The government intends to enhance initiatives for children and young people in care.
Children in care must have the same opportunities as other children in terms of education, work and a family life. The Foster Care Reform aims at significantly increasing the quality of initiatives, thereby paving the way for fewer interrupted cases of care, more targeted initiatives and improved resource utilisation.
Foster Care Reform
The Foster Care Reform, which took effect in 2006, means that families and children involved in a case of care will experience increased involvement and earlier and improved initiatives, e.g. with heightened focus on schooling and better social reintegration after the end of a care period. Moreover, more children will be taken into care by family members whom they know and are fond of instead of by unknown foster families.
A child or a young person is taken into care outside his or her home when the local authorities believe that option to be the best for the child. The local authorities then decide whether a child or young person is to be taken into care outside the home.
Denmark has care with consent. Care with consent is established on the basis of cooperation and agreement between the person having custody and the local authorities.
Denmark also has care without consent. A child will only be taken into care without consent from the person having custody if there is an apparent risk that the health or development of the child or young person suffers serious damage on account of different types of neglect and abuse.
Decisions on care without consent are made by the children’s and young people’s committees of the local authorities, which consist of a judge, two educational/psychological consultant and two members of the local council.
The child or young person can be taken into a 24-hour institution, foster care, a socio-educational ship project, boarding or continuation school or secure unit with locked outer doors and windows.
Both parents and children are entitled to contact while children are taken into care – also parents without custody.
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