Child welfare

Notifications: Upon receiving a notification, the Child Welfare Services must review it as soon as possible, within a week, and decide whether no action is to be taken or whether an investigation should be initiated. Until 2013, Statistics Norway did not collect data on notifications where no action was taken and where no investigation was initiated.

Investigations: The Child Welfare Services have a right and duty to initiate an investigation when there are reasonable grounds to assume that a child is living in conditions that require intervention pursuant to the Child Welfare Act. Statistics Norway started collecting data on all investigations in 2013. Prior to this, if the Child Welfare Services conducted more than one investigation into the same child, only one investigation was registered; either the investigation that led to a decision to intervene or the first investigation in the statistical year.

Assistance measures: Assistance measures are in accordance with section 4-4 of the Child Welfare Act (corresponds to section 18 – Preventive measures and section 51 – Follow-up measures in the old legislation). Measures can include financial support, kindergarten placement, support contact, supervision, home visits/home respite, home consultancy, respite care in an institution, parent/child care centre placement (home for mothers), outpatient treatment in mental health care for children and adolescents, etc. The new legislation that came into force in 1993 provides for children being removed from the home, and placed in a foster home, for example, without the need for a decision to provide care. According to section 4-4 fifth paragraph of the Act, such placements are categorised as assistance measures.

Care orders: Care orders are in accordance with section 4-12 of the Child Welfare Act (section 19 in the old legislation). All decisions on providing care for a child and placing him or her in foster care are made by the county social welfare board. Care orders are provided for in section 4-12, and include placement in a care centre for minors, foster home, an institution or a training or treatment institution. When the child is in care, all measures aimed at the child are registered as care orders. Until 2013, local authorities was responsible for reporting whether a measure was a care order. As from 2013, Statistics Norway reports whether a measure is an assistance measure or a care order as provided for in the legislation.

Follow-up care: In 1998, amendments to the Child Welfare Act meant that measures that were initiated before a child turned 18 could be continued or replaced with other assistance measures if the child agreed. Such measures can continue until the child reaches 23 years of age, and a generic term for measures in the age group 18-22 is follow-up care.

New children in the Child Welfare Services: All children who are subject to child welfare measures in a statistical year, who are not included in the child welfare statistics in the preceding year, are defined as ‘new children’ with measures. This means that even if the child is registered as a new child in the child welfare statistics, he or she may have received help previously. Use of personal identification numbers is crucial here for identifying the new children in the Child Welfare Services.

Staff are registered under the following education categories: social workers, child welfare educationalists, other university college/university education, office/commercial education, other education/unskilled.

Organisation: Indicates whether the Child Welfare Services are organised as one host municipality partnership and/or as part of NAV.

Quality indicators: Indicates whether the Child Welfare Services have a system for user surveys, if they have a user survey in the statistical year and if the Child Welfare Services have internal controls.

Education – Child Welfare

Overall achievement mark: Based on a broad evaluation of the pupil’s competence in the subject. The pupil shall be given the opportunity to improve their competence displayed through their classwork until the overall achievement mark is determined towards the end of the academic year. Marks are awarded on a scale from 1 to 6, where mark 6 indicates that the pupil holds exceptionally high competence, and 1 indicates that the pupil has attained little competence in the subject.

Lower secondary school points: Can be viewed as a combined measurement for all marks. The lower secondary school point score summarizes the pupil’s results in all the different subjects and is part of the admission criteria for upper secondary school. A pupil’s school points are calculated by adding up each individual mark attained (overall achievement or examination), represented by numbers. This outcome is then divided by the number of marks, resulting in an average mark. The final score is calculated by multiplying this average, with two decimals, by 10.

A small proportion of pupils who complete lower secondary school do not get lower secondary school points. These are pupils who, for various reasons, lack grades in more than half of the subjects.

Parents highest completed education: Based on numbers from Norway’s National Education Database (NUDB). It is the new level definitions of Educational attainment of the population that is used. The parent with the highest educational level defines parents highest completed education.

Education programme: The education programmes in upper secondary education is divided in general studies and vocational education programmes.

General studies include Sports and physical education, Music, dance and drama, Specialization in general studies and from autumn 2016 Media and communication and Art, design and architecture.

Vocational studies include Building and construction, Design, arts and crafts, Electricity and electronics, Healthcare, childhood and youth development, Media and communication (old structure), Agriculture, fishing and forestry, Restaurant and food, Service and transport and Technical and industrial production.

Completed education: A pupil is considered to have completed their education with a university and college admissions certificate or vocational qualification if he/she is registered with passed Vg3/vocational certificate and/or registered with a certificate in the National Results Database. Those taking courses at a higher education institution are also treated as “completed upper secondary education”.

Status after completed lower secondary education: Status of the individual’s relationship to education, the labour marked and benefits. Status is prioritized in the following order: In higher education, in lower education, employed, recipients of health-related benefits, recipients of other benefits, dead/emigrated and other. The prioritization of status is different from the prioritization of labour force status in the statistics “Attachment to employment, education and welfare benefits”.