Respite care from the child’s perspective: the support family intervention in Finland

Support Family Intervention is a social work service provided to children and parents in Finland and other Nordic countries. The child receives a voluntary ‘extra’ family whom they visit on a regular basis one weekend every month. At the same time, the parents get time for recovery and rest. In this article we present the results of two doctoral theses. Our focus is on how the support family can be understood from the child’s point of view. We summarise our results in a programme theory that can be used, for example, when the social worker introduces the service to the family. For the child, the home, the support family and the surroundings provide opportunities for many activities. The most important element is the relationship(s) to which the child gets access in the support family.