Mapping studies on practitioners’ communication skills in child and family social work: A scoping review

Abstract Building relationships through communication is considered to be at the core of the social work practice. In child and family social work, practitioners need communication skills that are applicable to both parents and children. The objective of this scoping review is to provide an overview of recent research on the relationship between practitioners’ communication skills and service user outcomes or high-quality practice in child and family social work and to map the extent and nature of such research. A total of forty-seven articles met the criteria for final inclusion. The findings indicate that recent research on practitioners’ communication skills in child and family social work has largely neglected to conduct an analysis of the relationship between communication-related skills and service user outcomes. Despite the heterogeneity of the key findings in the included studies, it can be concluded that communication skills play a significant role in the service user outcomes and the implementation of high-quality practice.