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The report has to parts. First we present a knowledge review concerning the situation of children and young people with parents who are LGBT. In the second part we discuss statistical information about how many children and young people in Norway who grow up in families where at least one parent is LGBT. The knowledge review The review discusses two issues. The first is to generate better knowledge about children who grow up in families where at least one parent is LGBT through an update of recent Norwegian and international research. The research includes adoptive and foster homes as well. Second an objective has been to map areas where knowledge is lacking, and formulate relevant research questions. Going through data bases in English and the Nordic languages resulted in 342 hits. In addition we used the snowball method and hand searches of relevant journals. After assessing the material we had collected, 44 studies published between 1989 and 2012 were included in the review, mostly from the UK, USA, or the Netherlands. It became very quickly apparent that most of the existing research literature concerns lesbian families, and that many publications were generated by the same research groups about one or a couple of projects. Research involving two gay parents has become slightly more common during later years, but is, still, significantly less prominent. In addition it has been well nigh impossible to find studies of bisexual or transgender parents. Studies of children who are adopted or fostered by LGBT parents are fairly rare as well. Consequently we were able to pinpoint serious holes in existing knowledge from the outset. The review starts in chapter 2, where literature concerning different ways children become family members when at least one parent is LGBT are presented. Here, an important distinction exists between children born in a heterosexual relationship where one, possibly both parents later come out as LGBT, as opposed to children who are born into families where one or both parents already identify themselves as LGBT. As is to be expected, older studies are more concerned with the former of these groups, while more recent studies are more concerned with the latter category. In chapter 3 we discuss research on correlations and consequences of children and young people's situation and well-being and the sexual orientation of the parents. The chapter covers two main themes. We have chosen to call the first theme neutral consequences because this relates to children and young people's sexual identity, sex roles and sexual orientation. Here one mainly finds neglible differences due to the family situation. Most children with lhbt parents identify themselves as heterosexual. At the same time a more open attitude towards experimenting with different sexual expressions has been noted. The second theme in chapter three is potentially problematic consequences for children and young people, for instance regarding mental health, social functioning, school achievement or bullying. Again it must be underlined that most of the existing research concerns lesbian mothers, in many studies compared to single, heterosexual mothers or mothers living with the fathers of their children. In general we conclude that few differences between the groups are found, and that some differences are in faviour of lesbian families. A reasonable conclusion is that one should not view the sexual orientation of the parents as the significant factor. Rather, there is the question of the kind of care and conditions for development the parents offer their children. With regard to problem development on the part of the children, one will, rather, be concerned with risk factors commonly associated with the care environment like poor mental health and substance abuse on the part of the parents, poverty, and messy divorces, etc. In chapter four the focus changes to research on the relationship between children and parents when one or both parents are LGBT. Here we have found studies reporting the viewpoints of children as well as parents, and adoptive homes. However, studies of lesbian families still predominate. Again the studies find few differences between children's situation which can be attributed to the sexual orientation of the parents. As well, some of the results justify raising the question of whether the parents' gender means more than their sexual orientation, to the extent that it may seem as if women may have other and more close relations with their children than men have. As most of the research we have found mostly find few differences attributable to the parents' sexual orientation, chapter 5 briefly discusses risk factors for problem development among children and young people. We argue that these have greater significance than the parents' sexual orientation. An important result from the review is that studies which build on the perspectives of grown-ups and standardized assessments of the children and young people generally have another focus than that presented through interviews with children and young people. In chapter 6 we show that when children and young people are asked directly, they are mostly concerned with aspects like their parents' openness in the local community, possible bullying because of their parents' sexual orientation, functional coping strategies, and LGBT organizations and environments as a resource. Thus, this chapter illustrates the diversity in children and young people's perspectives, which necessitates an open attitude to their daily lives. In addition it is necessary to accept that different ways of relating to the world outside of the family can be equally useful. Research about children and young people with LGBT parents, which primarily concerns lesbian families, is frequently criticized as being methodologically weak. This has to do with small samples, often convenience samples, insufficient matching with comparison groups, etc. As well some will criticize the research for being too intent on «proving» that LGBT parents are at least as good parents as others. Such a politicized focus may be seen in relation to the fact that the research in this field started during the 1970ies, in the wake of lesbian mothers losing custody of their children in cases of divorce because of their sexual orientation. Thus the context of the research is different today, which will, probably lead to other approaches to the research. Chapter 8 ends the review with a series of suggestions for future research based on the identified knowledge gaps. First, we argue that there is a need for better phenomenological descriptions about what growing up with LGBT parents is like. In addition it would be interesting to investigate more closely the significance of different ways of becoming part of the family for the children, and whether the parents' being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transpersons means different things – in other words an in-group comparison within LGBT. Further, there is a great lack of research on the situation of children sharing their lives between more than one base, where parents who are LGBT are a part. An important question her will, as well, be the significance of relationships between children, parents, and the extended family and network, which is not at all discussed in the studies we have found. Finally we discuss the need for research on foster and adoptive families, and lastly the question of LGBT parents' interaction on important arenas in their children's daily lives. Here, collaboration with helping services are of great significance. Since we are talking about large knowledge gaps, we finally argue that it would be wise to pool research resources into few, large, preferably longitudinal studies about the well-being of children and young people with LGBT parents, rather that distributing the resources between many small projects. How many children and young people? The second part of the report discusses the possibilities of estimating how many children and young people in Norway who grow up in families where at least one parent is LGBT. Second, we discuss possibilities and limitations associated with available statistics. One important conclusion is that existing statistics can answer a few questions, associated with the number of same-sex parents with children from a former relationship, the amount of step child adoptions by same-sex couples, and the amount of children registered as being born as the result of donor insemination, assisted fertilization or the use of surrogate mothers. The diversity where children with LGBT parents is concerned is, however, significantly greater than described by official statistics. Consequently these statistics are far from sufficient in significant areas which could have given more precise information. For instance we do not know the rate of single parents who are LGBT, nor the amount of families where the mother or father, or/and their spouses/partners, are LGBT. The results presented in this part of the report must, thus, be seen as a starting point of important work directed at generating better knowledge. This part of the reports concludes with some suggestions for further research as well. First, we propose a survey based study to members of relevant organizations and via other channels, for instance web-based, but aiming at map the situation in Norway. Second we propose that foster care and adoption services are contacted directly to map the prevalence of LGBT foster and adoptive parents. Third, we propose that Statistics Norway is asked to do special analyses of the degree of contact between children of divorce and their parents, when one or both parents are LGBT. ; Denne rapporten har to deler. I første del presenteres nordisk og annen internasjonal forskning om situasjonen til barn og unge med foreldre som er lesbiske, homofile, bifile og transpersoner (lhbt). Forskningen dreier seg om betydningen av hvordan barnet er kommet inn i familien, om det er signifikante forskjeller mellom barn og unge i lhbt-familier og andre familier når det gjelder seksuell orientering, mental helse, sosial tilpasning, skoleprestasjoner og mobbing. Dessuten undersøkes barn og unges egne oppfatninger. Gjennomgangen har bidratt med mye ny kunnskap, og peker på viktige, udekkede områder som bør utforskes framover. I tillegg diskuteres muligheter og begrensninger når det gjelder å beregne hvor mange barn og unge i Norge som har lhbt-foreldre.

