1. Summary in English

Commissioned by the Norwegian Board of Health Supervision, the County Governors carried out an investigation in 2022-2023 into whether children living in foster homes receive adequate follow-up from the Child Welfare Service after a care order has been implemented.

The supervisory activities focused on the work processes of the Child Welfare Service and examined whether

• the Child Welfare Service facilitates and provides the child with the opportunity to participate in follow-up and whether such participation is documented.
• the Child Welfare Service draws up plans for the follow-up of the child.
• the Child Welfare Service acquires adequate information about the child’s development, care situation and need for changes or additional measures. 
• the Child Welfare Service’s follow-up on the foster home is comprehensive and adapted for each foster family.
• the Child Welfare Service visits the foster home as frequently as is necessary to provide the child with adequate follow-up.
• the Child Welfare Service carries out an adequate assessment of the child’s development and care situation and reaches a conclusion as to whether there is a need for changes or additional measures.
• the Child Welfare Service makes the necessary decisions relating to the need for changes or additional measures.
• the local authority ensures systematic and adapted internal control in follow-up work.

The supervision was conducted at 52 Child Welfare Services using the system audit method. This report constitutes a summary of the County Governors’ findings and assessments from the 52 supervisory activities conducted.

What did we find?

The Norwegian Board of Health Supervision finds that Child Welfare Services largely conduct statutory follow-up visits at foster homes and speak with the children. This is an improvement compared to the previous nationwide supervision of the follow-up of children living in foster homes in 2013 and 2014.

Nevertheless, violations of the law were identified in 36 of the 52 supervisions carried out in 2022 and 2023. A main finding is that the follow-up of children living in foster homes after a care order has been implemented is often not systematic and comprehensive. Among other things, we found that:

• the planning of follow-up is often linked to individual visits and plans are not actively used in follow-up work
• there is a lack of a systematic approach to the collection of data when no fixed venues have been established in relation to the child, such as care team meetings and collaboration meetings
• the child’s needs are assessed, but the assessments are not documented. This often makes it difficult to establish whether the assessments have been carried out in accordance with the child’s needs
• necessary decisions are mostly implemented but when the assessments that form the basis for the decision are not documented, it is difficult to tell whether the child’s actual needs are met.

In 34 of 36 services where violations of the law were identified, these involved violations of the duty to carry out internal control set out in the Local Government Act. The aspects of internal control in relation to which shortcomings were identified varied. However, we often see that the services have not established a system to ensure that central aspects of follow-up work are requested, verified and quality-assured. The local authority management often lacks an overview of the areas in which there are shortcomings, or a risk of shortcomings and no corrective measures have been initiated.

Furthermore, a consistent finding among the services in which violations of the law were identified was the violation of the documentation requirement. Lack of documentation was identified in all phases of the work processes, but particularly in connection with the child welfare assessments carried out during the course of the work, the child’s opinions and the emphasis placed on the opinions of the child. A lack of documentation was also a consistent finding in the previous nationwide supervision from 2020 and 2021 in relation to the Child Welfare Services’ work on investigations (Norwegian Board of Health Supervision 2022). An extensive lack of documentation entails significant risk of consequential errors and a lack of continuity in the work. This can have major consequences on the follow-up process and the legal protection of both children and foster parents, especially in connection with staff turnover, absence due to illness and expertise within the Child Welfare Services. Another consequence is that management is unable to monitor whether the child receives the follow-up they are entitled to. When it comes to supervisory activities, it also makes it difficult to verify whether the child’s actual needs are adequately met.