Abstract This article draws from a 15-month participant observation study of social work and child protection practices in England to illustrate how social workers used Facebook to gain another view of service-users’ lives. Social media use was not an intended focus for the study, its presence emerged during our data analysis. While some research has shown that such practices occur, our long-term ethnographic approach provides new insights into how Facebook was actually used in ongoing casework with families and why it was used. Our findings show that Facebook use took multiple forms. Some social workers actively searched service users’ Facebook pages and some opposed any such usage. We further advance the literature by introducing a third group who were unwillingly “drawn into” acting on Facebook information presented to them by others such as their managers. Our research insights suggest that social work must pause to consider the implications of these complex emerging practices.

中文翻译：

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在儿童和家庭的社会工作实践中使用Facebook：探索新兴实践中的复杂性

摘要本文摘自一项为期15个月的参与者对英格兰社会工作和儿童保护实践的观察研究，以说明社会工作者如何利用Facebook来获得服务使用者生活的另一种观点。社交媒体的使用不是该研究的预期重点，它的存在是在我们的数据分析期间出现的。尽管一些研究表明这种做法确实发生了，但我们的长期人种志研究方法提供了新的见解，帮助人们了解如何在与家人进行的日常个案工作中实际使用Facebook，以及为什么使用Facebook。我们的发现表明，Facebook的使用有多种形式。一些社会工作者积极搜索服务用户的Facebook页面，而一些人反对任何此类使用。我们通过介绍第三组来推动文学发展，第三组不愿意“吸引”他人使用他们的经理等其他人提供给他们的Facebook信息。我们的研究见解表明，社会工作必须暂停以考虑这些复杂的新兴实践的含义。