scholarly journals Parents at war: A positioning analysis of how parents negotiate their loss after experiencing child removal by the state

2021 ◽  
pp. 147332502110485
Author(s):  
Marte Tonning Otterlei ◽  
Eivind Engebretsen
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Positioning Theory ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Parental Experiences ◽  
The Face ◽  
Experienced Child ◽  
Positioning Analysis ◽  
Societal Expectations ◽  
Parental Figure

This study explores how parents involved in care order processes in Norway perceive being positioned by Child Welfare Services (CWS) in this process, how they negotiate these positions and whether their loss is perceived as legitimate or illegitimate in the face of societal expectations of parenthood. The data consist of qualitative interviews with 13 parents who have experienced child removals initiated by CWS. Drawing on positioning theory, the article provides an analysis of parental experiences of being positioned by CWS and investigates how cultural notions may affect their perceptions. The analysis showed that parents experienced being at war against a highly powerful CWS, which they felt dehumanised them and positioned them as failing. Moreover, parents challenged such positions by introducing alternative explanations that presented themselves as victims. However, the analysis also showed that parents would adopt positions of becoming their own judge and internalising the stigma. Parents experienced disenfranchisement of their grief due to the perception of their loss as illegitimate. Nonetheless, several parents launched a position of becoming a renewed parental figure by turning their prior parental failure into a storyline of growth and prosperity. The article concludes that parents, through language, challenge stigmatising positions to negotiate parental failure, which could be interpreted as valuation work of their identities and parenthood.

scholarly journals Supportive practices: perceptions of interventions targeting parents whose children are placed in out-of-home care

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-362
Author(s):  
Emelie Shanks ◽  
Ylva Spånberger Weitz
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Home Care ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Emotional Needs ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Out Of Home Care ◽  
Individual Support ◽  
Financial Arrangements

Knowledge regarding the needs of parents whose children are placed in out-of-home care is still limited and studies focusing on interventions targeting this group are scarce. This article explores birth parents’ views on their needs and perceptions of support delivered by two different interventions: one offering support to individuals and the other providing a parental group. The methodology comprised a thematic analysis of 14 qualitative interviews. Parents’ expressed needs revolved around five issues: participation and influence in the relations with child welfare services; their emotional needs; their social needs; their relationship with their child; and practical and financial arrangements. The results revealed that the two interventions had overlapping as well as specific supportive functions and that these met some of the identified needs. Both programmes provided an opportunity for parents to speak openly about their grief and experiences of stigma and to receive help to cope with it, thus functioning as empowering and stigma-relieving practices that provide emotional support. The intervention that offered individual support contributed to a reduction in parents’ feelings of powerlessness when negotiating with child welfare services and functioned as an equalising practice by facilitating participation and influence. The parental group succeeded in reducing parents’ social isolation, providing social support and functioning as a normalising practice. However, neither intervention was explicitly perceived as helpful for improving parent–child relationships or practical and financial arrangements. The study highlights how the parents benefitted from receiving different types of support and contributes to knowledge about a group that has been neglected in practice and research.

Child Welfare Services in Norway

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oivin Christiansen ◽  
Karen J. Skaale Havnen ◽  
Dag Skilbred
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Welfare Services

Preventative Child Welfare Services in Victoria

1988 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-14
Author(s):  
Brian Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Term Basis ◽  
Voluntary Agencies

The idea of prevention in child welfare is not new. The prevention of substitute placement of children whether on a temporary or long-term basis has been a fundamental principle of child welfare we have held to for many years in Victoria.However, it is only in the last decade that this principle is actually being carried out in practice by a number of voluntary agencies. For many children placement is still commonly used as a solution it is easier to place a child than to promote change within many multi-deficit families.

scholarly journals Suicidality among children and youth in Nordic child welfare services: A systematic review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Marita Milde ◽  
Hedda Bjanger Gramm ◽  
Ingeborg Paaske ◽  
Pia Granli Kleiven ◽  
Øivin Christiansen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Children And Youth ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Welfare Services
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