This article addresses comparative research on what has come to be called, in (British) English, ‘child protection’ or, rather differently, in Finnish ‘lastensuojelu’. In developing a cross‐national research project on lastensuojelu/child protection practices in England and Finland, we found it necessary to go back a few steps, to address what might usually be considered as ‘background issues’. This article discusses the welfare state traditions in both countries, especially with respect to families and children, in order to contextualise the focus of ongoing qualitative research on micro comparisons. When comparing the mundane practices of child protection and the ways problems and clienthoods are constructed, as in this study, historical, social, cultural and linguistic issues matter. Indeed, very basic concepts such as ‘child protection’ and ‘child protection case’ become problematic in the comparison.

In 1985 the Finnish Parliament passed a law which stipulated that all children under age three were to be guaranteed a day care place as from the beginning of the 1990s. The law was made possible by a political compromise in which the agrarian Centre Party won the backing it needed to push through a system of state subsidies for the home care of children. As an alternative to a day care place, parents were now given the option of taking a child home care allowance and using that allowance either for purposes of looking after their child themselves or for paying for a private place. Measured in terms of the number of users, the child home care allowance was a hugely successful innovation. Most parents of small children have used the allowance for at least some period of time. This was due above all to the size of the allowance compared with other social benefits. However, following cutbacks in allowance expenditure of more than 20 per cent from 1995, the use of home care allowances declined at almost the same rate as the allowances were reduced. This brought significant short-term savings to the Government and to local authorities, but in the longer term other costs have been rising. There has even been a sharp, unexpected decline in the birth rate. The case of Finland goes to show that, even in a country where wage-earning motherhood has become firmly established, income transfers through family policy can have a very significant influence on the numbers opting temporarily for homemaking.

The article examines the nature of consent in the context of Finnish care order decision-making as described by social workers, parents and young people, all personally involved in care order decision-making, albeit in different roles: on the one hand, an authority asking for the view about a child removal, and on the other, a party expressing a view which has huge legal, social and moral implications for their family relations. Based on qualitative data, the analysis examines two criteria for informed consent: adequate information and freedom from undue influence. The findings highlight the messy and blurred nature of consent that is found in other fields of practice as well. There are, however, some distinctive features relevant to consensual services in child welfare which need to be further elaborated. In particular, family relationality shapes the nature of consent through intra-familial power and emotions, differently for parents and children. Critical awareness of the nature of consent is also important for an understanding of service-user participation and self-determination.

Summary Competence is an essential part of any decision-making process. In child protection, it is challenged by the controversial nature of child removals and the vulnerable situations which children and parents experience therein. This article examines how and on what grounds social workers view parents and children to be competent to give their informed view in care order proceedings and what they do if doubts about competence arise. The analysis is based on 30 interviews with social workers in Finland. Findings The professional ethos and ethics of social work were embedded in the social workers’ descriptions of children’s and parents’ competence. The social workers were confident that the parents and children (of certain age) were competent to give their informed view about whether to consent to the care order proposal and the proposed substitute home. When they spoke about competence ascribed with hesitation, they described the vulnerability of service users, as well as their attitudes and withdrawal from contact. In the cases, social workers emphasized a strength-based view of children and parents and aimed to ‘talk more’ with them and to ‘give them more time’ to support their right to give an informed view. Applications Social vulnerability and competence should be explored reflectively in relation to decision-making in child protection. A better understanding of their interrelation makes social workers more competent to support the service users’ right to be included in decision-making. Critical awareness is needed to recognize when ‘more talk’ is not enough to realize children’s and parents’ rights.

This article examines what social workers do when preparing the removal of a child into public care in statutory child welfare. The focus is on how social workers describe both their 'doing' and themselves in care order preparations. Care order preparations take place at the crossroads of the different needs and rights of children and their parents as well as those arising from professionalism, law and bureaucracy. They involve the use of professional and public power given to social workers. The thematic analysis is based on interviews with Finnish social workers (29) in which they describe a preparatory process. The analysis focuses on the descriptions of 'doing' and those of the 'doer'. Talking, writing and coordinating form an essential part of social work in the descriptions of care order preparations. When describing their work, social workers speak about themselves as relational actors and very little as agents of the statutory, bureaucratic system. This reflects the non-adversial nature of the Finnish child welfare system with its emphasis on consensus as well as the current dominant discourse on what 'good' social work in child welfare is. Given the nature of care orders and the restrictions on family life likely to arise as a result of the preparatory process, other approaches to describe 'doing' care order preparations could be expected as well.