Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to capture similarities and variations in the performance of child welfare through a comparative Nordic approach. Child welfare is chosen because it is historically one of the core areas of social work and because the work presupposes considerations of a wide range of problems: for example, family relations, abuse, poverty, addiction and ‘immigrant problems’.

The chapter will provide new perspectives on the discussion on whether the welfare model thinking is producing good results in the case of child welfare services in the Nordic countries, as well as general reflections on methodological issues in comparative research on personal welfare services. Welfare model research often departs from a ‘macro top-down’ perspective. What happens if you change the point of departure in favour of a ‘meso from-below’ perspective? Special attention will be paid to the question of how child welfare problems are understood and handled in what is sometimes referred to as the ‘family service oriented’ Nordic countries, based on results from a study of all the referrals that four child welfare offices in four Nordic capital areas received during the three to six first months of the year 2006.

Welfare state models and models of social work

Walter Lorenz, in his book Social work in a changing Europe (1994), claims that there are clear correlations between different types of welfare state models and ways of solving social problems. Lorenz puts forward the idea that the welfare state typologies described by theorists such as Titmuss (1974) and Esping-Andersen (1990) can be used for the analysis of different countries’ ways of organising social work.

The basis for Lorenz's application of models of social policy to social work rests on the assumption that underlying ideologies, such as a liberal or a social democratic standpoint, also pervade the practice of social work. This determines, for example, whether social work is regarded as a task for voluntary organisations, as a public duty or as something based on market solutions. The responsibility of the state varies in different systems, as do tax resources and the degree to which different systems are effective in protecting children or in combating poverty.