Periodic Reporting for period 4 - DISCRETION (Discretion and the child´s best interests in child protection)
Reporting period: 2021-12-01 to 2023-05-31
One of the most invasive and consequential decisions a state can make is to terminate or severely curtail the rights and responsibilities of parents. Through the child protection system, the state can assume parental responsibility or terminate all parental rights when parents are unable or unwilling to perform their parental obligations.
To secure children´s best interests, the state might place children in foster homes or residential units, or let another family adopt the child. These interventions represent an immensely strong state power. Child protection decisions simultaneously challenge individual freedoms and the privacy and autonomy of family life. Such decisions must therefore be of high quality and withstand public scrutiny.
However, child protection decisions are in most cases highly discretionary decisions in which professionals are given the authority to make judgement or choices about what is in the best interests of the child and how these interests should be weighed against parents’ interests and/or against the child´s opinion. The discretionary nature of these decisions is often seen when the legitimacy of interventions, or lack of interventions, by front-line staff or the court is harshly criticized in the media.
Research shows considerable difference in the likelihood of interventions or measures between decision-makers within the same child protection system as well as between systems. However, we do not know if the differences we observe are due to similar cases being treated differently or if the cases are different.
The DISCRETION-project aims to fill the research gaps in this important area of the welfare. The ambition is to unlock the black box of discretionary decision-making in child protection cases by doing a comparative empirical study of how discretionary decisions are made and justified in the best interests of the child.
The DISCRETION-project will bring important insights about the exercise of discretion in the welfare state and provide new knowledge about the relationship between the family and the state.
To secure children´s best interests, the state might place children in foster homes or residential units, or let another family adopt the child. These interventions represent an immensely strong state power. Child protection decisions simultaneously challenge individual freedoms and the privacy and autonomy of family life. Such decisions must therefore be of high quality and withstand public scrutiny.
However, child protection decisions are in most cases highly discretionary decisions in which professionals are given the authority to make judgement or choices about what is in the best interests of the child and how these interests should be weighed against parents’ interests and/or against the child´s opinion. The discretionary nature of these decisions is often seen when the legitimacy of interventions, or lack of interventions, by front-line staff or the court is harshly criticized in the media.
Research shows considerable difference in the likelihood of interventions or measures between decision-makers within the same child protection system as well as between systems. However, we do not know if the differences we observe are due to similar cases being treated differently or if the cases are different.
The DISCRETION-project aims to fill the research gaps in this important area of the welfare. The ambition is to unlock the black box of discretionary decision-making in child protection cases by doing a comparative empirical study of how discretionary decisions are made and justified in the best interests of the child.
The DISCRETION-project will bring important insights about the exercise of discretion in the welfare state and provide new knowledge about the relationship between the family and the state.
For the entire project period, the DISCRETION project had a total of 41 publications, which included 4 edited books, 21 peer-reviewed articles, 15 peer-reviewed chapters, and 1 report. Among the peer-reviewed articles, 52% were published in scientific level 2 journals, while 33% of the book chapters and two of the edited books were in scientific level 2 publications or publishers. The Norwegian Scientific index divides journals and publishers considered to meet scientific quality criteria into "level 1" and "level 2"."Level 2" is reserved for the internationally most prestigious journals and publishers within the discipline. A total of 19 of the publications (articles, book chapters, and reports) had either early career researchers as co-authors or they were sole authors.
Additionally, in the DISCRETION project, there were a total of 39 disseminations, including 22 conferences, 16 seminars, and 1 book launch. Thirteen of the disseminations (conferences, seminars, and book launch) had either early career researchers as co-presenters or they were sole presenters. Researchers from the project also communicated insights from the project in the mass media and at popular science events. In addition, knowledge resulting from the project was continuously communicated through the project’s website, Twitter account, and newsletter.
The Discretion-project collected a wide range of data material for a cross-country comparison of five countries: Austria, Estonia, England, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, and Spain. The data material was analyzed to map and explain the differences in discretionary decisions in child protection, to understand how the child’s best interest principle was interpreted, and how best interest decisions were justified. The data material included:
-Information about key-variables of the different child protection systems, including information about organization models, model of child protection system, legislation and regulations concerning child protection interventions, etc.
-A complete sample of first instance court judgements from each country or a region, concerning adoptions from care for one year or for several years.
-A large sample of first instance court judgements from each country or region concerning care order removals of newborn babies for one year or for several years.
-Collection of all judgments from the European Court of Human Rights where the facts of the case relate to adoption from care or where the facts of the case show that the child removed from a family was a new-born.
-Interview data with judges in Austria, Estonia, Ireland, Norway, and Spain. about their views on children and their best interest and threshold for interventions.
-Survey data (incl. randomized survey vignette experiments and experiments) from representative samples of the population in 60 countries with information about their views on child protection, paternalism, individual responsibility vs. government responsibility for children, child participation, best interest considerations,
threshold for government interventions.
Additionally, in the DISCRETION project, there were a total of 39 disseminations, including 22 conferences, 16 seminars, and 1 book launch. Thirteen of the disseminations (conferences, seminars, and book launch) had either early career researchers as co-presenters or they were sole presenters. Researchers from the project also communicated insights from the project in the mass media and at popular science events. In addition, knowledge resulting from the project was continuously communicated through the project’s website, Twitter account, and newsletter.
The Discretion-project collected a wide range of data material for a cross-country comparison of five countries: Austria, Estonia, England, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, and Spain. The data material was analyzed to map and explain the differences in discretionary decisions in child protection, to understand how the child’s best interest principle was interpreted, and how best interest decisions were justified. The data material included:
-Information about key-variables of the different child protection systems, including information about organization models, model of child protection system, legislation and regulations concerning child protection interventions, etc.
-A complete sample of first instance court judgements from each country or a region, concerning adoptions from care for one year or for several years.
-A large sample of first instance court judgements from each country or region concerning care order removals of newborn babies for one year or for several years.
-Collection of all judgments from the European Court of Human Rights where the facts of the case relate to adoption from care or where the facts of the case show that the child removed from a family was a new-born.
-Interview data with judges in Austria, Estonia, Ireland, Norway, and Spain. about their views on children and their best interest and threshold for interventions.
-Survey data (incl. randomized survey vignette experiments and experiments) from representative samples of the population in 60 countries with information about their views on child protection, paternalism, individual responsibility vs. government responsibility for children, child participation, best interest considerations,
threshold for government interventions.
The project had progressed beyond the state of the art through the analysis of the unique data collected (combining data from different systems and levels, collected by various methods), see scientific report #1.1. Major achievements. This had allowed for innovative cross-country and multilevel comparisons of standards for decision-making, criteria for intervention thresholds, requirements for child protection proceedings, and the rationale and justification for discretionary child-protection decisions. The analysis continued to reveal new insights into the mechanism for exercising discretion and understanding the principle of the child’s best interests. New data was collected that enabled the systematic examination of the role of individual, organizational, and institutional factors in how discretionary decisions were made and justified in the best interests of the child. Findings from these data provided knowledge about key norms regarding the state's responsibility to provide or intervene compared to parental rights, family rights, and child rights.