Criticizes moves in child protection – news Trøndelag

The Directorate for Children, Youth and Families, Bufdir and Statistics Norway, Statistics Norway, have developed progress statistics on moves for children living in foster homes. Every year, Statistics Norway collects data from the municipal child welfare services. This data is used, among other things, to produce annual child protection statistics. The municipal child welfare services do not report information about moves to Statistics Norway as of today. What is sent is information about, among other things, the child’s placement in an emergency home, foster home and institution. From 2014, the municipal child welfare services began to send the start and end dates of the placements. This information makes it possible to define a move and calculate the number of moves the child has been involved in since 2014. In 2021, the statistics on moves for children living in foster homes were published for the first time. It shows moves for the children who lived in foster homes in the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. These statistics include all moves from and to foster homes, emergency homes, institutions and the child’s home. The statistical basis SSB has makes it impossible to identify all moves with absolute precision. The information on the child’s placement generally provides a good overview of moves in child protection since 2014. In some cases, statisticians have too little information to be able to define whether a placement is a real move or a continuation of the placement that was registered earlier. Since the figures in the statistics only go back to 2014, it will still take many years before the figures are complete for all children in foster care. If a child has only lived in an institution for the last three years, they are not included in the current moving statistics. The plan is to create separate statistics for these children, which will be published in 2023. From 2022, the municipal child welfare services will report specific information on moving, both where children and young people moved from and moved to and the date of the move. As the governing authority, Bufdir wants to get a better overview of the relocations, so that they can put in place the right measures and reduce the number of unnecessary relocations. In recent years, around 9,000 children have lived in foster homes at the end of the year. 85 per cent of these are under the care of the child welfare authorities. The remaining 15 percent live in foster homes because the biological parents or the children themselves want this. At the end of the year, more than 1,000 children lived in child welfare institutions. Of these, child protection has the care of 45 per cent. The rest are there for other reasons, but where the biological parents still have responsibility for care. Source: Bufdir and Statistics Norway



ttn-69