Is Norway’s Foster Care System or “Barnevernet” Actually Unfair?

32 comments

1. I have a friend of mine who is a Russian single mother living in Norway and she is really scared of Barnevern. To the extend that, when her daughter was biting herself (as her teeth were hurting while growing), she immediately took a video of that in case a doctor finds these scars and reports to Barnevern. Having said that, I believe that the “maliciousness” of Barnevern is hugely exxagerared.

2. Child protection is notoriously difficult and dependent on humans to make judgment calls. Sometimes mistakes are made and it’s a absolute tragedy for everyone involved, the child most of all.

   I know of cases where everyone saw that the family was headed for disaster, and nothing was done. Those kids are in different live-in psyc centers now and have criminal records. If I was to make an assumption, it would be that there are more cases when something should have been done and wasn’t than cases where the CPS did more than they should have.

   That obviously doesn’t help those families that have lost their children when they shouldn’t have.

3. Ah, you have found the one sided stories from a handful of families and [Russian fueled disinformation](https://euvsdisinfo.eu/norway-a-nation-in-moral-decay/?highlight=barnevernet)?

   No, the caseworkers do not have a bad agenda.

   No, they’re not stealing immigrant’s children.

   No, they are not unfair for enforcing Norwegian law in accordance with their best judgement.

   And no, they do not comment on specific cases – the children’s right to privacy is a very strong concern in Norway. This means that the horror stories you’ll read on occasion tends to stand unanswered.

   Taking the children away from their parents is a last ditch effort to protect the children from mental or physical abuse. It is normally only approved after other measures have been tried.

   Yes, the occasional mistake have happened. But more often it seems to be either immigrant parents who fails to understand that beating one’s child is abuse, or families who go to the media with a sob story (usually leaving out significant details) in the hope of having a decision overturned.

4. **I can only speak for myself as a person that has been in the system, and have gotten help by the system.**

   In my personal experience the system made is rigid as hell. But it is made for the childrens best interest. Not the parents.

   ***Think of it as a square box with sharp edges. Anything that is small enough will just pass through. If it is a bigger case or very advanced it may not fit and someone may get hurt.***

   The bad reputation basically comes from the badly handed cases where only the parents side can be shown in the media. Simply because barnevernet(BV) can not reply in public. *They are legally denied the ability to reply to any media about any open or closed case.* This is done to protect any child in **any** case. No matter how small or big the case is.

   When a case is “badly handed” it is either when a caseworker has gone outside the lines, or when the laws in norway does not align with laws in other countries.

   And again. I have only information on my own cases. Which by themselves was handed perfectly. I got the help I needed. In some cases a bit late, due to bureaucracy. But never too late.

   The cases I have read about that they scream “kidnapping”. My perception is that the parents have gotten several warnings to change behaviour. But as I mentioned. BV can not comment or give their side in any way.

   *Is it effective.* ***Yes****.*

   Rigid, but effective. I would guesstimate a 90% effectiveness when simple cases rise up. But lower effectiveness for difficult cases. Any cases involving drugs or abuse would be categorized as difficult cases.

   In all cases the parent(s) will get paperwork that will tell them in verbatim what must be changed, and the timeline for it. That paperwork will also tell them who to contact for help.

   *Caseworkers with a bad agenda.*

   The possibility exists, but I personally have never met anyone with an agenda to take kids away from the parents. And I have met a lot of caseworkers. There are stories of bad caseworkers from the 80’s to early 2000. Even some where issues has been to the courts.

5. I grew up with many ties or barnevernet but not a part of it. WHT I have seen are children in terrible circumstances and grown ups trying to help as best as they can within the scope of the law.

   Yes, it is a tragedy to take a child away from its parents but sometimes it is necessary. And lots of the parents affected by this does not understand that what is happening is what’s best for the child.

6. No, they are life saviours. But child abisers will of course do everything in their power to slander them online. Because of strict non disclosure in the welfare system, they can spread lies publically and nobody from Barnevernet can contradict or say anything about the case.

7. Not really unfair nor effective. In my experience, the «benefit of the doubt» levels they apply makes it hard to be really effective.

8. My absolutely anecdotal second hand experience with barnevernet was that they were absolutely right in removing the child(ren) from the situation. Despite all the crying in the media by one family, the kids school friends had another story. Nobody is removing kids for fun and profit, but abusers don’t want anything to interfere.

