BREAKING NEWS FROM NORWAY.
Norway’s Child Welfare System, Barnevernet – A DICTATORSHIP IN A DEMOCRACY.
Many teachers in Norway are becoming more and more embarrassed and ashamed of their own child welfare system, Barnevernet. Norwegian Britt Hagesæter has worked in the education sector for 30 years and from her article translated below, it is very clear, she is totally fed up with Norway’s Child Welfare System, Barnevernet and its undemocratic, tyrannical and dysfunctional actions, that destroys thousands of able and caring families, instead of supporting them and meeting the children’s and families’ needs.
This is the English translation of the article written by Britt Hagesæter that was published yesterday in the Norwegian newspaper called Dagen:
Norway’s Child Welfare System (NCWS), Barnevernet is an agency that acts as a dictatorship in a democracy. They should be better educated, more professional and the municipal committee should be bound to confidentiality, which verifies NCWS proceedings and decisions on a monthly basis.
When NCWS put such little importance in help from the extended biological family when it comes to help measures and emergency care decisions, it is a violation of the article 20 of the UN Child Convention.
30% of all employees in NCWS leave their jobs after just one year in Norway. NCWS employees do not receive enough support and encouragement from their municipal leaders.
However, when it comes to NCWS, it has to be emphasised that it is autonomous in each municipality. I do not think there are many agencies that so effectively and persistently have protected themselves against insight (investigation) as NCWS has.
They do not need to answer to anyone when it comes to proceedings and decisions made, and they only need the municipal leaders to officially sign for decisions already settled, without giving the leaders insight in neither procedures nor decisions.
NCWS is a one of a kind agency that has no one to scrutinise them, other than the courts, and even there, NCWS are able to appoint their own experts as lay judges, according to a law firm that is working in this area.
In addition, only a few of NCWS employees are professionals. An education of three years after upper secondary school is expected to make employees qualified in making decisions within the realm of substance abuse care, family conflicts, child custody, care failure, mental illnesses, sexual abuse to mention just a few of the areas they face.
Nevertheless, no municipal board scrutinises them. No one on the outside of this agency is going through the child welfare cases on a monthly basis, and asks questions about the procedures and the decisions made! Confidentiality at its worst.
I have worked in the school system for 30 years. It would have been quite an uproar if we had to go by such laws and rules there. The very same can be said if it happened in the health care system.
NCWS is one of the most impermeable agencies you would ever meet. If you report something out of worry, you receive a message that the report is registered. The one that you send the message to, is entitled to have all the information you have, and be able to read the letter you sent.
Confidentiality goes only one way. If you complain to the County offices, you will get the same response, that they don’t go into individual cases, only into system failure in the current municipality.
I would dare to say, there is no reason to pity the social workers for not getting recognition from the councillor and the mayor. A reason to pity them is for having an education that does not give them the expertise they need to handle the issues they will meet on a daily basis. They work within a closed system where they can do as they please, and where nobody will ask questions in connection to what they do, where there is no scrutinising, because they are autonomous.
The arrogance and the unpredictability they show in their decisions brings forward a lot of hate as one can see on social media. It would be so much better if they use independent experts, who have to explain their actions and decisions to a municipal authority that is confidential and who can quality assure their actions. This would strengthen the cases, sometimes in favour of NCWS, and other times NCWS would be rightfully corrected.
It looks like the authorities in many municipalities are not aware that most children are part of a big family. They have aunts and grandparents, uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles. Many are resourceful, and could have helped, if they had been asked. However, many child welfare offices go for foster homes and as far away from the biological family as possible, so that the interaction between them will be made very hard, if not impossible.
The psychological side effects of this approach (destroying the bond between children and their biological parents), are thoroughly documented. It is a loss to an innocent child to be denied their part in the family history, traditions and jargon that belong with their biological origin. The UN child Convention article 20 states that when possible solutions are being considered, it should be taken into consideration the desirability of continuity in the child’s upbringing and to the child’s ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background. The Norwegian CWS violate this article repeatedly.
To conclude, when Norway’s social workers are fleeing their positions, it is a sign that NCWS is not working. A better education, transparency, a municipal Committee which scrutinises NCWS work and gives advice and can overrule NCWS decisions, more emphasis on the biological family as a resource when measures and emergency decisions are needed, will create a better child protection, and provide better working conditions for those who work within NCWS.
As far as I understand, supervision is at County Governor, while financial responsibility is at municipality.
This is crazy. Whoever has the right to supervise should bear financial responsibility, otherwise child welfare can pretty easily become a device to fabricate cases to get more financing….