School and Child Protection Services Professionals’ Views on the school’s Mission and Responsibilities for Children Living with Domestic Violence – Tensions and Gaps

Abstract

The purpose of the work presented here was to study how the Swedish compulsory school, identifies and acts relative to the social problem of children living with domestic violence. More specifically: how do the various professional groups in school and professionals within the child protection services (CPS) describe and understand their own and other professionals’ responsibilities and tasks with respect to children living with domestic violence? The study consisted of 10 focus groups whose members were taken from five professional groups in schools and the CPS in Sweden. The results show that professionals in school lack knowledge about living with domestic violence, one example of which is child abuse. They navigate through the large open space that exists between the pedagogic and psychosocial missions of schools, and use different strategies to interpret the child’s symptoms of maltreatment. They point at an unclear distribution of responsibility between different professionals in school, which can be interpreted as a tension between domains within the institutional school domain. They also point at a “gap” between the school and CPS domains, and find confidentiality to be an obstacle to collaboration. Furthermore, the article sheds light on the complexities, the conflicting understandings, and the different priorities of the different professionals and institutions working with children living with domestic violence. It also discusses practical implications of the results.