Kinship care in child protection : Norwegian and Portuguese professional social workers' expressed perspectives

This is a qualitative study and the data is collected through qualitative interviews with Norwegian and Portuguese social workers. The aims of the study is to explore the Norwegian and Portuguese social workers’ expressed perspectives with relevance to kinship care and to look for coherence between policies, professional perspectives and the current performance of the practice. Also this study aims to illuminate some of the most relevant current laws, policies and social work practices in Norway and in Portugal. Though the study must not be mistaken for a comparison, the Portuguese perspectives, laws, policies and practices allow for a new and different angle of views on the conditions in Norway. This study indicates that the child protection systems and social workers in both countries may learn useful things from each others, despite great differences in for example conditions of social work. The analytical perspectives used in this study are The Strengths Perspectives, The New Child Perspective, Children’s Participation, Social Networks, Social Captial and power. This study shows that despite law requirements about practicing kinship care as the primary placement alternative, the social workers still have power to resist it. Also this study witnesses about the time-consuming and endeavouring process of changing from a traditional paternalistic perspective to strengths- and recourse perspectives in child protection. Key-words: perspectives, kinship care, family caretaking, foster care, power, social worker, Norway and Portugal