J3 – Programmes and recipients of children and youth welfare services

The department looks at those young people, and potentially their parents, who are the recipients of child and youth welfare services or are defined as target groups. Another focus is the concepts, approaches, methods and instruments of child and youth welfare as well as an examination of how well these match the recipients’ need for aid and support. Here, the aim is to study how children, adolescents and their parents experience child and youth welfare services not just in isolation and in reference to specific programmes but over time, i.e. taking into account the sequence of measures and interventions.

When adopting this sequential perspective, it is important not just to look at the match between the programmes and their recipients but also the actions taken by other institutions such as schools, the healthcare system, employment services, the police and the judicial system, examining how the latter cooperate with the child and youth welfare agencies. The department likewise pursues this cooperation perspective – something which has barely been systematically incorporated in recipient research to date.
A longstanding project in this area is the Centre for the Prevention of Youth Crime which has supported the development of the prevention scene since 1997.