Child Welfare Removals by the State ─ A Cross-Country Analysis of Decision-Making Systems

Child Welfare Removals by the State addresses a most important (but little-researched) legal proceeding: when the State intervenes in the private family sphere to remove children at risk to a place of safety, adoption, or in other forms of out-of-home care. It is an intervention into the private family sphere that is intrusive, contested, and a last resort. States' interventions in the family are decided within legal and political orders and traditions that constitute a country's policies, welfare state model, child protection system, and children´s position in a society. However, we lack a cross-country analysis of the different models of decision-making in a European context.

This text aims to present new research at the intersection of social work, law, and social policy concerning child protection proceedings for children in need of alternative care. It explores the role of court-based and voluntary decision-making systems in child protection proceedings, its effects, dynamics, and meanings in seven European countries and the United States, and analyses the tensions and dilemmas between children, parents, and socio-legal professionals.

The book consists of eight country chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion chapters. The range of countries of countries represented in the book covers the social democratic Nordic countries (Finland, Norway, and Sweden), the conservative corporatist regimes (Germany and Switzerland), the neo-liberal (England, Ireland, and the United States), and related child welfare systems.

Kenneth Burns, PhD, is a college lecturer and Deputy Director of the Master of Social Work programme at University College Cork, Ireland and a research associate with ISS21 (UCC). He has worked as a social worker and social work team leader in child protection and welfare. Dr. Burns is the Principal Investigator of the inter-disciplinary Child Care Proceedings Research Group at UCC and has published widely on child protection and welfare, staff welfare and retention, social work and community-based participatory research. He is also a co-national lead for Campus Engage on Community-based research and part of a Horizon 2020 multi-country study on Responsible Research & Innovation called EnRRICH.

Tarja Poso, PhD, is Professor in Social Work at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere, Finland. She has a long experience of more than 20 years in studying child welfare from different perspectives, with a keen interest in cross-cultural perspectives and exploring methods and ethics for child welfare studies. Her work has been published in national and international journals and books.

Marit Skivenes, PhD, is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Administration & Organization Theory at the University of Bergen, Norway. She also holds a professor II position at Bergen University College. Dr. Skivenes has extensive experience in comparative research on child welfare systems, and decision-making processes within these systems. Besides teaching and departmental obligations, she has managed and completed several large scale, cross-country research projects and established an internationally renowned child welfare research network. She has contributed to the field with several co-edited books, book chapters, reports and peer-reviewed journal articles, featuring both Norway-specific, and cross country comparisons of child welfare policies and practices.