It Was Just a Very Scary Time: Lived Experiences of Families Seeking Services

Background and Purpose: Ohio has experienced a 30 percent increase in the number of children in the custody of the child welfare system in the past decade. With introduction of the Family First Prevention Services Act in 2019, Ohio created the Office of Children Services Transformation, aimed at increasing prevention services for families. Evidence addresses barriers for families using prevention services including demographic features, financial barriers, structural constraints, and individual factors such as attitude or awareness. However, little research has offered those with lived experience the opportunity to share their perceptions of service access. The objective of the presented research was to expand knowledge of family accessibility and perceptions of available services in communities in Ohio.

Methods: The cross-sectional, descriptive qualitative study was composed of three focus groups and a convenience sample of ten participants recruited from an advisory council within Ohio. All members of the sample were parents or caregivers with lived experience accessing public services in the state. Members participated in a single Zoom-based focus group guided by a semi-structured interview guide. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using NVivo. Using aspects of grounded theory approach, in vivo, process, and initial codes were created, and themes were developed to portray relationships between codes. To ensure rigor within the study, researchers used an audit trail, peer debriefing, and reflexive journal through the design, collection, and analysis phases.

Results: Four critical themes emerged from the data: complexity of seeking services, benefits of collaboration, importance of human connection, and professionalization of service access. In the theme of complexity of seeking services, participants described specific factors contributing to service accessibility including income, length of coverage, and marital status as well as rules impacting family well-being, augmenting family struggles, and increasing feelings of helplessness. Participants identified benefits in services access associated with collaboration across systems and services, communication, and holistic services within the theme of benefits of collaboration. Addressed in the theme of importance of human connection, families described the difficulty of asking for help or admitting to struggles, emphasizing the importance of trust that was not consistently experienced in service access. Finally, participants noticed a trend of difficulties in service access and navigation related to the social work profession itself, particularly use of jargon, condescension in higher educational attainment, and intimidation in how social workers present themselves as related to the theme of professionalization of service access.

Conclusions and Implications: As evidenced by results, family voice is essential in service development and implementation, and this study makes important implications for policy and practice. Those with lived experiences should have an increased and ongoing role in research, intervention, and policy in order to ensure their experiences are addressed effectively. The voice of those with lived experience should not be limited to research and should be disseminated and integrated into ongoing practice and policy including training practitioners to be sensitive and empathetic for families seeking services. Finally, there is a need for further qualitative research that centers on the voices of parents.