Praktikforskning med förhinder: om konsten att implementera ett frågeformulär i socialtjänsten för att identifiera unga omsorgsgivare

Children are at risk of becoming young carers if their family does not receive adequate support in a situation where they are living with serious difficulties, such as a parent’s disability, illness or substance use problem. Young carers are children under the age of eighteen who provide care, assistance or support to a family member. They carry out, often on a regular basis, significant or substantial caring tasks and assume a level of responsibility that would usually be associated with adults. This can have negative consequences for their health, well-being and transition to adult-hood. The aim of this study is to analyse the factors that can facilitate or hinder the implementa-tion of an assessment questionnaire in the social services investigations used to assess the extent and consequences of children’s care activities. The data on which the analysis is based are responses from managers to requests to participate in the research project, answers to questionnaires from social workers and children aged 10–18, and interviews with social workers. The results show that the assessment questionnaire was found useful by both the children and the social workers, as they gained a better understanding of the problems the child was living with. Despite these positive results, there were many barriers to implementation and to carrying out the research project. In many cases, the findings suggest that these barriers are related to contextual conditions within the social services, such as reorganisation, staff shortages, and high workloads. Other barriers can be linked to resistance and lack of knowledge about the current problem, which contrasts with the responsibility of social services to identify and support children who are young carers.