Introduction

This chapter discusses how social workers from social welfare and child protection services can contribute more actively to helping children in poor families. A Norwegian study of living conditions for families with low income concluded that social welfare and child protection services should be able to identify the needs of children in these families, and to provide help in a flexible and nonstigmatising manner (Sandbæk, 2004). There is an increasing recognition that children are active subjects in their own lives, and that understanding of their experiences and coping strategies is important for understanding their existence (James et al, 1998; Sommer, 2003b). Has this understanding become a part of social workers’ attitudes about children in families who are dependent on longterm financial welfare assistance?

Child poverty is a global problem, but conditions for children in low-income families has also received increased attention from politicians and researchers in Europe and North America, including the Nordic countries (Backe-Hansen, 2004). Though countries like the US and Great Britain have more serious poverty problems than the Nordic countries, which have more comprehensive welfare systems and greater income redistribution to families with children, the prevalence of child poverty is dependent on the same general causes in all these countries. According to Backe-Hansen's review, there is widespread agreement among researchers that “growing up in poverty, with the multiple risk factors with which this is associated, increases the risk that children and young people will exhibit more symptoms of social and psychological problems” (Backe-Hansen, 2004, p 18; emphasis in original).

The family's poor financial situation can be said to have consequences for children and young people's daily life on two levels. The first level concerns the direct consequences of financial scarcity; one has less and can do less than others. The second level concerns consequences in the form of reduced social freedom of action. When children and young people are unable to participate in the same activities as their peers, they have less opportunity to develop relationships and position themselves as equals in relation to friends. This increases the risk of becoming socially isolated and excluded, and it is at this level that children and young people suffer the most (Backe-Hansen, 2004).