Partnering with families known to child protection in an interprofessional context.

Background: To meet the diverse needs of children and their families known to child protection, interprofessional collaboration across a range of services is critical. Children and their parents/caregivers are key stakeholders in these collaborations and current research highlights the need to strengthen their participation in these service responses. Practitioners have a critical role in strengthening family member participation in child welfare and protection responses.

Objective: To explore professional's experiences and perceptions of working in partnership with children and families known to child protection in an interprofessional context.

Participants And Setting: 14 professionals with extensive experience in the fields of family support and child protection.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were completed, recorded, transcribed, and then coded using NVivo 12 Pro. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to guide data analysis.

Results: Trusting practitioner-family relationships were affirmed to be critical to engaging and partnering with families. Results pertaining to the interprofessional context encourage a more community-oriented perspective of practitioner-family relationships, where practitioners have a collective responsibility to welcome families into an integrated network of community services. Further, the conflict for child protection practitioners between their legislated role and their need to build trusting relationships with families to support partnered work is discussed.

Conclusions: The centrality of practitioner-family relationships needs to be better recognized and supported in policy and practice across all sectors supporting children and families known to child protection. An interprofessional approach to building practitioner-family relationships across this range of services may enhance family engagement and partnerships in their service responses.