The Establishment of Barnahus in Denmark: Dilemmas for Child Welfare Caseworkers

Søbjerg, Lene Mosegaard

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-58388-4_14

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…CONTACT M. louison Vang m.vang@ulster.ac.uk School of Psychology and Psychology Research Institute, Ulster University, Cromore Road, Coleraine, Ireland 目标 : 使用探索性结构方程模型 (ESEM) 评估继发性创伤与倦怠之间的关系, 并评估继发性创伤与功能损伤之间的关系。方法 : 对丹麦儿童中心667名丹麦儿童保护工作者进行了调查。继发性创伤使用《职业生活质量5》 (ProQoL-5) 进行测量, 倦怠使用《Oldenburg倦怠量表》进行评估。结果 : 三因素ESEM模型拟合数据最佳, 反映出与继发性创伤和倦怠结构一致的因素。这些因素与现有证据一致, 与创伤相关和组织变量有不同程度的关联。所有因素均与功能损伤显著相关。结论 : 这些发现支持了继发性创伤和倦怠的区分效度, 同时强调了当前使用总和评分法研究继发性创伤的方法学问题。本研究通过将明确地将继发性创伤与社会和认知功能损伤联系起来, 从而支持了继发性创伤的临床意义。 Advances in knowledge of the adverse effects of psychological traumatization have increasingly been translated into trauma-informed organizations and interventions that are gradually implemented across human service sectors. The Danish Children Centres, modelled after the Scandinavian 'Barnahus'-concept (Søbjerg, 2017), represent one such organization that are specialized in assessing the impact of physical and sexual abuse of children. Specifically, the Danish Children Centres provide a child-friendly site for conducting forensic interviews of children, a traumafocused assessment of the child's psychosocial needs and coordinate the inter-sectoral efforts involving, for example, municipal social workers with the decisional authority in cases of suspected child abuse and the police district investigating and prosecuting the cases.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Secondary traumatisation, burn-out and functional impairment: findings from a study of Danish child protection workers

Vang

Shevlin

Hansen

et al. 2020

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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Background: Child-protection workers are at elevated risk for secondary traumatization. However, research in the area of secondary traumatization has been hampered by two major obstacles: the use of measures that have unclear or inadequate psychometric properties and equivocal findings on the degree of associated functional impairment. Objective: To assess the relationship between secondary traumatization and burnout using exploratory structural equation modelling (ESEM) and to assess the relationship between secondary traumatization and functional impairment. Methods: A survey of Danish child-protection workers was conducted through the Danish Children Centres (N = 667). Secondary traumatization was measured using the Professional Quality of Life-5 (ProQoL-5) and burnout using the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory. Results: A three-factor ESEM model provided the best fit to the data, reflecting factors consistent with the structure of secondary traumatization and burnout. The factors were differentially related to trauma-related and organizational variables in ways consistent with existing evidence. All factors were significantly related to functional impairment. Conclusion: The findings supported the discriminant validity of secondary traumatization and burnout while highlighting methodological issues around the current use of sum-score approaches to investigating secondary traumatization. The current study supported the clinical relevance of secondary traumatization by linking it explicitly to social and cognitive functional impairment.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Secondary traumatisation, burn-out and functional impairment: findings from a study of Danish child protection workers

Vang

Shevlin

Hansen

et al. 2020

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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“…Despite this, Johansson emphasises the potential for reshaping collaboration dynamics, as collaborations are not static and collaborative settings like a Barnahus provide a space for these changes. Furthermore, Søbjerg (2017) identifies the Danish Barnahus as a place where knowledge is centralised and accessible, leading to increased confidence and improved collaboration between police and child protection through joint meetings and improved information sharing. One obstacle to collaboration in general is a lack of resources.…”

