Canvassing for clients

Be aware that the municipal child welfare agencies are actively seeking clients and they have close contacts with the child welfare industry. The Government’s financing model (child welfare coefficient) has made it more advantageous for the municipalities to take children into care than to give support in open care. The child welfare institutions receive around 80 000–150 000 euros a year per child in care. Foster families receive around 30 000 euros of which one third is tax free.

All of the municipal services (maternity and child health clinics, health care, day care, schools etc.) that are required by law to report suspected child welfare issues, participate in the canvassing for clients.


Prejudices

Everyone is equal before the law.

Do not allow yourself or your child to be treated as a problem case if there are no real problems. You are the best expert on your child.

Gender, age, origin, language, religion, beliefs, opinions, health, disability or another reason related to the person are not grounds for branding you as a problem case. They are not grounds for your child becoming a child welfare client or for the carrying out of child welfare measures. Poverty and income support are not grounds for child welfare measures either.

You and your family have a legal right to receive social and health services. According to the law, your wishes are to be heard.

Your child has the right to free basic education, the right to receive support for schooling without being removed from home (taken into care). The support can be for example remedial education, special education and/or working in small groups. The child also has the right to a safe learning environment.

Your child has the right to receive health services (e.g. psychiatric care) without being removed from home (taken into care).


Problem seeking

Taking part in the problem seeking sessions of child welfare can be the beginning of real problems.

When you meet a child welfare worker:

- Do not accept their general jargon, but be specific and make the matters clear.

- Ask well-defined questions, write down or record all of the discussions. You have the right to use an assistant during the meetings.

Be aware that the child welfare worker usually has an agenda that you are not informed of.


Prying

The Finnish constitution and the human rights agreements protect family life.

You do not have to give details about your family matters unless you want to do so.

Be aware, that when you talk about a difficult episode in your or your child's life, it can lead to a lifelong diagnosis for you or your child, or it can be used as grounds for child welfare proceedings.

Be aware that the child welfare workers usually create their own story about you and your family.

Make sure that your child also knows that there is no obligation to talk about their own or the family's matters to outsiders.

Be aware that all information you have given and all information about you will be documented. That information will always be available to be used against you and your child.

Ask at regular intervals to receive the reports written by the child welfare officers. You are legally entitled to have them.

Be aware that becoming a child welfare client is an impediment to the child’s future.


Cooperation

Freedom of speech is in accordance with the Finnish constitution.

Cooperate correctly with the authorities.

According to the law, the client’s wishes and opinions have to be taken into account when offering social and health services.

You are legally entitled to present your opinions and views on the activities of the child welfare officers.

Be aware that presenting a different opinion can lead to child welfare measures being taken. The grounds that would be used are that you are incapable of cooperating and you do not understand what is in your child’s best interests. Be aware, that refusing to cooperate with the child welfare staff can lead to child welfare measures being taken.

The child welfare authority can refuse to cooperate and can be out of reach. According to the law, you can make a complaint or comment on the matter. Be aware that doing so and interfering with the authority’s inappropriate or illegal practices can lead to child welfare measures being taken.


Supervision

Child welfare support in open care is voluntary according to the law.

Learn to identify whether you are receiving help or supervision, whether the authority wants to help or only to control you and your family.

Identifying questions

The questions below help to identify and ascertain the client’s situation, so they are a tool for the parents.

Have you personally asked for help?

Was the help what you had hoped for?
                                                                                                                                   
Have you received help even though you did not want any?

Are your wishes being taken into consideration?

Are you being threatened that your child will be taken away from you if you do not accept the support measures?

Do you want to be subjected to supervision exclusively?

Be aware that refusing the support measures offered in open care can in itself lead to child welfare measures being taken.

Be aware that the child welfare workers spread information about your family to different authorities and negotiate with them. Networks and teams unknown to you are making decisions about your child without you being able to control the situation in any way.


Leeni Ikonen
> Contacts

Kansanvalistusta lastensuojelun asiakkaalle
K сведению клиентов службы защиты прав ребенка
Other articles:
Open letter to Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT)

Lokakuun Liike (October Movement) is a human rights organization aiming to raise public awareness and discussion about human rights and their violations in family politics, foster and mental care and other forms of institutional care.

Finland has very high rates of children placed into foster care and a many ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) verdicts of human rights violations in child welfare services.

