Expertise-by-Experience in Child and Family Services : Professionals’ Perspectives on Experiential Knowledge

This study analyses child and family service professionals’ perceptions of expertise-by-experience. Group and individual interviews with professionals were analysed. The analysis yielded three main dimensions of experiential knowledge: supportive peer knowledge; contested knowledge, in which education and talking among peers in small groups helps experts-by-experience to locate the limits of their knowledge before publicly disclosing their inner thoughts; and emotional knowledge, which is based on shared experiences of emotional challenges and vulnerability. The results support the call for a critical appraisal of experiential knowledge. The increasing demand for experiential knowledge means that clarity on what kind of experiential knowledge is required and who can best represent it is necessary. In the child and family services contexts, the question of what constitutes experiential knowledge remains crucial. The results also indicate that collective analysis could help professionals tackle the challenges and demand for intersectional and heterogeneous knowledge.