long-term goals to improve parents’ financial capacity, children’s interests here and now, in their childhood, are not taken care of. Disciplining is part of all public interventions (Lambert and Crossley, Reference Lambert and Crossley2017; Nunn and Tepe-Belfrage, Reference Nunn and Tepe-Belfrage2017), but there are ways to help poor families that are more oriented towards dignity building than shaming (Lister, Reference Lister2015; Gubrium and Pellissery, Reference Gubrium and Pellissery2016; Parr, Reference Parr2016; Parr and Hayden, Reference Parr and Hayden2019).
As the family coordinators hold no formal power over the families, and it is voluntary to participate in the project, the families are positioned to be able to trust the family coordinator. The family coordinator can thus act as a social and cultural interpreter or guide for the families, making invisible knowledge visible. Such interventions can, as we have seen, have a major impact on the life cycle of both parents and children. The family coordinators can work as class guides, providing expert help to navigate systems and overcoming barriers. Middle-class behaviour is rewarded in education, the health sector, and working life (Lareau, Reference Lareau2015). The process of class guiding, however, also includes families becoming attuned to middle-class behaviour, and family coordinators directing families towards dominant norms of family life. While the parents did not mention this aspect of their interaction with the family coordinators, many of them said that they did not understand the particularities of services and that their voices had not been heard in these services.
Conclusion
The stories of the families in New Patterns contribute to an academic and policy debate on social services and how change is understood. The stories illustrate on the one hand that long-term poor families lack help they are entitled to from the welfare-state. On the other hand, they show that targeted measures such as intensive family support within the universal welfare-state framework can be experienced as helpful, or by comparison much more helpful than the general support they had before they took part in the New Pattern project. This study thus showcases the potential of long-term non-directive, voluntary, and personalised interventions with families experiencing adversity, as is also noted by Dolan and Holt (Reference Dolan and Holt2002: 249) analysing what families want in family support.
There are both major turning points and small moments gradually leading to a more stable life in our material, even though many of these stories do not convey a successful pathway to paid work. Many of the changes the parents talked about, like being seen and heard, or achieving a more stable everyday life and better emotional well-being, will not count as an effect, outcome, or a positive result according to ‘the work line,’ and the present active labor market policy in Norway.
However, these changes can have a major impact on the quality of life for adults and children and on the prospects of the children in these families. In line with Lareau (Reference Lareau2015), we think it is crucial to illuminate the noneconomic forces and small moments that can build up to larger transformations (Lareau, Reference Lareau2015: 21) Firstly, ‘seeing users’ will contribute to more accurate services and thus more appropriate use of resources. Secondly, being seen can contribute to creating small moments with the potential for instigating also major turning points. Thirdly, if parents experience everyday life with fewer financial worries, they can spend more energy on parenting. Fourth, the children and youth in the families can take advantage of their relationship with the family coordinator.
Investigating an intervention that resembles interventions in other European countries allows for insights into potential value beyond the specific context of Norway. The narratives from the participants underline how the family coordinators have contributed to instigating several positive changes for the families, altering parts of their everyday lives and in some cases, their views and plans for the future. The participants’ stories in New Patterns give value to the small moments in life and their connection to turning points as well as reflections on what a turning point can be – a process, a goal achieved, or a new hope.
This article argues for an increased research interest in how processes of change are experienced by participants in intensive family interventions and how the relationship with a long-term key worker, in this case, a family coordinator, can contribute to positive changes. The family coordinator acted as a mediator, an expert, and a cultural guide for the parents as well as providing practical and emotional support. This article has especially shown the importance of small moments as harboring a potential for crucial turning points. Small moments that might seem limited in importance when compared to social categories, that can be measured in statistics, can lead to decisive changes with beneficial results for those affected. The differences between small moments and turning points should therefore be understood along a continuum rather than as opposite or very different experiences.
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