Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- one Introduction
- two Nordic family policies: constructing contexts for social work with families
- three A Nordic model in child welfare?
- four From welfare to illfare: public concern for Finnish childhood
- five Supporting families: the role of family work in child welfare
- six Family-focused social work: professional challenges of the 21st century
- seven In the best interest of the child? Contradictions and tensions in social work
- eight Children in families receiving financial welfare assistance: visible or invisible?
- nine Listening to children's experiences of being participant witnesses to domestic violence
- ten Now you see them – now you don't: institutions in child protection policy
- eleven Epilogue: on developing empowering child welfare systems and the welfare research needed to create them
- References
- Index
ten - Now you see them – now you don't: institutions in child protection policy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 July 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- one Introduction
- two Nordic family policies: constructing contexts for social work with families
- three A Nordic model in child welfare?
- four From welfare to illfare: public concern for Finnish childhood
- five Supporting families: the role of family work in child welfare
- six Family-focused social work: professional challenges of the 21st century
- seven In the best interest of the child? Contradictions and tensions in social work
- eight Children in families receiving financial welfare assistance: visible or invisible?
- nine Listening to children's experiences of being participant witnesses to domestic violence
- ten Now you see them – now you don't: institutions in child protection policy
- eleven Epilogue: on developing empowering child welfare systems and the welfare research needed to create them
- References
- Index
Summary
Long history notwithstanding
In Finland, residential institutions for children began to be separated from those for adults at the end of the 19th century and their number began to grow. Gradually they acquired a strong, though by no means uncontested, position in Finnish society and child protection. Institutions began to dominate social welfare in general. From the 1960s onwards, however, it was increasingly criticised for being too focused on institutions and, since then, the ideal forms of care and nursing have been considered to be situated primarily outside residential facilities (Eriksson, 1967; Savio, 1989). At the moment, however, a fairly high number of children and young people are placed in residential child protection facilities. In spite of this, these facilities receive only occasional attention in the context of social policy, the professional development of the social welfare or research. This ambivalence – that, on the one hand, these facilities are strongly present in society, but, on the other, they are outside the central contents of child protection policy – is what interests us in this chapter.
The words, “Now you see them” in the heading refer to the fact that, at the moment, over 8,000 children and young people are placed in residential care on child protection grounds (Lastensuojelu, 2008). This figure makes up about half of the children placed outside their homes. We will return later to a discussion of whether the figure is large or small, but undoubtedly the number of children and young people in residential care equals the population of a small Finnish town. Since placement in residential care is a strong social intervention in childhood and family relationships, the number reflects society's opinion on what constitutes a suitable childhood and family life. Residential placement covers many individual life stories in the facility and the events before it.
The words, “now you don’t” in the heading refer to the fact that the monitoring, evaluation, development and research of residential child protection facilities in Finland are anything but regular or intense. The situation is markedly different from Sweden, for example, where a state organisation provides funding to direct the activity of child protection facilities, as well as research and development concerning them.
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- Information
- Social Work and Child Welfare PoliticsThrough Nordic Lenses, pp. 147 - 160Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2009