9. This is an ambitious project. You cannot talk about the subject without talking about Russian foreign policy. And that is an incredibly deep and disgusting rabbit hole

10. Parents who have lost their children are extremely motivated people. Anyone with a case will fight tooth and claw.

    Add some self delusion to that. “I didnt hit them (that much), or drink (that much) or somehow not care for them, so it is barnevernets fault. It is either barnevernet or me being terrible, and it cant be me”.

    Add in that barnevernet has a hard time defending them selves publically. Add in that parents come from all walks of society. Add in a sprinkling of real problematic shit to start the snowball.

    If be suprised if there wasnt a lot of noise about it.

11. Nah, barnevernet is fine

12. I can only speak as someone on the side of the sidelines, but a couple of friends of mine work in a kindergarten and brought up one important factor in the discussion. According to them, Barnevernet can’t actually defend themselves by releasing a statement because of taushetsplikten (duty to remain silent), whilst the people who consider themselves wronged (and may actually be wronged) can make as many statements as they want. According to them that’s the root of the disputed reputation Barnevernet has, and is important to consider when reading about “yet another person who complains about Barnevernet.”

13. So after reading through a lot of comments and your replies, it all seems to come back to you feeling very strongly that children who had childhoods difficult enough that BV was involved should not have a right to privacy.

    I really, really struggle to understand this point of view.

14. I was in the system from age 8 to 19. In my experience it’s a very solid system. They made sure I lived close to my mom so i could visit when she was healthy and they made sure me and my brother wasnt split up. They got us a nice foster home where i lived for a year, but for unknown reasons they couldnt keep us. I think the woman got some mental issues and it was best to move us. They moved us to a temporary home, then to an institution where we lived until i was 19. They did regular visits to see how we were doing. All in all, i give them a solid rating

15. Was in the care of Barnevernet. They Are generally SLOW as fudge. I was almost killed and they still wanted to try working family out. Got out and got an apartment after a while. They have lots of stupid rules and I chose to cut my losses at 18 rather than be in “ettervern” (monetary help with strings attached a few more years). Due to junior getting a bruise while playing in kindergarten (sigh) I’ve dealt with them myself and it’s really chill, just talking with kid and parents and them observing at home. It’s like some have said. Funny how many screaming about unfairness of them looking into you the kids are for example beaten regularly by “someone”. You should be happy someone cares about your kid enough to say something. Personally talked to many other kids in the system. No one was taken too soon. The notion is rather the parents are furious and in a legal battle and the kids are hiding begging not to go home. Anecdotal though.

16. I dont know why you are going on about your agenda about transparency. They have given you their answers over and over again.

17. Barnevernet generally isn’t legally allowed to share any details about a case with the public. This means the public only gets the parents story and almost nothing contradicting it.

    Sadly for the safety and mental health of the kids involved this is how it has to be.

    I had a coworker who’s girlfriend who had a child with an abusive father. My coworker seemed to think barnevernet did a great job keeping the kid away from the father. To my knowledge the kid now lives with their mother and her boyfriend (my coworker), with only very limited connection to the father in a neutral space (not the father’s home).

18. I can’t say much due to duty of confidentiality, but I know of several cases where they have saved lives. I know of parents that are very mad at Barnevernet, but the children are better off in pretty much all of the cases. It is made to benefit the children and not the parents. It is very strict, but for a good reason. There will of course be some problems, faults and human error, but we are very lucky to have Barnevernet.

19. Around Stavanger, they are in trouble for NOT taking kids away from abusive parents— and the are suing the city for damages

    You cannot make this shit up.

    Loads of ‘stolen childhood’ articles in the media recently.

20. Parents hate it the exact same way animal owners hate the organisation that is responsible of animal welfare, I realized a while ago. Coincidence? Nope.

    Some people feel vert threatened by these organisations that have power over their “belongings”. The way I see it, only people with something to hide would feel that way…

    It of course doesn’t help that the parents/owners are free to tell their side of the story however they like, while Barnevernet and Mattilsynet can’t say a word. Very many parents and owners use this to gather up hate and pressure to collect money etc. There are also lots of groups where they dedicate lots of energy into hating BV as much as possible.

