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Making Policies: The History of the Danish Child Welfare System at the Local Level

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2022

CECILIE BJERRE Open the ORCID record for CECILIE BJERRE [Opens in a new window]
CECILIE BJERRE*
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University of SouthernDenmark
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Abstract

This article examines out-of-home placements in Denmark over a seven-decade period from 1905 to 1975. The Danish state delegated this responsibility to a, using the words of Kimberly J. Morgan and Ann Shola Orloff, “difficult-to-classify public-private hybrid,” the Children’s Welfare Boards (CWBs). These CWBs comprised private citizens selected by the municipality. The article shows how the CWBs acted as interpreters, mediators, and implementers of state policy at the street level while also functioning as the direct link between government and citizens. The findings reveal an inherent conflict between center and periphery in that the state’s nationwide regulations and bureaucratic practices, intended to apply to all citizens uniformly, were to be implemented by local units within municipalities that operated according to logics other than those of the state. The vase of variations in child out-placement practices shows the importance of examining local variations in studying the history of policy implementation.

Keywords

Danish Child Welfare SystemChildren’s Welfare BoardsPolicy MakingWelfare States
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , October 2022 , pp. 529 - 554
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2022

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Footnotes

A draft of this paper was presented at the conference Society for the History of Childhood and Youth XI Biennial International Conference in 2021. I am thankful to the participants and panel for pertinent comments and questions. I would also like to thank the researchers at the Danish Center for Welfare Studies at the University of Southern Denmark, especially Klaus Petersen, as well as Johanna Sköld, Birgitte Søland, Karen Vallgårda, Nell Musgrove, and Megan Birk for insightful comments on the very first draft of this paper. Finally, I would like to thank the three peer reviewers for their relevant suggestions for improving the paper.

References

NOTES

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28. Betænkning fra Kommissionen, 24.

29. Betænkning fra Kommissionen, 18.

30. Anne Løkke, Vildfarende børn, om forsømte og kriminelle børn mellem filantropi og stat 1880-1920 (Holte: SocPol, 1990), 28; Lars Schädler Andersen, “Between Social Radicalism and Christian Socialism: Intellectuals, Social Knowledge and the Building of the Early Danish Welfare State,” in In Experts We Trust. Knowledge, Politics and Bureaucracy in Nordic Welfare States, eds. Åsa Lundqvist and Klaus Petersen (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2010), 90–92.

31. Coninck-Smith, For barnets skyld, 293.

32. Betænkning fra Kommissionen, 22.

33. Murdoch identifies the same argument used by British philanthropists and child savers: Lydia Murdoch, Imagined Orphans Poor Families, Child Welfare, and Contested Citizenship in London (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press 2007), 1–2, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.90035.

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38. Arbejds- og Socialministeriet, Betænkning vedrørende børneforsorgens administration m. v., Betænkning 181 + 191 (1957), 9.

39. In 1922, 1933, 1958, 1964, and 1975.

40. Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke, “Den Sociale Ingeniørkunst i Danmark, Familie, Stat og Politik fra 1900 til 1945” (PhD. diss., Roskilde: RUC, 1999), 64.

41. In Norway and Sweden schools for social work were established in 1920 and 1921, respectively.

42. Tine Egelund, Beskyttelse af barndommen: socialforvaltningens risikovurdering og indgreb (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1997), 56–57.

43. Bente Rosenbeck, “‘En Fribåren Social Skole’—Da det sociale hjælpearbejde blev til en uddannelse,” in Handlingens Kvinder, eds. Karen Hjorth and Anette Warring (Roskilde: Roskilde Universitetsforlag, 2001), 130–31.

44. Orla Jensen, “Socialkontoret Og Dets Instrumenter,” Socialt Tidsskrift 27, Afd. A (1951): 175.

45. Quote from Anette Faye Jacobsen, “Kontrol og Demokrati. Træk af dansk børneforsorgs historie 1933-1958,” Historisk Tidsskrift 15, no. 4 (1989): 255.

46. Bjerre, Når staten er far og mor, 43–58; Klaus Petersen, “Fra Befolkningspolitik Til Familiepolitik,” in Dansk Velfærdshistorie. Velfærdsstaten i Støbeskeen. Bind III. Perioden 1933-1956, eds. Jørn Henrik Petersen, Klaus Petersen, and Niels Finn Christiansen (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2012), 636–38.

47. Klaus Petersen, “Familiepolitikkens Storhedstid,” in Dansk Velfærdshistorie. Velfærdsstatens Storhedstid. Bind IV. Perioden 1956-1973, eds. Jørn Henrik Petersen, Klaus Petersen, and Niels Finn Christiansen (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2012), 614.

48. Bryderup, Børnelove og socialpædagogik gennem hundrede år, 276.

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59. Jensen, Jørgen, “Hvorfra får Børneværnsudvalgene Deres Sager, og hvorledes sikrer De sig, at alle Sager kommer med?” Børnesagens Tidende 53, no. 2 (January 15, 1958): 90 Google Scholar.

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61. Beretning for perioden 1. april 1971–31. marts 1972, National Archives, Børneværnskonsulenten for Fyns Amt, Odense.

62. Beretning for perioden 1. april 1969–31. marts 1970, Kredssager, Kontoret for Børneværnssager, Local Archive of Silkeborg.

63. Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, 14.

64. Tony Evans and Peter Hupe, “Conceptualizing Discretion,” in Discretion and the Quest for Controlled Freedom, eds. Tony Evans and Peter Hupe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 1.