Foster care children and their families constantly report us of violations of human rights in foster care, which has no proper surveillance or governmental control in Finland. 



The main shortcomings are:


1. Children and families are not offered sufficient support measures before, during or after placements. The support measures used are not voluntary or useful to the families. Often the real target of these measures is to find grounds to initiate or continue foster care placements.


2. Families are not entitled to objective investigation or fair trial according to the European Convention of Human Rights.

The trials are not held in objective Distractive courts but in Administrative courts, where incompetent and inexperienced judges, often ex- social workers accept (acceptance rate over 95%) almost all applications of social workers without hearing the families or investigation or demanding proof of the accusations. 


3. The placements are not temporary but permanent, and no efforts are made to re-unite the families.


4. There is a continuous lack of surveillance in foster care; both in institutional and family care. Children and parents reporting the violations of foster care are punished, isolated from each other or the child is ordered a child welfare guardian, which in Finland does not have to be neutral and often is a social worker or connected to foster care. 


5. Social workers, often incompetent (in some regions over half of the staff) and challengeable (every third is planning to be private entrepreneur) protect the agents and entrepreneurs of foster care instead of children.

Regional State Administrative Agencies AVI admits the lack of surveillance and states, that at worst foster care institutions are visited only once in ten years. Often the control is limited to reading reports produced by institutional care agentsthemselves. 

National Audit Office of Finland and The Parliamentary Ombudsman of Finland have reported of constant and serious problems in foster care and child protection. The Parliamentary Ombudsman of Finland states, that
"The supervision of foster care in child protection is insufficient. The child protection authorities at the municipal level do not have enough time to visit foster care locations and they are not sufficiently familiar with the conditions and treatment of the children. The regional state administrative agencies do not have enough resources for inspections. Measures limiting the right to self-determination often lack legal grounds, for example, when they are based only on ‘institutional power’.”

In unregulated situations, limiting measures may be excessive or inconsistent.


The supervision of policies limiting self-determination is insufficient, and the controllability of these measures has shortcomings as there are no procedural guarantees of protection under the law. (2013, 62).



CASES

We would like to report you two recent cases in the Finnish foster care, and the role of social workers as protectors the violators in stead of violated children. 


Case 1) A foster care family, nominated as the Foster Family of the Year 2010 was proven guilty of beating, strangling and keeping the foster children in hot sauna-bath and in snow.

The biological mother of the children constantly reported the social worker of the bruises she noticed and made formal child welfare notification. 
The social worker did not document the notifications, neither made any kind of action to investigate the bruises. Instead, she prohibited the mother to see her children.

Case 2) A former board member of Foster Family Association was convicted of beating, isolating and starving her foster care children, giving them electric shocks and causing them frost injuries.

The foster mother was able to torture the foster children for a long period because of the lack of surveillance of foster care and the lack of legal protection of child welfare clients. Instead of paying attention to the shortcomings of child welfare services and foster care, the child welfare organizations and media concentrate in protecting the honor of foster care institutions and the reputation of child welfare services.


We suggest that the Committee would investigate Children foster homes


In practice, Lokakuun Liike is just a group of independent people; students, parents, journalists, teachers and lawyers working voluntary to improve the rights and conditions of the child welfare families.

We (October Movement) suggest that the Committee would investigate whether the Children foster homes which may use restrictions towards the children and their families, have used the record keeping of restrictive measures and the measures have been processed in a way that the Section 74 of Children Welfare Act (417/2007) provides. Relevant law is Children Welfare Act Sections 13 b, 21 and Chapter 11, Sections 61-74.

We suggest that you investigate for examble the following institutions, which are located in Northern Finland:

Onnelan lastenkoti, Oulu > Documents "10+1 syytä elää" ja "Kadonneet lapset"
Koulukoti Pohjolakoti, Muhos > Article
Oy Nordfami Ab, Ranua > Article

We hope, that you will bring these shortcomings to the awareness of international audience, and urge you to encourage the Finnish authorities to start an objective study of the conditions of contemporary Finnish foster care.


Lokakuun liike
[email protected]


Other articles:
Leeni Ikonen, Master of Laws: An advisory for child welfare clients

October Movement´s Documentary production:

            Story of Family K.
        10 + 1 Reasons to live:               Disappeared Children:              Prison in a Fosterhome: