Are child protection workers and judges in alignment with the citizens when considering interventions into a family? A cross-country study of four jurisdictions (original) (raw)
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Journal of Public Child Welfare, 2022
This paper examines populous perspectives of the government’s responsibility to intervene in situations of possible parental neglect of children in England, Finland, Norway, and California (USA), and ask if institutional context, defined as child protection system and children´s wellbeing situation, are formative for people’s perspectives on government responsibility for children in vulnerable situations and how they view children´s future. With representative samples of populations responses to a survey vignette using ordered logistic regression, findings indicate that the institutional context shed some light on differences on state responsibility. However, similarly to welfare state research, there are differences and contradictions in important dimensions that require further investigation, especially on citizens perceptions of neglect and on intrusive interventions. Citizens with a comparatively higher education are evidently much more supportive of state responsibility for children and child protection interventions than other citizens. This finding is similar to those of other studies of state responsibility. Overall, there is a high level of support in populations for the provision of public services to children and families in vulnerable situations.
Child's best interest in child protection legislation of 44 jurisdictions
Centre for Research on Discretion and Paternalism, 2022
The Centre addresses core themes in the social sciences by examining the government's use of power toward its citizens and the justifications of state interventions into people's lives. Important areas of empirical focus are child welfare and children's rights. Research at the Centre is comparative between nations, systems and individuals. The Centre is interdisciplinary, with researchers from across the world and from many disciplines-including political science, sociology, law, philosophy, psychology and social work. We use multilevel data sources in our approach, including interviews with experts, laws and regulations, and court judgements. We apply multiple research methods, including interviews, observation, text analysis, survey vignettes and survey experiments. The Centre works to communicate research-based knowledge about child welfare, children's rights, the welfare state, discretion and state power. Our researchers regularly participate as lecturers and frequent appearances in the media. News and research results are also published on our websites, Twitter and in our monthly newsletter. We also host and co-organize guest lectures, seminars and conferences. For more information, visit our webpage: http://www.discretion.uib.no This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 724460). Publications from the project reflects only the authors' views and the funding agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
Journal of Social Policy
The legitimacy of welfare state institutions is a key question in public policy research. In this study we examine population’s confidence in child protection systems, the role of institutional context and moral alignment. Analysing representative samples of survey data (N=6,043) of citizens in six European countries (Czechia, England, Finland, Norway, Poland and Romania), we find that overall people express confidence in their child protection system. Differences between populations are correlated with institutional context, i.e. the type of child protection system in place – that is, if people live in a country with a risk-oriented system or a family service-oriented system. People’s view on their moral alignment with the system (or not) only shows minor differences in support of interventions. However, a tendency towards polarisation is detected in Finland and Norway with clear differences in support of interventions that restrict parental rights: individuals who state they are i...
Journal of European Social Policy, 2022
In this study, we examine the trust placed by the populations of nine jurisdictions in their child protection systems. These systems protect children’s rights and grant authority for invasive interventions to curtail or even terminate parental rights and responsibilities. We have representative samples of the populations of each jurisdiction. The results show that about 40–50% of respondents express trust in the child protection agencies, social workers, and judges that make decisions. There are clear differences between jurisdictions, with the Anglo-American countries at the lower end of the trust scale. Examining the impact of institutional context, we find that institutional context matters for the degree of peoples’ trust in the child protection system. This indicates that the typology of child protection systems has relevance, and more empirical studies are encouraged. Some demographic characteristics (age, having children, income, education) and ideological variables (political orientation) are also correlated with trust levels.
This article examines the confidence the population (N = 4,003) has in the child welfare system in four countries – England, Finland, Norway and the USA (California). We find that about half or less of the population reports having confidence in the system, which is slightly higher than the confidence in the civil servants in the same countries. The Nordic countries display more confidence in the child welfare system than the Anglo-American countries. The similarity between the countries is, however, greater than anticipated. As for independent variables that can shed light on differences in confidence levels, we find three variables to be related to a higher confidence level, and these are a left wing political orientation, lower age, and higher education. This study contributes in filling a knowledge gap on studies about trust in the child welfare system, but we emphasize that we have studied an aspect of trust that rests on the population's impressions of a system, and not their substantial knowledge about, or identification with, this system.