    Is BV perfect? Nope. There definetely are cases where they haven’t done their jobs. Either they’ve been too strict, or haven’t done enough. It would be perfectly OK to look into ways to improve their work. Most of these people however don’t want ANY sort of child or animal protective organisations to exist. To me, that’s a sign you can safely look away from anything they state. They’re not doing and saying things to protect children or animals, that’s for sure.

    So, do google specific public cases in serious news papers, and professional analysis of BV from professors etc. Do not however believe anything else you read.

    Generally, our laws and social norms are different than many other countries. You should look into the differences and the results of the differences, and trying to not judge based off of what is normal wherever you are from, but from how well things generally work here. For example, how many kids end up in the system here compared to other places? How low is the threshold before they get help? How many of the kids in the system end up in a institution? Etc.

21. All the people I spoke to who are (or were) really afraid of it, also happened to have some pretty messed up views on “good parenting”. I’m an immigrant and I know of several immigrant parents who come from cultures where “spanking” is considered normal parenting. They are all really afraid of having their children taken. Personally, I think the Norwegian system is amazing.

22. Most of the cases the parents can’t care for themselves (therefore also not their children). I’ve know a few people in contact with BV and it is for their best even though it is not a perfect situation. Most of the slandering I hear are from said people who cant care for their children and immigrants not knowing how strongly protected children are in Norway. They will hit/abuse children because that is more «common» where they come from and then they lose custody of their child(ren). Since BV cant respond they almost always end up i a bad light. I would say BV definetly does more good than harm.

23. My ex worked in barnevernet and teached their bachelor education. A lot of good things has been said, I can only add that they actually kick people out from the uni because they are not fitting to work ib the field

24. The impression I get is they don’t handle cases well where one or both the parents aren’t Norwegian (which has a it’s own culture), so there is a clash of values. There is also a huge disparity in power between the Norwegian-born and immigrants and knowing how the child protection system works and being able to thrown in an allegation here and there (backed up by their families) creates some ugly situations. If the parent speaks broken Norwegian then they might sound a bit ‘simple’. I met a Chinese woman who had her child taken away from her because she had ‘anger issues’. Her partner had left her before the birth and she wanted him to leave the hospital. This was used to remove the child from its mother. Her psychologist said she had a right to feel angry – it would be stranger if she wasn’t. A lot of other cultures burn hotter than Norwegians who can go out of their way to express it, so what is appropriate depends on your biases.

    Another example of this is in the handing of child killers (kids who kill kids). Other countries may lock such children up, but Norway uses child protection to ensure they get an upbringing and psychological help – not prison. There’s a famous case of this in Trondheim. The downside is the parent who lost the child doesn’t get a feeling there’s has been punishment. The Guardian covered this recently. The mother in this case has come across the killer on the street. NRK just recently documented how in that case barnevernet ‘abused’ it’s position by forcing the said child to reenact the murder/possible sexual element in some effort to get them to admit wrongdoing. The position on this was the killer was ‘traumatised’ already and barnevernet will now be investigated. Note, the way the rights of the child, even one thought to have been invoked in the death / possible sexual abuse of another child, are protected. This is in stark contrast with other countries and sparks strong feelings.

    A friend of mine and his wife recently separated and I was surprised how unfounded accusations quickly became part of conversation to get him out of her life, even though their relationship just failed – no more. I have direct experience of people playing an accusation card in a work situation. I don’t know how outright lying about high-stakes adult-child accusation stuff as a strategy could even be a thing. Where I come from, you need to be willing to defend yourself in court to say anything like this. It’s possible Norways’s rights culture allows space to get away with this or barnevernet (or threat of it) has become a weapon. To me, it seems completely childish, but is common enough to have noted it. I found it shocking that people could behave like that tbh.

    To balance it a bit, look at the UK. It’s system is culturally hands off and absolutely won’t pull kids out except as a last resort. There’s been a couple of parent killing their own child cases recently that underline a failure of that system. They only follow children up to 21 and a lot of kids in care end up on the streets or in crime or have long term mental health needs. There’s a failure to parent these kids long term and the care system isn’t fit for purpose.

    If this is really for uni, talk to BV directly and ask for statistics. Number of active cases. Number removed from parents on a kommune by kommune basis. Otherwise, you don’t have didly squat.

25. It is a very controversial and sensitive subject for a lot of people. The general attitude is generally that they are trying their best and it is good that they exist, but there are many flaws in a system that deals with the many grey areas that exist. It is a system by humans for humans and as such has many human errors.