65. Lindgren stresses this function in connection with Swedish adoption cases: Cecilia Lindgren, En riktig familj, adoption, föräldraskap och barnets bästa 1917-1975, Linköping studies in arts and science 358 (Stockholm: Carlssons, 2006), 21.

66. Niels Kyed, “Oplysningsskemaet,” Børnesagens Tidende 28, no. 1 (January 1, 1933): 11.

67. All names have been anonymized by the author.

68. Birk, Megan, Fostering on the Farm: Child Placement in the Rural Midwest (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69. Case file 732/1911 Silkeborg, letter from the central administration (Overværgerådet) to the CWB, November 30, 1911, The Local Archive of Silkeborg.

70. Case file 732/1911 Silkeborg, form, January 22, 1912.

71. This was not exclusively reserved for parents as children were also classified within the forms. As Koskela and Vehkalahti argue, forms produced “deviant” children: Anne Koskela and Kaisa Vehkalahti, “Child in a Form: The Definition of Normality and Production of Expertise in Teacher Statement Forms—the Case of Northern Finland, 1951–1990,” Paedagogica Historica 53, no. 4 (July 4, 2017): 475.

72. Forms are documents with moral categories and do not guarantee for systematic work, as stressed by Ponnert and Svensson in a Swedish contemporary context. See Lina Ponnert and Kerstin Svensson, “Standardisation—the End of Professional Discretion?” European Journal of Social Work 19, no. 3–4 (July 2016): 90–91.

73. Case file 60/1910, Copenhagen, standard form, no date, but from 1910, The City Archives of Copenhagen.

74. Case file 73/1910, Odense, standard form, 1910, City Archives of Odense.

75. Case file 73/1910, Odense, standard form, 1910.

76. Smith underscores that texts depend on the reader’s interpretative practices: Dorothy E. Smith, Texts, Facts, and Femininity: Exploring the Relations of Ruling (London: Routledge, 1990), 121.

77. Morgan and Orloff, “Introduction: The Many Hands of the State,” 9.

78. Socialministeriet, Nr. 178. Cirkulære Om Partsoffentlighed i Børneværnsudvalgenes Forvaltning, 1964.

79. Case file 2088/1940, Copenhagen, The City Archives of Copenhagen.

80. “Kirke- Og Undervisningsmin. Skr. Ang. Tilvejebringelsen af Lokaler for Værgeraadets Og Menighedsraadets Møder,” in Lovtidende B., 1907.

81. Justitsministeriet, “Justitsmin. Cirk. Ang. Gennemførelsen Af Lov 14. April 1905 Om Behandling af Forbryderske og Forsømte Børn,” in Lovtidende, 1905.

82. L. C. Brun, “Værgeraadene under Den Nye Værgeraadslov,” Børnesagens Tidende, August 1922, 113.

83. Arbejds- og Socialministeriet, Betænkning vedrørende børneforsorgens administration m. v., 12.

84. Ungdomskommissionen, Den tilpasningsvanskelige ungdom (Copenhagen, 1952), 220–28.

85. Bjerre, Når staten er far og mor, 161–69.

86. Race was not a prevalent category within social services at this point, as immigration in larger numbers only began from the 1960s and on. One exception to be highlighted is the Danish postcolonial relationship with Greenland with placing-out and adopting Greenlandic children in Denmark, see, e.g., Lund Jensen, Einar, Sniff Andersen Nexø, and Daniel Thorleifsen, Historisk udredning om de 22 grønlandske børn, der blev sendt til Danmark i 1951. Afgivet den 15. november 2020, Social-og Indenrigsministeriet. The connection between race and social class has been unraveled to a greater extent in the American context, e.g., Roberts, Dorothy E., Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (New York: Basic Books, 2002)Google Scholar; Harp, Kathi L. H. and Bunting, Amanda M., “The Racialized Nature of Child Welfare Policies and the Social Control of Black Bodies,” Social Politics 27, no. 2 (2020): 258–59CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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89. Case file 29/1910, Odense, meeting minutes, December 20, 1909, The City Archives of Odense.

90. Case file 409/1910, Odense, meeting minutes, May 2, 1910.

91. Landsnævnet for børneforsorg, “Beretning for Børne-og Ungdomsforsorgen for Tiden 1. April 1968 - 31. Marts 1969,” Socialt Tidsskrift 47, no. 3, Afd. C (1971): 248; In an Australian context, voluntary placements of children increased from the 1960s: Musgrove and Michell, The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia, 78.

92. Forsorgsloven (Lovbekendtgørelse nr. 329 af 19/11 1958) af 1958 med kommentarer, 1958, § 130.

93. Anette Faye Jacobsen, “Kontrol Og Demokrati. Træk Af Dansk Børneforsorgs Historie 1933-1958,” (master’s thesis, Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 1988), 255.

94. Bjerre, Når staten er far og mor, 235–36.

95. Case file 25589/1940, Odense, The City Archives of Odense.

96. Case file 661/1911, Silkeborg, standard form, October 27, 1911, The Local Archive of Silkeborg.

97. Case file 50662/1965, Odense, internal notes, July 7, 1967, The City Archives of Odense.

98. Rymph stresses that parents who requested help within the child welfare system did so only because they did not have anywhere else to turn: Rymph, Catherine E., “From ‘Economic Want’ to ‘Family Pathology’: Foster Family Care, the New Deal, and the Emergence of a Public Child Welfare System,” Journal of Policy History 24, no. 1 (2012): 7 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.