Erik Strand, July 23rd, 2014
In this article in the local newspaper Bygdeposten in Buskerud county, Solfrid Alstad criticises her former employer – the Child Protection Services (CPS).
Alstad has worked in the CPS for 40 years until she retired in 2010. During a temporary employment for one and a half year in 2011 and 2012 she was shocked by seeing how practice had changed in the CPS in the region Midt-Buskerud (Middle Buskerud) during the time she had been away.
– I react strongly towards the increase in the number of acute placements, and they use far too strong means when they take over the care for children, Alstad says.
She also states that the police is involved too often when the children are removed from their homes, which can be traumatic to the children.
– In most cases, involving the police makes no sense.
The former case handler says that she has always strived honestly to use plenty of time to get to know the children in order to find out whether they were content in their home. She states that employees in the CPS today easily rush to action and act in a respectless and arrogant way when they go into private homes in order to replace children by acute decisions. She has herself participated in situations where she has been ashamed of how her colleagues act.
When confronting the leadership in the local CPS with the number of acute placements of children, the answer has been that the CPS has won the cases in Fylkesnemnda (the entity which decides among other things whether the CPS shall take over the care for the child), and that the fact that the CPS wins the cases, proves that everything has been OK in these cases.
Solfrid Alstad is educated CPS pedagog and also has education in psychiatric health care.
Fampo 