Children Suffer! – An Analysis of the Shortcomings in Society’s Family Building

In 2013, a three-year-old girl is killed by her mother, a foster father is sentenced to three years in prison for raping a girl placed in the family. A father has not been allowed to see his daughter for 1.5 years, even though he has been acquitted of incest by the court. When society fails to protect children who suffer, mass media, the public, and professionals are appalled. Individual social managers and social workers are often held accountable and made scapegoats, something that is rarely fruitful, according to the author Madeleine Cocozza. She believes that the cause of the problems must instead be sought in factors such as organization, competence, authority, and methods. In Children Suffer!, Cocozza analyzes what she calls the child protection system with the building blocks of reporting, investigation, and intervention, the possible outcomes in practice, and proposes comprehensive changes. The book is aimed at professionals with a reporting obligation and can be used as a textbook, for politicians, media, and an interested public, social workers, foster homes, and finally for children and young people and their families who have been or should have been part of society’s family building. For all those who want to know more about the conditions for the mission within the child protection system and want answers to the question: How does society’s protection for vulnerable children work and why does the protection of children who suffer fail?

CONTENTS

• Why a child protection system
• The building blocks in society’s family building
• Outcomes in social practice
• How many children are reported to be at risk?
• Which professionals report?
• The preliminary assessment – is it a safe screening point?
• Proposals for changes based on an analysis of the shortcomings