Placing children in out‐of‐home care constitutes one of the strongest public interventions in families. This paper explores how Norwegian Child Welfare Service (CWS) workers present their reasons as well as their work processes in the course of deciding to place children in out‐of‐home care. The analysis is based on interviews with 83 social workers and concerns 109 children recently removed from their homes. Three central elements were identified in the social workers' accounts: (1) a description of worrying conditions in the family; (2) the workers' long‐term back‐and‐forth process, which revolved around experiences from the case, particularly around interactions with the parents; and (3) a triggering factor that made the out‐of‐home placement take place when it did. These elements underline the need to include both substance (conditions related to the child and his/her family) and procedure (conditions related to the work on the case) to understand what leads CWS to removing children. Both types of conditions put the parents, rather than the children, in the centre of the workers' attention, which may be explained by the position and role of the CWS workers as street‐level bureaucrats. The findings emphasize the importance of acknowledging the contradictory position of CWS workers.

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