This open access book critically explores what child protection policy and professional practice would mean if practice was grounded in human rights standards. This book inspires a new direction in child protection research - one that critically assesses child protection policy and professional practice with regard to human rights in general, and the rights of the child in particular. Each chapter author seeks to approach the rights of the child from their own academic field of interest and through a comparative lens, making the research relevant across nation-state practices. The book is split into five parts to focus on the most important aspects of child protection. The first part explains the origins, aim, and scope of the book; the second part explores aspects of professionalism and organization through law and policy; and the third part discusses several key issues in child protection and professional practice in depth. The fourth part discusses selected areas of importance to child protection practices (low-impact in-house measures, public care in residential care and foster care respectively) and the fifth part provides an analytical summary of the book. Overall, it contributes to the present need for a more comprehensive academic debate regarding the rights of the child, and the supranational perspective this brings to child protection policy and practice across and within nation-states

This open access book critically explores what child protection policy and professional practice would mean if practice was grounded in human rights standards. This book inspires a new direction in child protection research – one that critically assesses child protection policy and professional practice with regard to human rights in general, and the rights of the child in particular. Each chapter author seeks to approach the rights of the child from their own academic field of interest and through a comparative lens, making the research relevant across nation-state practices. The book is split into five parts to focus on the most important aspects of child protection. The first part explains the origins, aim, and scope of the book; the second part explores aspects of professionalism and organization through law and policy; and the third part discusses several key issues in child protection and professional practice in depth. The fourth part discusses selected areas of importance to child protection practices (low-impact in-house measures, public care in residential care and foster care respectively) and the fifth part provides an analytical summary of the book. Overall, it contributes to the present need for a more comprehensive academic debate regarding the rights of the child, and the supranational perspective this brings to child protection policy and practice across and within nation-states.

