Written by Webjørn Espeland for P3 Dokumentar, on october 30th 2018. Please check his article for pictures.
Barnevernet used around four billion NOK last year in placing children in private institutions, specially in Sørlandet. Why is not more of this money used to help parents that struggle?
- I have set fire on all the places I have been placed to, says Aline (23), while the glow of her cigarette is blown often under her dark hair.
She was ten years old when her mother moved from Brasil til Østlandet in Norway, with her two siblings and a new norwegian husband. It was nice to come to Norway and see snow, she says. But at home was not everything as nice. The year after was Aline trick or treating during Halloween in her neighborhood when the police came. Barnevernet had gotten several worrying reports from Aline's school, and Aline accepted voluntarily to be under Barnevernets care, so she could have a few months break. It was not just her living situation that changed, then.
- While I lived at home, Barnevernet listened to what I said a lot, and they asked what would be good for me. After I moved into an institution was nobody listening to me anymore, says Aline.
When she was twelve years old, she was placed in a foster home, the fourth relocation in one year. Two weeks later was her new foster mother bathing naked in the house's jacuzzi. Her husband was sitting in the terrace right on the side.
- She said I just had to take of my clothes if I wanted. It is not normal to say such things to a child.
P3 Dokumentar has talked to the foster mother, that has had many foster children through the years. She says the episode has most surely happened.
- Yes, if you have seen the place we live at, you sill see that none of our neighbors can see us. I was naked in the jacuzzi, just like I am in the shower. That is completely natural.
Did you think how the foster children could react to your nakedness?
- No, not really. I was at home in my own house! But if I was taking care for a boy, I never went naked.
Aline wanted to move back home, but her mother lost her parental rights.
- After that I hated them and I just wanted to leave, but Barnevernet deny med that and said I had to give them (the foster parents) another chance. In the end I sat fire to my room and escaped from the house. In the outside I can look like a kid that had behavior issues, I am aware of that. But I think it was a reaction to a very sick system.
A series of neglects
Norway is in the top of the world on the list of countries that take the care from the families with coercion. Here in the country it happens almost 7 times more often than in Denmark.
- Norway uses more than four billions NOK on foster homes and institutions - what if we had used much of this money with the families?
That is the questions from Øyvind Håbrekke, the professional leader of the christian think-tank Skaperkraft. He has been state secretary for the political party Krf and had a four year period at the family and culture committee in the Parliament, with responsibility over Barnevernet.
Håbrekke is watchful to praise all the thousands of Barnevern employees that every day go to work to do the best for the children. But he points to what he means is a serious flaw in the system.
- There are no mechanisms in the system that guide the case workers to the question: should we instead use money in the house? the money comes first when the children are relocated in foster homes or institutions, he says.
He believes the trauma related to Barnevernert taking the children is underestimated.
- They separate families, they even separate siblings. Is not like children get placed in foster homes and they stay there until they become adults. Way too many get relocated to and from different foster homes and institutions for years. Often is a series of neglects. The only thing the children learn is that they can't trust anybody.
Håbrekke also thinks that is important to air the question of how dysfunctional a home can be, and still work better for the children than the alternatives (from Barnevernet).
Research has many times stated that a child's issues escalate a lot in the institutions. Danish researchs have also stated that kids places in Barnevernet institutions commit more crimes. There is also a huge shortage of foster homes in Norway.
Last years the municipalities used around 1,3 billions in initiatives at home, less than a third of the amount used in institutions and foster homes. The Minister of Infancy and Equality Linda Hofstad Helleland says that the government also wants to help the families to a greater degree.
- 60 percent of children and youngsters that received help from Barnevernet last year, received helpt at home. But now we are making big changes in the arrangements for finance in Barnevernet, through the Barnevern reform that will come next year, says Helleland.
A vicious circle.
Alines story is of course not representative for everyone in Barnevernet, where many vulnerable children receive important help every year and foster homes where they thrive in. But one thing that is typical about her story, is where she ended up.
Because like a 13 year old child, Aline was sent there where many of Barnevernet children that struggle the most and make the most problems are sent: to Sørlandet. Many hundred kilometers away from her mother and siblings. It was her eight relocation.
- It was really difficult. I knew nobody here and I didn't understand the dialect. It was specially bothersome when I wanted to go home or I was going to escape to Oslo, says Aline and laughs.
