Child welfare policy and practice: Rethinking the history of our certainties (original) (raw)
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Four essays on the child welfare system
Policy Quarterly, 2020
The year 2019 represented a watershed moment for Aotearoa New Zealand’s child welfare system, as a public spotlight was shone on systemic ethnic inequities during ongoing legislative changes aimed at centering Te Tiriti o Waitangi and whänau, hapü, and iwi considerations in policy and practice. In the midst of this dialogue, Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Government hosted the “Children, Families, and the State”– a seminar series focused on the historical, current, and future role of the state in the lives of families and children. The seminars, and the discussion it generated, was due to the calls to action from speakers across the system, including leadership at Oranga Tamariki, within the family court, non-profit providers, commissioners and advocates, and academics. The following essays in this edition of Policy Quarterly capture viewpoints from several of the seminar speakers. Despite their different perspectives, common threads unite them. A greater recognition ...
This paper, through the vignette of a three-year old boy's case, examines how child welfare workers in three countries, Norway, England and the United States (California), decide whether to recommend forced adoption. Legislation and policy recommendations for the termination of parental rights and adoption vary among these three countries, but they all regard permanency for the child as the overarching goal for children in care. We find that a majority of the workers suggest forced adoption, and their main justifications were related to parental behaviour and their failure to fulfil visitation arrangements, followed by arguments about how adoption would provide both permanency and solid attachment for the child. It was Norwegian workers (41%) that decided against forced adoption, and their main objections were the lack of parental consent and the fact that forced adoption is uncommon in Norway. The findings of this study show that the reasoning of child welfare workers clearly reflects the policies and guidelines of their respective countries, which demonstrates the impact of each country's policy instruments. The workers' reasoning also reflects their knowledge of the basic premises for promoting adoption and permanency for children in care. As such, the state power that child welfare workers exercise rests on a rationale that is evidence oriented and extends beyond a mere reflection of policy guidelines and instructions.
HISTORY OF CHILD WELFARE: A Present Political Concern
Scandinavian Journal of History
Since the 1990s, an increasing number of inquiries into the history of children's out-of-home care have shown that child welfare sometimes failed to protect children. In this Special Issue, we explore how the Nordic countries have responded to allegations and scandals of historical child abuse within child welfare, and also how history matters in these political processes. We ask how Nordic societies have acknowledged past historical child abuse and how they aim to deal with its legacy. Attempts to redress, and provide compensation for, past failures are discussed in the context of transitional justice.