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This report highlights the recommendations and priorities that EU decision-makers and national governments can do to support the most vulnerable children and prevent widening inequalities.
Based on input from Eurochild national members from 22 countries across Europe, the report provides feedback on the 2022 European Semester Country Reports and Country Specific Recommendations; the development of the Child Guarantee National…
Abstract
This paper examines the discretionary reasoning of the judiciary in three jurisdictions, England, Germany and Norway, in cases deciding whether a newborn child is safe with her parents or intervention is necessary. Our analysis focuses on one specific dimension of decision makers' exercise of discretion, namely, if and how the strengths and weaknesses of the mother are considered. The data material consists of all decisions concerning care orders of newborns from one large city in Germany from 2015 to 2017 (n = 27) and 2016 in Norway (n = 76) and all…
This book brings together knowledge of how modern countries in Europe and the United States deal with the issue of errors and mistakes in child protection in a cross-national perspective. Leading experts from England, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA will pool expertise in order to address critical questions.
Abstract
The article examines from a comparative perspective how Sweden and Germany reacted to the unprecedented increase in unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) in 2015. Concretely, it analyses on the basis of Windrum’s taxonomy of public-sector innovation what kinds of generic and context-specific policy instruments have been developed for this particularly vulnerable group and discusses whether and to what extent prevailing welfare-service organizational arrangements have changed in the two countries since 2015. By illustrating the reactions of two countries, the study shows…
Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the German child protection system. Thereby, it highlights the key terms used in Germany: child protection and child endangerment. The development of those concepts – often used in a narrow and a broad sense – over the last centuries is shown. Based on this, the structures of the German child protection as of today are explained and linked to guiding principles in child protection. These are the intertwining of support and protection, the reliance on professional discretion, and the family service orientation. The German child…
Abstract
This paper explores practical and ethical dilemmas for professionals when securing the protection of children in the complex non‐clinical setting of individual families. It is based on a cross‐country study on cultural encounters in interventions against child physical abuse and neglect in four countries (England/Wales, Germany, Portugal, and Slovenia). Drawing on national reports of legal‐organizational frameworks and socio‐cultural backgrounds of European child protection systems, it also presents the results of a series of focus groups with professionals. Data were analysed to…
Meant to highlight the maxim that every child deserves the best that we all have to give; this book provides a review of progress made since The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It contains reports from 21 countries on the status of the rights of the child. The reporting countries are: Australia, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Japan, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Serbia, Solomon Islands, Spain, the Netherlands, the UK, the USA, Uzbekistan and Venezuela. There are no reports from Africa.
At the time of publication, 195 countries had…
Abstract
Since the 1990s, dramatic changes in German family policy have occurred and legislators have increasingly placed more distance between themselves and the traditional male-breadwinner model through the introduction of new laws in the domain of parental leave and child care provision. France, for its part has continued to progressively consolidate and enhance its promotion of policies to support the work/family life balance along with steady increases in spending related to childcare provision. Despite a rise in its overall supply of formal childcare Germany, however, still lags far…
Abstract
A comparative analysis of child welfare systems in 10 countries identifies three broad functional orientations – child protection, family service and child development – around the problem definition, mode of intervention and role of the state: The changes in policies and practices since the mid-1990s suggest the possibility of functional convergence among these systems with moderate versions of the child protection and family service orientations incorporated within the more comprehensive approach of child development. An analysis of administrative data on one important outcome…
In preparation for the Expert Meeting on Alternative Care and Family Support in the Baltic Sea Region - held in Tallinn, Estonia in May 2015 - the Children’s Unit in cooperation with the Expert Group for Cooperation on Children at Risk conducted a mapping of family support and alternative care services in the Baltic Sea Region Member States. The objective of this mapping was to analyse the situation, assess the achievements since the 2005 Ministerial Forum and to identify relevant opportunities and challenges for the future.
This report documents, assesses, and analyses the state of…