In this issue…

Welcome to this issue of Qualitative Social Work. We are excited to present 10 insightful articles that delve into diverse topics, including lived experiences of gendered violence and resilience/resistance, individual and family wellbeing from unique perspectives (i.e., children and military fathers), interactive processes in family-oriented service settings, healthcare professionals’ experiences at work, and the theorization of resilience.

We begin with three studies looking at gendered violence and inequalities for women and LGBTQIA + people, as well as their strategies of resilience and resistance. Moulding and colleagues approached Australian young women’s mental health through an intersectional lens, underscoring how gender inequality and discrimination influence their wellbeing. They challenged the individual-focused medical model and highlighted the complex intersections of discursive and material oppressions that affected the women’s lived experiences. What stood out was their discovery that these young women leaned toward informal peer support and personal self-care strategies over professional help, challenging the common assumption that women are more inclined than men to seek formal assistance. The genuine empathy within women-specific spaces allowed these young women to feel heard, connected, and supported in nonjudgmental way. Their call for gender-specific mental health care addressing gender inequality and young women’s socio-economic circumstances is particularly noteworthy.

Turner and Hammersjö employed interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore the support-seeking journeys of LGBTQ survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in Sweden. They highlighted the unique barriers faced by LGBTQ IPV survivors, including cisheteronormative assumptions about IPV, gendered stigma, and systemic inequalities, which are not typically encountered by survivors in the general population. Their analysis uncovered participants’ hesitations in seeking formal help due to existing services lacking understandings of IPV experiences outside the conventional “women-in-relationships-with-men” narrative. Among the five themes identified, the third really stood out to me, which illustrated how participants navigated affirming connections with the LGBTQ community while safeguarding themselves from abusive relationships. Fear of disrupting their queer network often deterred individuals from seeking help and speaking out about the violence they faced. The discussion around participants navigating their queer identity while seeking help was also very nuanced. For instance, the insight into how some individuals felt compelled to “pass” as ciswomen to access IPV support showcased the complex dynamics at play.

Seelman and colleagues documented the resilience and resistance among LGBTQIA + adults in Southeastern U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic, employing an innovative online, multimedia, mixed-methods approach. While the pandemic has impacted various facets of society, affecting physical health, mental wellbeing, economics, and social connections, its effects on marginalized communities, like LGBTQIA + individuals, have been amplified due to longstanding structural inequalities. What emerged from this study was how LGBTQIA + individuals framed the pandemic in relation to other crises and catastrophes they had experienced in life. Treating pandemic challenges as “not completely unfamiliar,” they were able to engage in activism, form mutual support networks, and develop a mindset of optimism, just as they had coped and survived in other horrific moments. The study also highlighted how participants adapted their previous strategies of surviving and thriving to address the challenges posed by COVID-19 such as practicing preventive care, strengthening social connection through online tools, and envisioning a better future. In addition to the insightful findings, the authors’ use of text-based and video/audio diary entries as primary data is methodologically noteworthy.

The following two articles offer unique perspectives on individual and family wellbeing. Stina Michelson’s work stands out as she utilized narrative theory and conducted repeated interviews with 22 Swedish children, focusing on how these children themselves understood and navigated experiences affecting their subjective wellbeing within family-related adversity, like parental substance use, mental illness, and child maltreatment. Michelson highlighted a gap in existing literature, emphasizing that most studies concentrated on adults reflecting on their challenging childhoods, leaving a dearth of knowledge about how children presently interpret these experiences and how these interpretations impact their wellbeing. By focusing on pivotal turning-point narratives, the author unveiled how supportive relationships, particularly with peers and adults from school or social services, acted as shields against family-related harm. These connections not only helped children distance themselves from adversity but also fostered positive self-identities and attitudes toward life. The study showcased how children navigated their experiences over time, acknowledging the difficulties while transforming them into catalysts for personal growth. Strategies such as asserting agency, fostering self-compassion, and prioritizing one’s own wellbeing played pivotal roles, though often within the constraints of their life circumstances.

Blankenship and team delved into the homecoming experiences of active-duty military fathers, focusing on how deployment-related cycles of separation and reintegration affect their relationships with young children. Recognizing the significant impact of fathers on children’ socioemotional and cognitive development, the study explored the challenges of reintegration while identifying factors that facilitated positive experiences. Through interviewing 15 active-duty U.S. Army fathers with children under six, the research revealed key elements aiding their adjustment to family life post-deployment, including spending quality time with children and co-parent, displaying personal growth for family wellbeing, maintaining regular and meaningful communication with family during deployment, and gaining better parent insights into children’s behaviors. However, challenges surfaced during reintegration, notably with children displaying negative reactions such as fear or avoidance upon their father’s return. Additionally, many fathers struggled to navigate the differences between civilian and military life, with the latter often presenting psychological challenges. This study stands out by shedding light on the everyday experiences of military families, complementing existing research that often centers around extreme negative experiences of military members.