    In smaller towns/areas, they are underfunded and might severely suffer from conflict of interest. In some cases people might get away with severe child abuse because there are only a few local case workers who know the abusive parent and “they seem like such a nice person”.

    The rules are very rigid and some people might not agree with them. Parents have lost custody of their children for hitting them, while thinking that is a legitimate parenting strategy, because *their* parents him them, and they turned out alright. Same for certain other types of unorthodox strict parenting, perhaps when combined with religious or cultural practices (denying your kids medical treatment, not letting them go to school, etc).

    There have also been cases of plain ineptitude too. A very recent court case was about a CPS case worker who would drive a child to her abuser’s house and sit in the living room while the kid was sexually abused in the basement of the same house, over many years.

26. In cases where barnevernet interfere the parents are in most cases highly unstable often having drug issues or problems with mental health. Pretty much anyone would oppose having their children taken away and people with impaired minds would probably be even less understanding. Barnevernet can’t publicly explain themselves in every case on Facebook and in newspapers so parents are free to tell whatever story they want be it true or not.

    A big side note but a good example of what kind of people barnevernet are dealing with is the death of my aunt. My aunt had been working in a higher position in barnevernet before suddenly getting cancer and dying quickly in her 50s. When the death notice hit newspapers a bunch of people started saying absolutely disgusting things about it on social media, a few individuals even sent some absolutely deranged insults directly to my nieces on the date of my aunts funeral. These were people who had their kids rightfully taken away in cases where my aunt were involved.

27. Remember that barnevernet cannot comment cases publicly, while parents who have had a child removed from them can say whatever they want.

28. I’ve seen some cases where parents say their kids were kidnapped but really they have been beating their kids and the kids were being traumatized. As that is abuse, the kids were taken. People who move from places that it’s a norm for kids to be regularly physically punished with sticks, belts, shoes, etc should probably learn that that is abuse and if they continue to do so that it probably will have consequences.

29. Barnevernet is a shit institution with good intentions.

30. I remember a video that got shared a lot on fb a couple of years back, even people I know that usually support barnevernet were sharing it and saying how they handled taking a child out of the mothers custody was terrible. The video was hard to watch, lots of screaming. However I felt like something was off and decided to go to the mothers profile (she was the one who posted the video) and guess what? She knew they were taking her daughter out of her custody almost a week in advance, she admitted to doing illegal drugs on a public fb profile, the day before her daughter was being picked up by barnevernet she posted about taking a 3 hour long shower and how she was gonna make hell for them instead of spending time with her daughter who still didn’t know what was happening. Her friends were commenting how she should spend time with her daughter and not try to make hell for barnevernet because it would be even more traumatic for her daughter. She of course didn’t listen. The video made it look like no one knew why they were there.

    But there are cases that sound a bit more nuanced. It’s hard to know because barnevernet can’t comment on specific cases at all, but there are people that have literally been granted asylum in other countries to escape barnevernet

31. I was taken away from my parents by barnevernet when I was a teen and placed in a foster home.

    All sanctions they put in place for my case were well founded. They always had the childs best in mind. I’m still grateful towards them to this day. The day they came at my school to get me under protective care was to this day one of the best days in my life. All case workers I have met have been extremely professional.

    The bar for what is child abuse in Norway is probably a bit lower than in most countries. I think that is the reason they might be considered a bit more effective than child services in other countries. But I really think this is what every child service in every country should be like. For the sake of the child, the bar should be put low.

32. It can be. My firstborn was taken from me at only 7 weeks old, he’s now over 6 years old. The arguments used against me were how I was bullied as a kid and selfharmed and such as a teen, and claims that I would neglect him in the future. It’s only later that they’ve unofficially apologised to me and said it was the wrong decision. He came to two people who were unable to conceive, and who were promised to be able to adopt a child through barnevernet. He’s loved and safe so after losing in fylkesnemnda 2-3times and he was over 1y old, I made the decision to let them adopt him because I didn’t want him to be ripped away from his parental figures yet again. I see him a couple times a year and his parents are good people.

    I have another one too and I got to keep her as barnevern didn’t have any issues with me when I was not a single mum, despite the kid’s dad not actually really helping or being a good parent (or person). She’s turning 5 and is a happy, normal kid even though she was raised alone by me for a long time👀