The Discourse on the “Dangerous Child Welfare Parent”—How Contact with Parents Is Constructed as a Risk for Children Under Public Care in Norway

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This a well-written, hugely readable paper. It addresses an increasingly-discussed matter - contact between parents and children in public care and the role of the attitudes of professionals towards this. Unsurprisingly, the paper reveals the conceptual negativity of the professionals involved.

The impressive methodology includes data collection that spans many hours of recorded conversations between professionals.  In addition these conversations across groups of four or more, make for a rich source of analytical material (though no attempt is made to deploy other analytical tools such as discourse analysis – this might be acknowledged).

The selected excerpts from the conversations are hugely illuminative of a general approach adopted by the professionals and to this reviewer’s mind convey an othering mindset that regards the child as object.

The Discussion acknowledges that the study confirms what previous research has pointed out – the risk culture of child welfare and protection culture.  However the discussion raises an important point about what this risk might consist of and, the risk of not facilitating and encouraging continued contact when children are separated by the state from their families. 

The paper concludes, somewhat weakly. that ‘…it is possible to think and act differently. However, this requires an eye for the power structures of which we are all both a part of, but also a continuator of. We hope that the article can contributes to this awareness’.  ‘Weakly’?  Given the illustration of the unequal power dynamics revealed, just ‘an eye’ on these seems too meagre a strategy for their dismantling.     

Two things might be worth adding, though these are just suggestions. The first is a brief reference to the literature on parents' views of contact, see for example ‘Contact Between Children Absent in State Care and Their Families’ (Clapton et al, 2022), and some speculation on the obvious fact that given that the professionals involved were aware that they were being recorded, would they not be on their 'best behaviour'? In other words, condemnatory attitudes regarding the value of contact (and parents) might have been expressed in the absence of any recording or such constraints.

Overall, a highly commendable piece of research that I look forward to seeing in print.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

There are a few places where grammar/punctuation/formatting issues need to be addressed. For example, in line 9 there are two periods after "care." There is also some awkward spacing in lines 145-147.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Introduction

It is important to refer to the child protection model in Norway to understand why parents visit their children when custody is taken away from them. It is also important to clarify what is defined as a dangerous parent visited by the social welfare service and the concept of risk since the author argues that this principle governs the social welfare services.

2. Society's management of risk

This topic requires a review of authors such as Ulrich Beck, who deals with the issue of the risk society.

3. Methodology

It is well-structured and suited to the study

The presentation of empirical data is excellent, and the conclusion also systematizes the information relevant to knowledge.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf