Kulturelle verdier og barnevernet: Ulike forståelser av «barnets beste»

In this chapter I discuss cultural values related to child protection services (CPS). More precisely, I focus on professionals working in CPS and their relationship and meetings with families of immigrant origins. These meetings often reflect different cultural values and understandings of “the best interest of the child” and may cause tensions and misunderstandings. In the Norwegian CPS system, professionals have to draw on professional and personal experiences in decisions concerning the “best interest of the child”. This chapter uses concepts and perspectives from psychological anthropology to throw light on these processes. This is because these perspectives show how ideas and experiences are internalized and embodied as dispositions in habitus that may motivate certain actions when professionals and immigrant families meet. I also discuss whether some reactions and advice from professionals may be understood as ethnocentric because Norwegian parenting values are presented as “better” than parenting values from other countries.

Å balansere mellom barnevernets prinsipper

The focus of this chapter is the potential conflicts between the values that are basic in the work of Norwegian child protection service. Such values are expressed in principles that serve as guidelines for judgement and decisions in the field. ‘The best interest of the child’ principle is held to be grounding. The ‘mildest intervention’ principle and the ‘biological’ principle are normally held to be at the core of how the best interest of the child is to be understood. Important in child protection work, is to interpret the principles, weigh them, and consider what implications they should have in specific cases. I argue that if, for some reason, one principle is ascribed too much weigh on the cost of others, the solution for the child might not be in its best interest. I highlight the importance of not only weighing the principles against each other, but also creating a coherent balance between the principles, people’s moral intuitions and the actual practices of the service. To this end, I suggest that John Rawls’s model called reflective equilibrium might be workable.

Barnets beste som juridisk argument i begrunnelser og beslutninger i barnevernet

This chapter discusses the rules of law that apply when considering the best interests of the child, and how these may actively be used as arguments in a Child Protection Services (CPS) case. The primary focus is linked to the Child Welfare Act and the decisions and justifications of the CPS; however, the goal has also been to look at the national rules in the context of human rights. This applies particularly to the best interests of the child as a basic value of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. To understand an area of law it may also be necessary to have insight on the developments in this field. Discussions are being raised about making the quality of attachment a principle in its own right, about the child’s independent right to child protection services and the child’s right to participate and have influence. New challenges have been raised in the wake of decisions by the ECHR, where several judgments have been quite critical of Norwegian child protection practices. The impending new Child Welfare Act in Norway will affect CPS’ legal basis for the decisions it makes in the future. There is much to indicate that we are living in a time when the different interpretations of the best interests of the child are emerging more clearly.

Familieverdier i spill: Ungdoms erfaringer med barneverntjenesten når mor eller far har rusproblemer eller alvorlig psykiske helseproblemer

This chapter reports on a qualitative study with 32 young people who grew up in families where there were substance use or serious mental health problems. The aim is to explore young people’s accounts of experiences with child protection services (CPS). The young people had for years been worried about their parents and experienced emotional abuse, stigma, secrecy, anxiety and role reversal. When they understood what was wrong with their parents, they worked hard to protect themselves and their families from unwanted intrusion from public services. They report a reluctance to disclose their situation, and a fear of being taken into care when they were in contact with CPS. To disclose meant the same as letting your parents down. All the families had been in contact with CPS, but the participants mostly had negative accounts of the services they and their families had received. These findings are discussed in light of the emotional and symbolic significance of family ties and embeddedness in family.

Bekymring for det ufødte liv og omsorgsovertakelse ved fødsel: Posisjoner, verdikonflikter og spenninger i tverrfaglig arbeid

Separating a mother and newborn at the maternity ward is a challenging, potentially traumatic, and value-laden intervention. Cross-disciplinary collaboration in this tense and intense situation ideally assists child protection services in reaching well-founded decisions. However, differing opinions, professional stances and values can jeopardize the decisional process and threaten the quality of care and rights of the client(s). The main aim is to describe and analyse cross-disciplinary teamwork during pregnancy and the process towards a child protection decision. Participant observation and interviews provided data and descriptions of the case study, analysed according to positioning theory. The results show how two main storylines, a medical-therapeutic and a child protection storyline, each with a set of professional positions, create friction and tension in cross-disciplinary collaboration. The case describes the initial tensions, how they were overcome, and how they finally resulted in a planned removal at birth. This gave the mentally ill mother-to-be the opportunity to participate and prepare for the separation. The study demonstrates how a supervised, structured and reflective collaborative process enabled the participants to deal with conflicts and uncertainties stemming from positions and the dynamics of positioning. Further research and practical experiences, e.g. through simulation training, are needed to inform safe and caring removal practices and validate the usefulness of positioning theory to illuminate interprofessional conflict.

