J2 – Structures of child and youth welfare services

The department focuses primarily on the structures of child and youth welfare services and the political fields directly or indirectly related to them. The specific framework conditions of institutionalized professional practice in the field of child and youth welfare involve a number of specific features that have to be taken into account in the research process and are themselves the subject of research. The main structural conditions impacting on the practice of­ child and youth welfare services include the constellation of regulatory policy and the autonomy of the independent child and youth welfare organizations.

Empirical analysis of the structures of child and youth welfare focuses on the institutional and organizational basis for professional action and the evaluation of programmes and policies relating to child and youth welfare services. There is also an examination of how these are related to other systems and institutional forms of independent youth welfare work beyond the institutionalized child and youth welfare services.

In order to identify the need for change in programmes, examine their structure and underlying policy and evaluate the consequences so as to be able to advise on future policy and practice, research has to include insights into young people's life situations and the experience of the recipients of welfare programmes themselves.