Attitudes and decision-making in the child protection system
Kriminologija & socijalna integracija
In the contexts of family neglect or maltreatment, the State intervenes by safeguarding the development and well-being of the child or young person in danger. In more severe situations, the intervention may lead to the child’s removal from the family. The Portuguese Law on the Protection of Children and Young People in Danger (Law 142/2015 of September 8th) favours the placement of the child in a family environment, especially for children up to the age of six. Despite this, in Portugal, in 2015, 8 600 children were in out-of-home care, only 3.5% of which were placed in foster care, while the remaining children were in residential care. Therefore, one of the fundamental rights of the child – living in a family environment – is compromised in practice. This study aims to understand the decision-making process of 200 higher education students in domains related to child protection, and those of 200 professionals who are responsible for providing case assessments and recommendations fo...
This paper examines perceptions of time and institutional support for decision making and staff confidence in the ultimate decisions made—examining differences and similarities between and within the service-oriented Nordic countries (represented by Norway and Finland) and the risk-oriented Anglo-American countries (represented by England and California). The study identifies a high degree of work pressure across all the countries, lines of predominantly vertical institutional support and relatively high confidence in decisions. Finland stands out with higher perceived work pressure and with a horizontal support line, whereas England stands out with workers having a lower degree of confidence in their own and others’ decisions.
Citizens' views in four jurisdictions on placement policies for maltreated children
Child & Family Social Work, 2017
Citizens' opinions on child protection public policy are a key dimension of the legitimacy of a political order. We have conducted a survey vignette on a representative sample of citizens (N = 4,003) in England, Finland, Norway, and California, USA. The findings show that citizens' opinions are clearly in favour of adoption (75%) rather than long-term foster care (25%). Context may partly explain the findings, as the responses of the majority of Anglo-American respondents are in line with practice in their countries but for the Nordic respondents, there is a substantial discrepancy between citizens' opinions and ongoing child protection practices.
In the Best Interest of the Child: the Norwegian Approach to Child Protection
International Journal on Child Maltreatment: Research, Policy and Practice
In the present paper, we discuss three challenges with the Norwegian Child Protective System (CPS) that might have contributed to the recent criticism from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). First, how to balance the rights of the child with those of the parents. Second, the psychological field’s influence on the interpretation of what constitutes the best interest of the child, and third we describe several missing links in the CPS work. Throughout the paper, we find indications of a well-developed Act, but a less optional CPS practice. Likewise, we find evidence for a narrow interpretation of the best interest of the child related to CPS and expert psychologists’ application of attachment theory, and several organizational and educational shortcomings in the area of CPS. We conclude that the child is not fully seen as a legal subject in the eyes of the ECtHR, and that more research into CPS measures and organization are needed to better deliver adequate assistance to vuln...
Nordic Social Work Research
Decisions about child protection and interventions in families are one of the most difficult responsibilities of welfare states. The aim of this article is to describe and analyse the commonalities and differences in the child protection decision-making systems in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark. We focus on the actors involved, especially the laypersons, and their role in the decision-making process when deciding on out-ofhome placements, both on voluntary and coercive grounds. The study is based on a comprehensive analysis of official documents, legislation, guidelines, and reports about child protection in each country together with a review of recent research in the area. This is complemented by 12 interviews with key informants with knowledge about the child protection systems in their respective countries. We found that there is an expanding influence from external experts and dwindling influence from laypersons. We discuss the organisation in terms of three different decision-making modelsa professionalised decision-making model in Finland, a hybrid decision-making model in Norway and Denmark, and a layperson decision-making model in Sweden. One conclusion is that all of the countries aim for children to be involved and for decisions to be made in compliance with the rule of law, but this is realised quite differently when it comes to which actors should be given the authority to make the decisions. Which model is the best would have different answers depending on which perspective the models are evaluated from. However, the consequences of decisionmaking models for children need to be studied further.