Contenu du sommaire : Empowerment

Empowerment, because it is an ambiguous concept, resulting in a lot of discourse about power to act but it is the practical transition to the act which will allow to really transform the practices and domination logic currently at work in social intervention.

Grounded in a theoretical model of public policies, this papers deals with the various ways teams of social workers (in Belgium) are able to set in order to cooperate in the field of domestic violence. These teams (the ones on the side of making the victims safe, and the other trying to vest responsibility to the authors) try to overcome a various range of obstacles and difficulties, by setting devices for reflexivity. Empowerment, usually applied to help their audience, is here also used as a common goal for the teams, as long as everyone may find his/her own way to be attached to the devices of cooperation.

We deal in this paper with the non-taken up phenomenon in the field of social rights by linking it to the professional activity of social workers in a bureaucratic and hierarchical organization of social policy. Those factors linked to the professional culture and class position of social workers shape their professional practices. In that sense, social rights could be used by social workers as an instrument to regulate their professional activity.We will develop this argument using the data from a research, based on interviews and ethnographic observation, on the role played by social workers in Catalonia on the Minimum income support policy. This research was done from 2006 to 2009 in the social services of a city near to Barcelona.

This article aims to analyze how is played concretely, in the aid relationship with social workers, the logics of activation, participation of the users, and capacitation. It leans on an empirical investigation with case workers and parents considered at the same time as beneficiaries and actors, involved in "individual path" in the program of Educational Success. We show how the intervention, by the interactions between parents and case workers, to influence the individual subjectivities and capacities, inviting the public to mobilize and change its educational practices. Beyond the transformation of individuals, it is a process of normalization and social control that we see emerging.

At the request of the Minister of Youth and social services in Francophone Belgium, Support services in an open environment had to write a Local Social Diagnosis outlining the needs of young people in their area of action. A "methodological guide" was created to help these services in this process that the minister wanted "participatory". How was this intent conveyed ? How directors and social workers in these services have they invested in this job ? Defining themselves as "field workers" how did they seize this opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of the problems faced by young people ? What is the outcome of this public action ?

This research report describes the issues and the ambivalence of the passage of an investment logic to a logic of participation in child protection. It shows that the call for effective implementation of family involvement for political reasons (democratic), ethical (moral) and economic (financial) results and, notwithstanding complexity (bureaucratization) of the system of child protection, the need to rebuild the entire organization and philosophy of action of the field of child protection from a thread : the distinction between abuse and educational deprivation.

This paper presents partial results of a research conducted on behalf of ONED on user participation in child protection measures and more specifically on the analysis of patterns of association developed by actors this field with respect to children and parents covered judicial or administrative action. The study focuses on the analysis of departmental policies constituted on user participation and inclusion of family rights, representations and reality of professional practice of social workers in shelters and services social intervention as well as on alternative initiatives in terms of user participation in the various territories investigated (Normandy, Aquitaine, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur). The study also raised the representations of the users of the Child Protection regarding participatory practices that were offered. This presentation is based on the empirical results of Aquitaine. It aims to present the design of user participation supported by field professionals found in the departmental services and in social structures, and describe the practices they develop as part of daily monitoring measures.

Assessment is an idea that imposed itself upon France as early as the 1970's by the means of public policies. The idea was one of a rationalization of the budget choices in order to ensure the control on the spendings. The area of child care is not beyond those changes. The 5th of March 2007 law about the reform of the child care, in a prospect of effectiveness, with view of empowerment, answer to this command : the unit for collection, dealing with and assessing the worrying pieces of information is created. This is having an influence on the practice of the workers who are in charge of assessing the situation of those identified children. What about the relation to the user ?

How do the social workers use their power and structure their relationship with the parents in context of child welfare ? This article concerns the strategies they use at the first contact with the aim of developing the parent's empowerment. The qualitative study explores the point of view of 30 professionals from two protection services at Quebec (Canada). The reported strategies are centred on the importance of knowing the context and the existing powers, to create a link based on confidence and to develop a mutual knowledge as human being. Ultimately, strategies aim to counter the structural strengths which negatively influence the parent's perception of the protection services.`np pagenum="170"/b

The article considers the issue of the democracy on the basis of that the author calls "the participative imagination". To do that, after taking up briefly a debate centered around the representative democracy, since about twenty years, he applies to definite the current buzzword of "empowerment" and "power to act". The question of the participation is next analized as part of the act.2002.2 (which is renovating the social action and medical and social action). Lastly this artical highligts the relevance of the institutional setting implemented by the sociopsychoanalysis and also the relevance of the "poweract" concept. They show respectively the practical dimension of the first one and the participative imagination, of the second.