Child welfare
03.03.10 Child welfare
Annually
Figures for counties and national level in NOS, and some main figures are published at the main level in Regional Statistics.
Division for Social Welfare Statistics (350), Trygve Kalve, tel. +47 21 09 46 49, e-mail: trygve.kalve@ssb.no
Data are collected by the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs pursuant to the Child Welfare Services Act of 17 July 1992, Section 2-3. Statistics Norway is responsible for the actual collection of the data and pursuant to the Statistics Act of 16 June 1989, Section 3.2, they are used in the production of official statistics.
The purpose is to prepare statistics on all children placed under the protection of the child welfare authorities during the statistical year. Children with investigation cases started and closed during the statistical year are also included in the population.
Child welfare statistics were published the first time in 1900, and consisted until 1954 of summary statistics prepared on the basis of annual reports from Child Welfare Committees. The statistics were prepared by the Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs until 1915 and subsequently by Statistics Norway. Since 1954 child welfare statistics have been prepared on the basis of annual data from the municipalities. The statistics were completely restructured in the 1990s. In 1992 the scope of the data was greatly expanded, and the restructuring led to a break in some of the time series, including the number of "new" child welfare clients. The number of new clients from before and after 1992 cannot be directly compared. In 1993 the registration form was changed in consequence of the new Child Welfare Act. Under the new Act, children may be placed outside the home without first having the county social welfare board make a decision to put the child in care. The number of children in care since 1993 can on the other hand be compared. The latest changes in the statistics, which apply since 1997, is that reports to child welfare authorities have been taken out. We now only ask who reported the case and the content of the report for the children whom the child welfare authorities have started or closed an investigation in the statistical year.
Users: Ministry of Children and Family Affairs, counties and municipalities, research institutions, press, students taking health and social services-related subjects.
Applications: Public planning, research and studies, education and public debate.
In the child welfare statistics one form is to be filled out per child that is under investigation by child welfare authorities and/or children under protection pursuant to the Child Welfare Services Act. The child is the statistical unit and its full national identity number is used. Intervention can be instituted for children under the age of 18 or existing intervention can be extended until the child reaches 23, with the child's consent. Registrations are done by the child welfare service in the municipalities, which send the data by registered mail to Statistics Norway, either as a data file on a diskette, on paper forms that are scanned optically. The statistics contain information about who reported the case that led to the investigation, the content of the report and the result of the investigation. The type of intervention (assistance in the home/care), the kind of intervention (1-23), and the number of months the intervention has been in effect during the statistical year are registered. Also registered is whether the parents have had their children taken away from them during the statistical year.
The data come from the municipal child welfare services. Information on finances is contained only in the municipal accounts.
No sample. All children under protection are registered.
The child welfare form or a file legend are the basis of the data registration. The municipalities send in registration forms once a year (deadline 15 January). These are sent by registered mail and are scanned optically at Statistics Norway. Municipalities with a child welfare IT system put a transcript on a diskette sent by registered mail to Statistics Norway. Sensitive information should not be transferred on-line. The municipalities that supply electronic data receive overview tables and error lists back within a couple of weeks. The error lists are sent back to Statistics Norway with the correct individual data that makes it possible to correct the individual record. If a municipality does not manage to deliver usable data by publication, the figures from the year before are used.
If the form is used in processing the case of an individual client, a year-end summary would take about 5 minutes. Ten minutes per form should therefore be set aside each year.
The child welfare quality control program on the Statistics Norway website plays a central role in the permanent quality control and revision routines for statistics. For more information see: Kalve & Sørøy (2000) "Revisjon av barnevernsdata", Notater 2000/26, Statistics Norway
Major terms in the statistics are: reports, investigations, assistance in the home, care and new cases.
A report to the child welfare authorities is a written or verbal message to the child welfare service about an identifiable child, where there is reason to believe that there are grounds for intervention pursuant to the Child Welfare Services Act. Incoming reports to the child welfare service have not been registered since 1997. We now only ask who reported the case and the content of the message for the children for whom the child welfare service has started or closed an investigation during the statistical year.
The child welfare service has the right and obligation to commence an investigation when there are reasonable grounds for believing that children live under circumstances warranting intervention under the Child Welfare Services Act. If the child welfare service conducts several investigations about the same child, the first investigation during the statistical year is the one that is registered.
Under the Child Welfare Services Act, assistance in the home is stipulated in Section 4-4 (in the old Child Welfare Act Section 18 preventive measures and Section 51 after-care measures applied). Assistance in the home can consist of economic assistance, kindergarten, person selected to support child, supervision, visit home/respite home, home advisor, respite institution, parent/child places (maternity home), outpatient treatment in psychiatric institution for children, housing etc. Under the new Child Welfare Act of 1993 children can be taken out of the home and placed, for example, in foster care without a formal decision to place the child in care. Such a placement under Section 4-4, fifth paragraph, will then be classified as assistance, not as care.
Under the Child Welfare Services Act care is provided under Section 4-12 (Section 19 in the old Child Welfare Act). All decisions to place the child in care outside the home now have to be made by the county social welfare board. Care is classified as intervention pursuant to Section 4-12 and includes emergency shelter homes, foster homes, children's homes, residential work collectives, psychiatric institutions, psychiatric hospitals or other care outside the home.
All children under protection who were not found in the child welfare statistics the year before are defined as "new cases" under protection. Full national identity numbers are the key here for identifying new child welfare cases.
The quality control program used to check logical errors and omissions in the data at the individual level checks 24 different types of errors. In addition, the summary "statistics" which the municipalities report to the county governor to check municipal data are used. No quality report relating to the annual statistics has been prepared.
The errors and omissions which surface with the aid of the quality control program are listed and sent back to the respondents for correction.
Not relevant.
Not relevant.
In 1980-1985 the national identity number was not used in registration, preventing checking of duplicates. Figures from these years can therefore not be completely compared with the periods before and after. The number of children under care in 1992 is probably too high because the statistics form for 1992 was designed so that all placements were registered as care placements. There is a break in the time series in 1993 of new children under protection in consequence of the new definition of new cases.
Not relevant.
http://www.ssb.no/barneverng_en
Norwegian (nynorsk)
English text and tables in NOS
NOS Social Assistance and Child Welfare Statistics. (Before 1998: NOS Social Statistics).
"Hjulet", the government and information system for health and social services in the municipalities
RS - tables and municipal figures.
Statistical Yearbook of Norway.
Social Survey.
Statistical Analyses (SA) 11 (Berit Otnes: Sosial- og barneverntjenesten. Organisering, omfang og utvikling 1980-1994)
Statistics Norway has editions of files and file legends.