Roma Children and Social Work in Sweden

Abstract

The National Board of Health and Welfare is the Swedish national expert and supervisory author­ ity that works with issues concerning social services, and health and medical services. In early 2006 the board received a commission from the Swedish Government concerning social work with Roma families. The background for the coming of the Commission was that the Roma rep­ resentatives lodged a complaint to the Government about the way social services worked with Roma families. The representatives said that it was more likely for a Roma family compared to the families of the majority population to have their child taken into care, and that the number of Roma children taken into care had increased. Their opinion was also that social services took Roma children into care on the basis of incorrect reasons. They also claimed that Roma children seldom were placed in Roma families, therefore the Roma children lost contact with the Roma society while they were in care. In 2000, Sweden ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minori­ ties and acknowledged the Roma group, among four others, as a Swedish national minority with specific rights. The National Board of Health and Welfare started a project that included Roma representa­ tives. The main issue and focus of the project was to clarify whether Roma children and their families were discriminated by the social services. The main results from the project are: Social workers have no or very limited knowledge about the Human Rights of the Roma group as a national minority group. Social services seldom include relatives and friends of the Roma family during the assessment which is a reason why they do not find families with the same culture to place the children in. The social services generally end up placing Roma children in families of the majority population. The efforts of the social services to ensure that Roma children in care can maintain and de­ velop their language, traditions and cultural heritage, are insufficient. During an assessment the social workers seldom ask the Roma children and their parents about their view on what is important for them in their culture to maintain and develop. The so­ cial workers often have their own (biased) opinion about a child and its parents and about Roma culture. The National Board of Health and Welfare recommends that the social services train their social workers in minority status and what the social work with Roma families can mean.