Is the concept of «social capital» useful to social scientific research concerning children and young people? Is it useful for the development of social policies? The report adresses these questions through a comprehensive literature review combined with discussions of research done by the contributors. At a youth research conference in 2008 the British youth researcher Janet Holland showed that «social capital» is often criticized for serving as a rubber sheet concept which is stretched in all directions to accomodate any issue we wish to focus on. A more concise meaning of the concept has still not been established. At the same time, however, the concept may serve as an aid to developing new analytical dimensions and new research questions, as well as adding new political questions to the agenda. Consequently we need an ongoing conceptual clarification, and it may well be that the most important mission of the concept is to raise the following question: «What kind of social relations serve actor X best in situation Y in order to achieve goal Z"? In the report we argue that the answer to this question is too context-dependent to enable a generalized undestanding of what kinds of social relations that constitute social capital across actors, goals, and situations. Through the literature review and discussions of the contributors' own research we show in what ways «social capital» may be concretized and made more precise. In the first part of the report we present a knowledge status covering relevant Norwegian and international research, in particular concerning the areas of generation, school, delinquency and locality. In addition we have included research on children and young peoples' welfare in a wide sense such as health, well-being, access to resources outside the family and participation in civil society. An important issue discussed here is to what extent researchers portray children and young people as active in creating and maintaining social capital. We have also reviewed literature directly using social capital as an analytical tool. In addition we have reviewed literature about phenomena that are often interpreted as social capital, like trust, social networks and participation in civil society. Since research literature about children and young people is prolific it was necessary to choose some functional inclusion criteria. We discuss what social capital may be understood as – and used for – with important contributions to the literature from our view as a point of departure. In addition we have developed some new concepts, like what we call sub-cultural capital and liminal capital. This serves as the basis for further clarification and interpretation of the concept, through discussions of how marginalized persons or persons on the borderline of society can have their own forms of social capital. The first part of the report focuses primarily on relevant research areas. We identify comparative as well as national projects, and projects utilizing quantitative as well as qualitative methodologies. We argue that social capital can be seen as processes that can be incluenced by political initiatives as well as through how institutions and professionals act. We also argue that research on social capital will not only result in new knowledge, but also lead to knowledge about children, young people and their families that is relevant for the practice field. In the second and third parts of the report we also discuss relevant literature as well as themes and issues for further research (perspectives, themes, and methodologies). We demonstrate the relevance of subcultural or liminal capital as concepts through analyses of two empirical studies. First, these studies underline that this perspective on social capital among marginalized groups helps us see resources and not only problems among thesegroups of young people. Second, the studies open up for a discussion of possibilities for a more dynamic understanding of the concept of social capital. Since this constitutes an extension of a concept that is already criticized for being far too comprehensive and vague, it remains to be seen whether this is an advantage or a disadvantage with regard to our thinking about social capital. ; Er begrepet sosial kapital nyttig for samfunnsvitenskapelig forskning og politikkutviklingen for og med barn og unge? Denne NOVA-rapporten svarer ved hjelp av litteraturgjennomgang og egen forskning. Begrepet sosial kapital kan bidra til nye forståelser og spørsmål og er kontekstavhengig av aktører, mål og situasjoner. Vi har vektlagt generasjoner, skole, kriminalitet, nærmiljø, helse, trivsel, tilgang til ressurser utenom familien og deltagelse - og forskningslitteraturens fremstilling av barn og unge som aktive i å skape og opprettholde sosial kapital. Vi utvikler nye begreper i forlengelsen av dette, subkulturell og liminal kapital, for å klargjøre ulike betydninger. Marginaliserte personer som beveger seg på grensene, de liminale, kan ha sin egen form for sosial kapital. Forskningen om sosial kapital kan få fram ny, handlingsrelevant kunnskap om barn, unge og familier.

