On July 26th, 2014 Einar C. Salvesen, a licensed Norwegian Clinical Psychologist was interviewed by Jolanta Miskinyte, a journalist from Lithuania.
Jolanta Miskinyte was writing about a specific case (N.N) in Norway where a child was taken away from the mother. Einar C. Salvesen was involved as a psychologist and witness in this particular case.
Jolanta Miskinyte:
Would you be so kind to explain to me in a few sentences, what your thoughts are regarding the N.N case?
Einar C. Salvesen:
There is no reason to believe that the Norwegian law concerning child rearing and child protection was not developed with the best intentions. However, the law is far ahead of the competence of the expert, therefore, the law in far too many instances results in a Machinery of Evil.
N.N’s case is just one example. The assessment of this case has serious flaws. Assumptions and conclusions are bias, one-sided and speculative, without alternative interpretations.
Just a few incidents about the mother and her interaction with her child is referred to, while a more complete picture of the mother is missing and not taken into account. From a narrow factual base, a serious conclusion about the mother as a person, and her ability to raise children, have been drawn.
Conclusions are coloured by narrow ‘bourgeois’ or ideological standards for child rearing. N.N s case is heartbreaking and very tragic both for her and the child.
Jolanta Miskinyte:
What do you think about the quality of the work of Norway’s Child Welfare System’s offices concerning removing children from their families?
Einar C. Salvesen:
There is a lot to say about that. In a few words, I can say that when the actual ability of parents concerning child rearing practices are clarified, the child welfare office responsible for investigations, frequently show a striking lack of competence concerning ‘the human factor’.
There is a catastrophic lack of processing and dialogue skills, as well as poor ability to understand and clarify what is factual and what are interpretations.
In too many cases we observe that the ability and the character of a person are judged on a few incidents alone. Measured by the child rearing standards of many other cultures these incidents together seem to be unclear and partly with ideological standards of child rearing practice.
There are of course, a number of cases, where the system of protection works according to its intention, which is to secure the upbringing of children, and decide if they should stay with their family or be removed to institutions or foster homes. However, there are far too many children removed from their parents based on false premises.
Jolanta Miskinyte:
What are the roots of this phenomenon and how did this form of practice become legitimate in a civilised and democratic country such as Norway?
Einar C. Salvesen:
This is a very important and interesting issue. We observe that children are removed from their families by Norway’s Child Welfare System, due to incompetence, lack of ethical base, greed and subservience by people who are part of the control mechanism or institution involved.
This applies to child welfare offices in Norway, the first institution to assess or evaluate the situation of the child and the parent’s ability. It applies to the expert – usually a psychologist, whose role is to evaluate what has been done so far, as well as making further assessment/re-evaluation of the case.
It applies to the final institution of appeal, the County Court system, which almost always ‘bows down’ to the conclusion of the ‘State’ appointed expert.
This also applies even when the conclusion has been based on speculation, lack of evidence, narrow standards for child rearing, lack of common sense, etc.
I have as an expert witness for private parties, experienced cases where not only the child welfare office, but where all the other control mechanisms which come into operation when the destiny of the child has to be decided, such as the expert report and the court fail to meet simple scientific standards of clarification of the actual situation the child has in the family, therefore seriously violating justice and Human Rights.
I have experienced child welfare offices which have become bureaucratic and authoritarian systems of experts, following narrow and ideological standards for child rearing practices and with a striking lack of empathy, humanity and common sense, similar only to local political bureaus, acting as a State in a State, and where the division of power is fully set aside.
As one politician (a former director of a Norwegian child welfare office), once told me: “We are driving into the ditch both ways – removing the children we should not, while not removing the children we should!”
Jolanta Miskinyte:
How and why does this happen in Norway?
Einar C. Salvesen:
From my point of view Norwegian social democracy has been deteriorating in quality due to a rich and strong State-System, heavily influenced by socialist thinking, which, as we all know, involves State control rather than the driving force being the individual or the family.
The State has, due to oil income become enormously rich compared to earlier years, thus being able to finance a Bureaucracy of Control, evolved gradually during a period of let us say 20 years.
What made this development possible may also be connected to a population, which until recently, has had a rather naive confidence in the Norwegian State – traditionally what the State decided seemed to be good for us and served us well.
The serious flaws we see in Norway’s Child Welfare System may also partly be explained by the fact that the child protection law, with its general concepts and good intentions, points towards very high standards concerning child rearing practices in the families.
This being a fact, and linked with socialist thinking of control and ‘expertise’, has enabled the State to develop a bureaucracy of ‘experts’, who are supposed to be able to assess or control the families/caretakers ability to fulfil or not fulfil the standards set for child rearing practice.
To further complicate the matter, the law, with its general terms, opens up several different interpretations of child rearing standards by local offices, or even by a particular child welfare officer in charge of the case.
Jolanta Miskinyte:
We are frequently being told that children are being taken away only from the immigrant families, where tutorship is often similar to violence. Is that true, and are native families encountering this phenomenon too?
Einar C. Salvesen:
Native as well as immigrant families are suffering as well due to the incompetence of the Norwegian system – to be able to deal with families where the parents use, what we in Norway define as violence, as part of their child rearing practice, while parents of other cultures define their practice as a way to discipline the child. I have experienced cases where there has been no discussion, no dialogue process and no qualified supervision of the parent concerning their child rearing practices, before they remove the child from the family.
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