The Shadow Fathers in Social Work with Families: Barriers to Whole-Family Working

The paper discusses some findings of a recent qualitative study. The study deals with the topic of gendered construction of clients by social workers employed in 'social activation services for families with children'. The research set out to explore the gendered construction of clients and an impact of this construction on the professional conduct of social workers. This paper focuses in particular on one aspect of this investigation, namely the social construction of fathers in social work with families and barriers to whole-family working. The goal of the present paper is to discuss how the gendered construction of fathers affects the whole-family working. Structural and individual barriers to the involvement of fathers in social work with family have been identified.