75

This paper approaches the specifics of the home-based practice of the social services assistant working in legal protection for youth and minors. The author observes the processes at work during a home visit both with respect to the family and the professionals. The unexpected is always possible in this encounter with the family’s private world, which often arouses an imagined breach of its privacy. Concrete examples highlight the difficulties that loom up when the internal structures are too exposed to attack, but also what is played out before us in the family’s suffering and quest for meaning, and finally how professionals can play a supportive role. This is indeed where the paradox lies, with such interventions often being intrusive but at the same time preventing the sense of intimacy from dislocating and even managing to help in reconstruction.