This report presents the result of a literature review commissioned by the government Committee on violence against children ( Barnevoldsutvalget ). The aim of the literature review was to provide an outline of research that would shed light on the following two questions – central to the committee's work: What factors are identified in the research literature that may explain why public services sometimes fail in protecting children from violence, abuse and neglect? What approaches to improving public services' capacity to protect children from violence are identified, and what are the respective advantages and disadvantages of these approaches? The literature review has two main parts: The first part reviews literature that focuses on different explanations of failure to protect children. Main themes here are professional decision-making and inter-agency collaboration. Related to this, we review literature on different projects, in Norway and internationally, set up to overcome barriers to inter-agency collaboration. The second part of the report reviews literature that describes approaches and measures set up to prevent failure in child protection: The literature is organized in three strands: Literature focusing on structured methods of risk assessment, literature on professionals' relational work, as well as literature describing different systems for review of child deaths and serious injury. In a final section, knowledge gaps which were identified through the review are presented. ; Denne rapporten gjennomgår forskning, i Norge og internasjonalt, som belyser offentlige tjenesters håndtering av saker der barn og unge har vært utsatt for vold, seksuelle overgrep og alvorlig omsorgssvikt. Kunnskapsgjennomgangen identifiserer også kunnskapshull for feltet. Rapporten er utformet på oppdrag av Barne-, likestillings- og inklu-deringsdepartementet for å bistå det regjeringsoppnevnte Barnevoldsutvalget.

This report presents the result of a literature review commissioned by the government Committee on violence against children ( Barnevoldsutvalget ). The aim of the literature review was to provide an outline of research that would shed light on the following two questions – central to the committee's work: What factors are identified in the research literature that may explain why public services sometimes fail in protecting children from violence, abuse and neglect? What approaches to improving public services' capacity to protect children from violence are identified, and what are the respective advantages and disadvantages of these approaches? The literature review has two main parts: The first part reviews literature that focuses on different explanations of failure to protect children. Main themes here are professional decision-making and inter-agency collaboration. Related to this, we review literature on different projects, in Norway and internationally, set up to overcome barriers to inter-agency collaboration. The second part of the report reviews literature that describes approaches and measures set up to prevent failure in child protection: The literature is organized in three strands: Literature focusing on structured methods of risk assessment, literature on professionals' relational work, as well as literature describing different systems for review of child deaths and serious injury. In a final section, knowledge gaps which were identified through the review are presented. ; Denne rapporten gjennomgår forskning, i Norge og internasjonalt, som belyser offentlige tjenesters håndtering av saker der barn og unge har vært utsatt for vold, seksuelle overgrep og alvorlig omsorgssvikt. Kunnskapsgjennomgangen identifiserer også kunnskapshull for feltet. Rapporten er utformet på oppdrag av Barne-, likestillings- og inklu-deringsdepartementet for å bistå det regjeringsoppnevnte Barnevoldsutvalget.

An overview of the current situation in the out-of-home care in Norway and Sweden is presented in this article; also the development in later years is described and discussed. Socially, politically and culturally there are few differences between Norway and Sweden. Child protection and out-of-home placement of children and young people are integrated parts in the welfare state that are shared by the Nordic countries. It is a model that builds on principles of universalism and decommodification of social rights. The welfare model presupposes high public legitimacy for a high level of social expenditure. However the idea of marketization and privatization has also affected the welfare model in Sweden and Norway. Although there are more similarities than differences between the two countries' child protection systems, the article discusses some differences, for example the after care services, new groups of children and young people in the out-of-home care, like young unaccompanied asylum seekers. There are also some differences when it comes to privatization, the introduction of evidence-based methods in the child protection system and the tension between general and residual services for children and young people in the child protection system

ABSTRACTWith placement in residential care, society assumes overall responsibility for a child's daily care, well‐being and development. How public authorities respond to poor care quality is of crucial importance. To guarantee quality care and minimise risks, welfare states increasingly develop different mechanisms and systems to supervise out‐of‐home care. In this article, we analyse how central inspectorates in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden deal with what can be conceived as the last supervisory measure, namely, the revocation of licences. The aim is to describe and analyse how frequently and why national inspectorates in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden withdraw residential care licences. The findings are based on an analysis of all available documented reports on revocation decisions between 2017 and 2021. The findings reveal that, between 2017 and 2021, there were 53 licence suspensions or revocations across the four countries, albeit with variations among the nations. Furthermore, the study shows that residential care units (RCUs) generally have a documented history of interactions with inspectorates. Revocation decisions were often attributed to several reasons, with safety, staff‐related concerns and documentation deficiencies being the primary factors. The findings are discussed based on concepts and theory on regulation and supervision.