Transitioning to the next pair of articles, they spotlight practices in family-oriented service settings, both with an intensive focus on the process of interaction: one delving into the use of communication technologies in youth care, and the other exploring interactive practices in the development of a family center. Sliedrecht and team investigated the use of instant messaging in family-style youth care in the Netherlands—a model involving both birth parents and professional foster parents in providing vulnerable children with full-time care and stable living environments. In this unique model, effective communication is paramount due to the delicate dynamics between foster and birth parents. The everyday care provided by foster parents may create apprehension among birth parents regarding their involvement with their children. Employing conversation analysis, the authors delved into the patterns of digital communication between foster and birth parents, unraveling how they exchanged information to co-parent the youth. By dissecting digital messages line-by-line, the study uncovered how foster and birth parents interactively constructed real-time collaboration and shared parental responsibility. These communications were categorized into three types: information exchange when youth traveled between homes, updates about important events in youths’ daily lives, and discussions of youths’ past problems and present challenges. Conversation analysis allowed the authors to include multiple semiotic devices (text, emoji, and image) in their analysis, which are often overlooked in conventional qualitative interviews.

Räsänen and colleagues examined the development of a family center offering diverse services for various family types, all housed within a single organization. Using ethnomethodology, the authors delved into the interactions within the center’s multi-professional group meetings, focusing on how these interactions categorized and classified clients, which de facto created the center’s structure and its target client groups. What intrigued me the most was their theoretical stance that views organizations not as static entities with set categories and boundaries, but as evolving entities shaped by dynamic interactive practices in negotiating categories and their distinctions. Focusing on the processes of categorization, the study highlighted how members of the organization collectively exchanged perspectives and attributed meanings to events. The study analyzed 11 audio recordings of multi-professional group meetings. It revealed how participants negotiated the spectrum of the center’s target clients and services by categorizing clients into three types: ordinary families, best matching families, and families with too specific needs. Distinctions among these family types were discussed concerning the center’s resources and service repertoire, directly impacting negotiations about the center’s philosophy, objectives, and priorities. It is quite rare to see process-oriented organizational studies in social work scholarship. This study underscores the necessity for more research in this area, showcasing how organizational dynamics may not only shape on-the-ground client–provider interactions but also influence the allocation of service resource in a local welfare system.

The next two articles both focus on healthcare professionals’ experiences at work. McKenna and colleagues examined the experiences of pediatric hospital social workers amidst the behavioral health crisis and health disparities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the upsurge in racism. Using asynchronous virtual focus groups via a cloud-based software platform, they engaged social workers from diverse service settings within a large urban U.S. pediatric hospital. Applying the ecological systems model, the study unveiled six key themes encompassing individual experiences like burnout and coping, challenges at the professional/hospital level such as the scarcity of service resources, and broader societal factors including racial inequality and the heightened call for advocacy and policy change. The authors emphasized COVID-19’s enduring impact on the mental health of vulnerable populations and highlighted how the pandemic brought hidden systemic problems to the forefront, prompting critical reflections, collaborations, and calls for actions. The study pointed out enduring challenges for hospital social workers in achieving effective interprofessional collaborations. Meanwhile, it noted social workers’ heightened awareness of how racial and other inequalities impact healthcare, particularly during times of crisis. The study’s use of virtual focus groups is worth exploring, especially given the rising popularity of online data collection methods in our post-COVID academic landscape.

Franco and team conducted a pilot study to assess a short training program designed to assist healthcare professionals in cultivating and applying self-compassion within their work environment, aiming to address burnout and other forms of mental distress. Adapting from an earlier empirically supported model, this program was designed to be short and integrated into the work setting to accommodate the busy schedule of healthcare professionals and ensure regular attendance. The intervention comprised brief mindfulness practices tailored for small work breaks, as well as group discussions during lunch that foregrounded the shared nature of their difficult experiences. Through semi-structured interviews, participants shared their experiences within the program. The qualitative approach allowed the authors to understand the process and mechanisms of change. Participants were motivated by past burnout experiences and a preexisting trust in the efficacy of self-compassion-oriented approaches. Connecting and sharing with peers during the program proved significant, and the program’s integration into their work environment was crucial for sustaining these small practices in their daily lives. The intervention yielded positive outcomes, enabling professionals to practice self-compassion, enhance interpersonal communication, and establish better physical and emotional boundaries for self-care.

The final article in this issue explores the multiple meanings of resilience in social work, emphasizing the intricate interplays between embodied experiences, social relationships, material/institutional forces, and sociostructural conditions. Sims-Schouten and Thapa adopted critical realism as their theoretical orientation, which views worldly phenomena as multi-layered and shaped by multiple causal mechanisms. Epistemologically, they used grounded theory for its logic of abductive inferencing—centralizing dialogue between ideas and empirical data. Their combination of critical realism (CR) with grounded theory (GT) intrigued me theoretically. The constant exchanges between ideas and data, and between observations and lived experiences in the inquiry process, allowed the authors to uncover the underlying structures and mechanisms generating the diverse and complex phenomena surrounding resilience. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with care-experienced individuals, social workers, and affiliated practitioners in England, the authors identified four themes alongside a list of causal factors. These findings underscore the necessity of contextualized explanations for the meanings, processes, and outcomes of resilience. For instance, the study highlighted that while care-experienced participants viewed resilience as a present ability influenced by past traumatic experiences and current agency, social workers perceived it as a quality to be built for the future, shaped by their professional roles and understandings of the broader care system. This study also demonstrates the significant potential of the critical realist-informed grounded theory approach in unraveling the intricate dynamics between individual agency and social structures in the field of social work.