Verdier og kommunikasjon i konfliktsituasjoner

Good communication between child protection workers and families is crucial for cooperation and agreement about decisions regarding child care. This chapter focuses on challenges in this communication related to value conflicts – conflicts in which fundamental disagreement is grounded in opposing values. The chapter uses concepts from philosophy of mind and language to understand value conflicts in child protection services. The key theoretical idea is that beliefs and thoughts are different from value preferences. While beliefs and thoughts are mental representations that are true or false depending on how the world is, persons’ values are preferences directly related to activities or objects that are of fundamental importance to them. This means that telling others, explicitly or implicitly, that their values are false involves a categorical mistake and will typically be experienced as a form of value imperialism that undermines cooperation and aims of shared understanding in child protection work. Value preferences related to child care can nevertheless be explored and challenged in various ways, for instance by focusing on tensions between values, or on beliefs that values are grounded in. The chapter uses case studies to clarify these implications in professional child protection.

Spenningsforhold mellom beskyttelse og medvirkning i forskning på familieråd

In this chapter I discuss research on Family Group Conferences (FGC). The aim is to discuss whether the research recognises the tension between two core values in child protection work: protection and participation. The research is divided into three categories: research on effect, research on experiences, and research on power. Research on effect is based on ambitious outcome goals concerning protection. Research on people’s experiences with FGC contributes with a more nuanced and optimistic evaluation of the model. However, this research does not address power relations involved in the process. Research on power in FGC has a critical perspective and demonstrates how the process can conceal power relations. Even though these contributions shed light on important issues, I argue for the need to include a perspective on power as relational and productive. I consider Foucault’s contribution to the study of power in modern Western societies as a valuable approach.

Verdimøter som organisert læringsprosjekt

This chapter is based on the experiences from a mentoring program called Nattergalen (the Nightingale), in which social work, child care and community education students meet children with immigrant backgrounds. The students and children meet weekly to participate in activities for the mutual pleasure and learning of both parties. The activities are agreed upon in consultation with the children’s parents. This chapter aims to provide a picture of the students’ experiences with the children’s home base. Through the many meetings with the children and their parents, together with the systematic reflection about these experiences, the students obtained a nuanced and varied understanding of the different value orientations in modern family life. The primary aim of Nattergalen is to add to and strengthen the students’ multicultural skills and to motivate the children to attend school and to choose education. The chapter elucidates how the students who are participating in Nattergalen are being encouraged or coached to reflect on the varying value orientations in their meetings with children and their families.

«SIM spedbarnevern og foreldrestøtte»: Simulering av tverrfaglig samarbeid i verdiladde og sårbare situasjoner

This chapter describes and evaluates the model of medical simulation as a learning strategy to handle complex, value-laden situations and decisions in child protection. Participants were bachelor students in social work and practitioners from different health and social services. The topic of scenario training was multidisciplinary teamwork in separating newborns and parents at the maternity ward with aims to: 1) stimulate ethical and professional reflexion and improve skills in interdisciplinary teamwork, and 2) combine education and practice to improve both. The theoretical framework is inspired by Lave’s theory of situated learning and Jeffries’ simulation theory. A qualitative, action-oriented research strategy was used. The simulation served simultaneously as education, as-if real practice, and research. Reflection notes, participant observations, debriefing discussions between the participants, and an electronic feedback questionnaire provided the data. 174 students and 110 professionals participated in a total of 30 small group simulations. Feedback showed that participants believed that simulation would enhance their self-confidence and competence in real-life situations. Students experienced the scenario training as making practical sense of theory and teaching. Many saw this as a preparation step to their future profession. Results indicate that scenario training strengthened mutual respect and the ability to consider multiple perspectives. It provided a safe, structured, collaborative situation with potential to lower tensions and value conflicts between professions.