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HELSEVEL-Gode og effektive helse-, omsorgs- og velferdstjenester

Expert reports as basis for decisions in Norwegian child welfare services

Alternative title: Sakkyndige rapporter i barnevernet: Hvilket kunnskapsgrunnlag bygger de på og hvilken rolle har rapportene i barnevernets beslutninger

Awarded: NOK 11.4 mill.

Project Number:

300827

Application Type:

Project Period:

2020 - 2025

Partner countries:

Norwegian child welfare authorities take over the custody of more than thousand children each year. Often, the decision leans heavily on reports from commissioned independent experts, typically psychologists. In 2010, the government established the Commission for child welfare experts to ensure the quality of these reports. Before courts can use them as basis for decisions, the reports must be reviewed by the commission. By now, the commission has archived around 8000 expert reports. There has been almost no research on these data. This project seeks to undertake research in a number of areas directly linked to expert reports and their application. One part of the project focuses on the content of 300 filed reports. A codebook is developed where we have quantified what characterises the reports, the kinds of knowledge and norms experts adhere to, the types of assessment methods they use and the conclusions they reach. We will also consider how experts approaches have developed over time, and look specifically at how experts manage assessment of families with minority backgrounds. Three manuscripts are nearly finnish for submission to peer reviewed journals. The other part of the project explore child welfare services, who commission and utilize reports, use of these reports and to which degree they are regarded as useful to child welfare services assessments. We have adopted a comparative perspective and explore how professionals within the Norwegian, Swedish, and English child welfare services perceived the role and function of expert assessments in child welfare cases. The Norwegian study reveals that child welfare services view expert reports as providing an external perspective on the case and simplifying the complexity of cases. However, they also had some experience working with experts whose work was of poor quality. Through interviews with Swedish child welfare professionals, we found that the child welfare assessments rely on interpretations by the professionals within the child welfare system regarding information from other professionals involved with the family. As a result, the transfer of knowledge from other professionals to the child welfare system is not neutral. Thus the process of knowledge integration affects the basis of social workers’ decision making. Results from the English study are expected to be published in spring 2024. Additionally, we have conducted individual interviews with expert psychologists to explore how they perceive their roles and functions. We are currently in the process of analyzing decisions made by the Child Welfare and Health Board, sourced from Legal Data, to investigate how the board prioritizes the assessments provided by experts in decisions concerning the removal of custody. Results from these two studies are also anticipated to be published i 2024. With their significant impact for the futures of the children and families they concern, the thousands of filed reports represent a unique resource for the field of child welfare services. The project goal is to generate knowledge which can contribute to improvements and developments in child welfare services practice in the use of expert reports in their assessments, and in their decision making in cases where children may be removed. We have disseminated results from the project at national and international conferences. Findings will also be useful for developing curricula for future child welfare practitioner qualifications, as well as courses for child welfare experts.

Annually, Norwegian child welfare authorities take over custody of about 1250 children which are in risk for lifetime health impairments. The decisions often lean on expert reports. From 2010, all expert reports are submitted to The Norwegian Commission on Child Welfare Experts, whose mandate is to assure their quality. By now, an archive of more than 7300 reports has accumulated. Despite their decisive impact on vulnerable children’s health and development, this internationally unique data material has never been subjected to systematic research. The research group has got clearance to access the data register, and has conducted a pilot study. The objective is to investigate what characterizes expert reports and how they are used in child welfare decision-making processes, to promote sustainable services and reduce unwarranted variations in service provision for users of child welfare services. The project is organized in two work packages. WP1 investigates the knowledge base, normative standards and the assessment methods of expert reports through qualitative and quantitative analyses. WP2 investigates how expert reports inform practices in child welfare services/-authorities, through qualitative data collection procedures and analyses. Through a cooperation with English and Swedish partners we will compare practices and learn from differences. The project avoids challenges such as privacy related to health information. As a privacy requirement, exploring the expert reports take place at the premises of the registry. A challenging part will be the initial organising of the material into more fine-masked variables. To meet these challenges, a strength of the project lies in its broad representation from different research disciplines and user-groups. Other data will be managed in accordance with the Norwegian Personal Data Act, including General Data Protection Regulation and HVLs regulations. All personal data will be securely stored on HVLs research server.

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Funding scheme:

HELSEVEL-Gode og effektive helse-, omsorgs- og velferdstjenester