Digital communication and child participation in child welfare services: a scoping review of potentials and challenges

The digitalisation of society has transformed the way people interact with each other – a development that has also influenced social work, pushing the discipline into a digital sphere. Today, social workers communicate with clients through e-mails, text messages, video calls and apps. The digitalisation of social work has entailed innovative ways of conducting social work, including the potential to strengthen children’s and families’ engagement with child welfare services. This paper investigates how digital communication can support child participation in casework. Based on a scoping review, the paper identifies three key themes related to digital communication in child welfare services: technologies and digital skills, the client–professional relationship and ethical and juridical dilemmas. We use the findings from the three themes to discuss how digital communication can support child participation in child welfare services. We focus on the potentials and challenges regarding access to the social worker and information sharing, control and influence as well as modes of closeness and distance brought about by the digitalisation of social work.