Section: Facilitating and Inhibiting Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stereotypes, specific perceptions and unrealistic expectations about each other can also impede collaboration (Cooper et al, 2016). In collaborative settings like the Danish Barnahus, Søbjerg (2017) found challenges due to different perspectives on handling child abuse cases within each agency. In the German context, Ziegenhain et al (2010) and Seckinger (2006) observed that the German data protection laws create uncertainties about sharing information with other professional groups.…”

Section: Facilitating and Inhibiting Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collaboration between Criminal Justice and Child Protection in Cases of Child Sexual Abuse: Unveiling Inhibiting and Facilitating Factors

Eilfgang,

Bayer,

Cigelski

et al. 2024

Child Abuse Review

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Victims of child sexual abuse (CSA) in criminal proceedings face a range of stress factors. In response to this, collaboration between criminal justice and child protection professionals has been established both legally and informally, such as in the newly established Childhood Houses in Germany, which follow the model of the Scandinavian Barnahus to reduce stress and prevent revictimisation. This study intends to identify facilitating and inhibiting factors in the collaboration between the child protection and criminal justice systems in cases of CSA in Germany. Twenty‐eight qualitative interviews with experts from child protection, like counselling centre employees (n = 5), psychosocial court supporters (n = 5) and youth welfare office workers (n = 5), and the criminal justice system, like prosecutors (n = 5), police officers (n = 5) and attorneys (n = 3). The interviews are structured by a questionnaire and analysed using Kuckartz's method of qualitative content analysis (QCA). Findings show that key factors like information flow, assessments of collaboration partners, uncertainties about laws and actors' perspectives on reporting and networking determine the success or failure of interagency collaboration.

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“…Denmark has seen a large increase in the number of referrals sent to child and family welfare services from approximately 60,000 in 2014 to 137,986 in 2019 (Statistics Denmark, 2020). The increase can be explained by a number of public scandals about neglected and abused children who were not identified to be at risk despite repeated referrals to child and family welfare services (Søbjerg, 2017). These scandals led to an increased awareness of children at risk, which was combined with a tightening of legislation in the Consolidation Act on Social Services (2015) that made it possible to prosecute public employees who have knowledge of children at risk but do not refer them to child and family welfare services (Søbjerg et al, 2020).…”

Section: Referrals and Decision‐making In A Danish Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a statistical model for assessment of referrals of children at risk

Søbjerg

2022

Child Abuse Review

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Including statistical models in assessment of referrals about children at risk holds promising aspects. This article presents results from an empirical pilot study developing and testing a statistical decision support system in the form of a predictive risk model.The study involved mixed methods and included 208 referrals assessed by 13 social workers in two municipalities in Denmark. The research design involved comparing risk scores provided by the social workers before and after they received a score generated by the model. Social workers' perception of the model was studied through qualitative interviews before, during and after the test. The quantitative results of the study show that presenting a statistical risk score to social workers only marginally changes their initial assessment of a referral. In contrast, the qualitative findings appeared to show that social workers are ready to include statistics in the decision-making process, but that some elements need to be considered. These include the definition of risk being used and the linking of this definition with the available data as well as the needs of the social workers. It is important to remember that a statistical model can supportnot definethe assessment. Statistical decision support systems based on predictive risk models might prove rewarding in providing more accurate and homogeneous assessments in child protection. Important issues to consider when developing a model are the definition of risk, the data available to the model and communication of the risk calculated. Risk assessments are based on uncertainties and while statistics might limit the uncertainty, data do not eliminate ambiguity of risk assessment. Social workers should engage in the development of statistical tools, but it is important to acknowledge that decisions should always be made by the professional, not the model.

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The Establishment of Barnahus in Denmark: Dilemmas for Child Welfare Caseworkers

Cited by 7 publications

References 6 publications

Secondary traumatisation, burn-out and functional impairment: findings from a study of Danish child protection workers

Secondary traumatisation, burn-out and functional impairment: findings from a study of Danish child protection workers

Collaboration between Criminal Justice and Child Protection in Cases of Child Sexual Abuse: Unveiling Inhibiting and Facilitating Factors

Developing a statistical model for assessment of referrals of children at risk

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