Research on supervised contact visits between children placed in care and their birth parents highlights the need for professional skills in facilitating these encounters. While most studies focus on visit frequency and location, less attention has been given to the interactional dilemmas supervisors face when supporting parents and fostering the parent-child relationship while safeguarding the child. This article examines two instances of supervisory intervention during a video-recorded contact visit in a Danish municipality to show how supervisors navigate these dilemmas in practice. Using Conversation Analysis (CA), the analysis demonstrates how interventions are designed as trouble alerts, deploying three interactional strategies: ambiguity, indirectness, and inviting co-experience by sounding the sensation of the child. These findings highlight the delicacy of the supervisor’s management of authority and the careful balancing required to make interventions explicit enough for parents to understand, yet implicit enough to preserve parental authority.
AntakiC (2011) Six kinds of applied conversation analysis. In: AntakiC (ed) Applied Conversation Analysis: Intervention and Change in Institutional Talk. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1–14.
2.
AntakiCKentA (2015) Offering alternatives as a way of issuing directives to children: putting the worse option last. Journal of Pragmatics78: 25–38.
3.
AtkinsonJMHeritageJC (1984) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. University Press.
4.
BoyleC (2017) What is the impact of birth family contact on children in adoption and long-term foster care?’ A systematic review. Child & Family Social Work22(S1): 22–33.
5.
BullenTTaplinSMcArthurM, et al. (2017) Interventions to improve supervised contact visits between children in out of home care and their parents: a systematic review. Child & Family Social Work22(2): 822–833.
6.
CravenAPotterJ (2010) Directives: entitlement and contingency in action. Discourse Studies12(4): 419–442.
7.
EdwardsDPotterJ (2017) Some uses of subject-side assessments. Discourse Studies19(5): 497–514.
8.
EnfieldNJ (2011) Sources of asymmetry in human interaction: Enchrony, status, knowledge and agency. In: StiversTMondadaLSteensigJ (eds) The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation. Cambridge University Press, 285–312.
9.
FlinkfeldtMIversenCJørgensenSE, et al. (2022) Conversation analysis in social work research: a scoping review. Qualitative Social Work21(6): 1011–1042.
10.
FuentesMJBernedoIMSalasMD, et al. (2019) What do foster families and social workers think about children’s contact with birth parents? A focus group analysis. International Social Work62(5): 1416–1430.
GoffmanE (1981) Forms of Talk. University of Philadelphia Press.
13.
HaakanaM (2010) Laughter and smiling: notes on co-occurrences. Journal of Pragmatics42(6): 1499–1512.
14.
HaakanaM (2012) Laughter in conversation: the case of ‘fake’ laughter. In: PeräkyläML (ed) Emotion in Interaction. Oxford University Press, 174–194.
15.
HeritageJ (2011) Territories of knowledge, territories of experience: empathic moments in interaction. In: StiversTMondadaLSteensigJ (eds) The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation. Cambridge University Press.
16.
Huseby-LieI (2023) Children’s perspectives on contact with birth parents: a mixed-methods systematic review. European Journal of Social Work0(0): 1–15.
17.
JeffersonG (1979) A technique for inviting laughter and its subsequent acceptance declination. In: PsathasG (ed) Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology. Irvington, 79–96.
18.
JeffersonG (1984) On the organization of laughter in talk about troubles. In: AtkinsonJMHeritageJ (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge University Press.
19.
JeffersonG (2004) Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In: LernerGH (ed) Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation. John Benjamins, 13–31.
20.
JolyM-PBlaisM-FPoirierM-A, et al. (2022) Practitioners’ views on the effects of the “For caring supervised visitation in child welfare” training. Child Abuse & Neglect130: 105167.
21.
JørgensenSEFlinkfeldtMKirkwoodS, et al. (eds) (forthcoming) Unpacking Core Concepts in Social Work Using Conversation Analysis. Policy Press.
22.
KeevallikLHofstetterEWeatherallA, et al. (2023) Sounding others’ sensations in interaction. Discourse Processes60(1): 73–91.
23.
KendrickKHDrewP (2016) Recruitment: offers, requests, and the organization of assistance in interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction49(1): 1–19.
24.
KiralyMHumphreysC (2015) A tangled web: parental contact with children in kinship care. Child & Family Social Work20(1): 106–115.
25.
LernerGH (2003) Selecting next speaker: the context-sensitive operation of a context-free organization. Language in Society32(02): 177–201.
26.
LevinsonSC (1988) Putting linguistics on a proper footing: explorations in Goffman’s participation framework. In: DrewPWoottonA (eds) Goffman: Exploring the Interaction Order. Polity Press, 161–227.
27.
NeseRNTAndersonCMRuppertT, et al. (2016) Effects of a video feedback parent training program during child welfare visitation. Children and Youth Services Review71: 266–276.
28.
PotterJHepburnA (2020) Shaming interrogatives: admonishments, the social psychology of emotion, and discursive practices of behaviour modification in family mealtimes. British Journal of Social Psychology59(2): 347–364.
29.
Rasmussen SkovboPLouise Søgaard JensenHMai AnderbergE, et al. (2023) Samvær mellem børn i anbringelser og deres forældre. VIVE - Det Nationale Forsknings- og Analysecenter for Velfærd.
30.
RaymondGHeritageJ (2006) The epistemics of social relations: owning grandchildren. Language in Society35(5): 677–705.
31.
Ruiz-RomeroKJSalasMDFernández-BaenaFJ, et al. (2022) Is contact with birth parents beneficial to children in non-kinship foster care? A scoping review of the evidence. Children and Youth Services Review143: 106658.
32.
SacksHSchegloffEAJeffersonG (1974) A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language50(4): 696–735.
33.
SainiMVan WertMGofmanJ (2012) Parent–child supervised visitation within child welfare and custody dispute contexts: an exploratory comparison of two distinct models of practice. Children and Youth Services Review34(1): 163–168.
34.
SalasMDBernedoIMGarcía-MartínMA, et al. (2021) Behavioral observation and analysis of participants in foster care visits. Family Relations70(2): 540–556.
35.
SchegloffEA (1993) Reflections on quantification in the study of conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction26(1): 99–128.
36.
SenRBroadhurstK (2011) Contact between children in out-of-home placements and their family and friends networks: a research review. Child & Family Social Work16(3): 298–309.
37.
SidnellJStiversT (eds) (2012) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Wiley-Blackwell.
38.
StevanovicMPeräkyläA (2012) Deontic authority in interaction: the right to announce, propose, and decide. Research on Language and Social Interaction45(3): 297–321.
39.
StevanovicMSvennevigJ (2015) Introduction: epistemics and deontics in conversational directives. Journal of Pragmatics78: 1–6.
40.
StiversT (2008) Stance, alignment, and affiliation during storytelling: when nodding is a token of affiliation. Research on Language and Social Interaction41(1): 31–57.
41.
StokoeE (2018) Talk: The Science of Conversation. Robinson.
