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.