Analyzing decision-maker’s justifications of care orders for newborn children: equal and individualized treatment

Ruiken, Barbara

doi:10.1080/15548732.2022.2158990

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…We have chosen drug and alcohol abuse, mental health, and mild learning disability, because the first may be regarded as being within an individual’s control, whereas a sickness or a condition is outside a person’s control. Furthermore, these three parental problems are empirically prevalent in child protection cases and are predicted to reduce parental capacities, and as such put a child – especially a newborn baby – at risk (Skivenes, 2023 ; Luhamaa et al, 2021 ; Ruiken, 2022 ). The results show a distinct treatment effect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restricting family life - an examination of citizens’ views on state interventions and parental freedom in eight European countries

Skivenes

Falch‐Eriksen²,

Hassan

2023

European Journal of Social Work

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This paper examines the public views – a total of 10,348 persons – on restrictions of personal autonomy of others to protect the interest of children. We use representative country samples of the adult populations of Austria, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, and Spain, and ask them to consider an experimental vignette with three different parental conditions: substance abuse, mental health problems, and learning difficulties. The findings display that most people would restrict parental freedom to protect the child, and a stricter restriction when the parent struggles with substance abuse compared to mental health compared to learning difficulties. There are some country differences, and when examining the role of institutional context of child protective system, a correlation is detected with significant differences between population views in a right-oriented system versus a well-being system and maltreatment system. In light of the ongoing European debates about child protection and how controversial and contested this area of the welfare state seem to be, it is interesting to learn (also) from this study that people, across countries, individual differences, child protection systems, overall are supportive of state intervention and support in a situation with a child at potential risk.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restricting family life - an examination of citizens’ views on state interventions and parental freedom in eight European countries

Skivenes

Falch‐Eriksen²,

Hassan

2023

European Journal of Social Work

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A tale of two cases – investigating reasoning in similar cases with different outcomes

Ruiken

2023

European Journal of Social Work

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Why is it that some care order cases result in the child being removed from parental care, while in others she is not, despite the cases being similar? This paper investigates how decision-makers reason and justify different outcomes for similar cases, by an analysis of four pairs of judgments (from Norway, Estonia, and Finland) about care orders, using thematic analysis. The comparison is within the pairs and not across countries. I find that the variance in outcome and reasoning seems to be a result of discretionary evaluations: risk, cooperation of the parents, and the potential of services to alleviate the situation are interpreted differently in the cases and lead to different outcomes. This appears to be a legitimate use of the discretionary space available to the decision-makers. The decisions are justified with ‘good reasons’ mostly related to threshold, the least intrusive intervention principle, and the best interests of the child. Such justifications are suitable to provide accountability and legitimacy, but the reasoning is at times lacking transparency and thoroughness. The reasoning is longer in the non-removal cases, suggesting that more thorough reasoning is required when the decision-makers depart from the most common outcome.

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Analyzing decision-maker’s justifications of care orders for newborn children: equal and individualized treatment

Cited by 2 publications

References 42 publications

Restricting family life - an examination of citizens’ views on state interventions and parental freedom in eight European countries

Restricting family life - an examination of citizens’ views on state interventions and parental freedom in eight European countries

A tale of two cases – investigating reasoning in similar cases with different outcomes

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