Displaying 1 - 6 of 6
Abstract
This article studies how three groups of professional decision-makers – child welfare workers, experts on children and judges – exercise discretion in decisions on adoption from care in the Norwegian child welfare system. The analysis is based on near 500 decision-makers’ responses to a vignette about David, a four-year-old boy whose foster parents want to adopt him. After reading the vignette, decision-makers were asked to choose a measure for David: adoption or continued foster care. They were thereupon asked (1) which specific features of the case were decisive to their…
Abstract
This study explores a particularly wide discretionary space set for decision-making within the Norwegian welfare bureaucracy; care order decisions concerning newborns directly removed from the hospital by the child protection system. The aim is understanding how decision-makers reason and justify in applying (child welfare) policy when decisions have a predictive and uncertain nature. To explore this, all (N=19) written newborn care order decisions from 2016 decided by the County Social Welfare Board, where the parents have had no previous children removed, are analyzed. Under…
Abstract
This descriptive policy analysis examines the position of infants’ rights in the family service orientated child welfare systems of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden when being placed in out-of-home care. Its focus is on the contexts of, and legal procedures for, removing babies from home into public care. Children under the age of one year are taken into public care mainly through voluntary and emergency measures. Analysis of the development over a decade displays big intra-country differences in the prevalence of infant removal, varying from 2 per 1000 to 8 per 1000. The scant…
Abstract
The primary aim of this study is to summarise research findings about the use of assessment frameworks, that is, structured models that guide information collection and decision making in child protection services, by reviewing the literature. The research review method consisted of identification, selection, coding, categorisation and summary of publications on child protection investigative work. The results indicated that there is some documentation showing that the use of frameworks leads to more information being gathered, a greater focus on the needs of the child and…
Abstract
The article explores differences in the assessment and decision‐making processes, in child welfare services where a standardized template is implemented and in services where it is not. Child welfare services in several countries use different approaches to assess children's and families' need for intervention. In Norway, as in other European countries, there is a shortage of knowledge about decision‐making strategies. The article examines how 36 child welfare caseworkers in 6 different teams in Norway investigate, assess, and make decisions at the phase of an incoming referral.…
This report from SOS Children’s Villages and the University of Bedfordshire provides reviews and assessments of the implementation of the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children in 21 countries around the world. The report is aimed at enhancing knowledge around violence against children in alternative care (especially what makes children vulnerable and what puts them at risk) and providing policymakers and practitioners insight into the challenges of protecting children from violence as well as recommendations for change.
The report offers several key findings from an extensive…