National child welfare and family counselling, 2004

The central government has established five regions with responsibility for producing child welfare and family counselling services. In addition to these regions, Oslo and Trondheim are responsible for child welfare in their municipalities. This article presents preliminary key figures and data for 2004.

Child welfare

Preliminary figures for 2004 show that more children receive help from the national child welfare service than previously. The number of children who received help in 2004 was 4 226 compared to 4 010 in 2003. The break down into the various types of help is different from previous years. Fewer children live in institutions while the number of children in nationally supported foster homes or emergency shelter homes has increased from about 1 500 to almost 1 850.

In total, NOK 3.3 billion was spent on national child welfare services in 2004. This is in addition to expenditures for child welfare in the municipalities. The majority of the expenditures go towards children's institutions. Expenditures per child living in institutions vary from NOK 566 000 to NOK 877 000. Oslo is left out of the comparison because it may seem like their figures are very low. The low figures are probably due to the fact that the expenditures are recorded in the municipal child welfare accounts. The number of man-years used in the national child welfare is reduced by 134 after the transfer of responsibility from the county municipalities. The reduction is 4 per cent.

Family counselling services

Looking at the data which have been reported, it seems like the number of family counselling cases is at the same level as in 2003. The family counselling offices dealt with more than 25 800 cases during 2004. The expenditures for the services amounted to approximately NOK 240 million. This means that expenditures per case amounted to about NOK 9 000, but this varies across regions. For instance, Region North spent about NOK 8 200 per case, while Region West spent slightly above NOK 9 800.

The preliminary figures indicate that marriage problems are the main reason why people seek help. 50 per cent of the enquiries were about marriage problems.

The figures are based on data from all regions. With regard to the production of services, some data are missing for the East, South and Middle regions. With regard to man-years, some data are missing for all regions.

Mediations

The family counselling offices are the core of the mediation service. In addition, all counties have external mediators who are not connected to the family counselling offices. The data are still not complete, but the preliminary figures indicate that the number of mediations is at about the same level as in 2003. The figures indicate an increase in certificates issued after mediation compared with previous years.

Tables:

• Table 1 Key figures national child welfare. Figures for 2003 and 2004
• Table 2 Figures national child welfare. Figures for 2003 and 2004
• Table 3 Key figures national family counselling service. Figures for 2003 and 2004
• Table 4 Figures national family counselling service. Figures for 2003 and 2004
• Table 5 Mediations. Figures for 2003 and 2004