In Sørlandet she became acquainted with other forced relocated teenagers, the ones that in 2010 became known as the "Barnevern band" and were behind more than 1000 crimes in just a few months. Even Aline was apprehended for her involvement in robbing a bus, where she was filming an acquainted that threatened the bus driver for money.
- I didn't think that this guy was going to dare! He was not one of those that I normally hang out with, he was short and a little chubby. So I was recording and shouted «oh my god!» when he ran out of the body clumsily with the money bag in his hand. Just a few hours later I was taken in an apartment, so that recording ruined a lot for me.
The police confiscated her phone with the video. Shortly after was the video on the top news for NRK, TV2 and Fædrelandsvennen.
- Robbery and violence should of course never happened. But I think in retrospect that it was a way for us to be seen and heard. We only had each other to get support, and we entered a vicious circle, says Aline about the the «Barneverns band».
- I want to say sorry to the casual victims that have suffered and are left alone with fear after our actions.
Today is 33 percent of the Barnevern children with the worst behavior problems, those that are kept isolated, placed in Sørlandet. Agder has 6 percent of the populations. Infancy minister Helleland has no good explanation for why a third of the Barnevern children with the biggest addiction and behavior problems are gathered in Sørlandet:
- Not all the institutions can give a good offer to those with the biggest challenges. But we have private actors in Sørlandet that have a lot of experience with this target group, and that can be some of the reasons why also some children from other regions get a place in Agder.
The last four years have children been convicted for a total of five murders in Norway. Four of the murders happened in Sørlandet, while one happened in a Barnevern institution in Asker. The last one, that happened in Sørlands shopping center, was commited by a girl under isolation measures in Agder.
The private institution she was placed at got harsh criticism in the supervision report that came afterwards: The employees were under qualified, the staff was not enough, the girl was refused medical help and the law was violated when it comes to the use of force. «(…) There was a lack of environmental therapists almost half part of the days (…)», says the report.
Plata and drugs
Aline escaped often from the institutions, even when she had to guards watching her. She had difficulties building up relationships with the staff, which could be up to 30 different persons that came and left. One time she threw herself linked to bed clothes from a window in the third floor, it was a stone floor under. She could walk for hours to escape, specially walk over the train tracks, where she was sure that the staff wouldn't look for her there.
One time that she escaped and got caught, she began choking the employee that was driving her back to isolation.
- I had worked so hard to escape. I just went mad. Maybe in the end you get that feeling: is either you or me - because the control every aspect of your life.
Aline, 16 years old and having escaped the institution she was at.
She has also threatened an employee with a knife.
- The staff is trained to get the kids on the floor, sit on them, twist their arm behind their backs - even if that hurts. I could accept to get a spank from my mother, but I didn't tolerate at a stranger grown up would take me down physically.
Aline was a lonely traveler. While the rest of the «Barneverns band» synched their escapes from the institutions, stole cars and went to the capital, Aline borrowed money from the same friends and took the bus. She went always to Oslo.
It seems like Oslo was a magnet for you barnevern kids, why?
- At that time was Plata, outside Oslo Station, so you came right out in the "community". That's where everyone goes, the ones that have no place to go to. When you are in a bad place in life, unfortunately drugs are the only ones that always have your back.
She has tried everything in the alphabet, she says. It was easy to get drugs.
Where did you live, then?
- There are many that help you when you are in the streets. I am a girl, and I was pretty cute, so there were many that wanted to help me.
Did you have to sell your body?
- No, it didn't go that far. I am really tough and I have such respect for myself, so I didn't feel I had to do that.
Today, eight years later, Aline is going to university to become a case worker at Barnevernet. She has also participated in a project for Kristiansand municipality, to prevent youngsters criminality. At Litteraturhuset (The Literary House) in Oslo, on november 24th 2018, she will, together with her mother and her last foster mother, tell some of her long but short life's story. The main message is that Barnevernet needs to listen to the children - without prejudice.
WHat do you think Barnevernet did right in your case?
- Hm, not much. But they have at least made me the one I am today. A stronger person.
Do you think that it would have been better if Barnevernet had help you at home?
- Yes. I have serious doubts that I would have started with drugs, since nobody in my family have ever done that. It was at the institutions that I was introduced to drugs and criminality.
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