Monitoring of Norwegian Foster Homes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors. Thank you for an interesting read. The subject is of great importance, as it is big job for the welfare state to make the voices of vulnerable citizens heard. 

Your article is well written. I have some minor things I would like to see done. 

1) Data and Method: You have selected to informants (Julie and Marie). I do not see any explanation or reflections as to why you choose these two. As I understand your paper there where 5 youngsters telling about abusive behavior, so how come you selected only Julie and Marie? Why not some of the others? 

2) How did the interviews take place? where all interviewed after their placement being finished or where some of the youngsters still in care while interviewed? 

3) your conclusion on the 'welfare state mentality' comes a bit abruptly. I'm not convinced that there exist such a mentality, but I do follow your point that it is a dilemma for the welfare state. And that it is hard to  earn the trust of children placed in care, so how to safeguard them, if they do not tell about abusive behavior?  

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, this was a fantastic paper and I appreciated the opportunity to review it.  I do have some feedback for improvement:

- In the section on Foster Homes and Monitoring (page 2), you mention that foster homes are used as both a voluntary measure and a coercive measure.  Do you have any stats on which measure is more common?

- What types of conditions would induce a coercive measure to occur?  I.e., at what point would a child be placed in a foster home without the biological parents' consent?

- In the same section, you state, "Nearly 30% of children and young people living in foster care reside in family or network foster homes, where the child knows the foster parents from before".  Please clarify when the 'before' indicates - is it before the child is placed in the foster home?

- Also, at what age does a child become a young adult?

- In the Storytelling section, the first two paragraphs could be moved to the background/introduction, as they're primarily focused on providing definitions rather than on discussing methods.

- What is the difference between small, "unstructured" narratives and big, "dominant" narratives?

- Out of curiosity, do you think that the insecurity and mistrust that Julie and Marie reported feeling towards adults, could be associated with the way they were taken from their homes?  (I.e., would the insecurity and mistrust be associated with the child welfare system taking them away from their biological parents and placed in another home?  How were their home lives prior to being placed in the foster system?)

- How common are Julie and Marie's experiences, among other children in the foster system?  I note that the majority of the children/young adults you interviewed described their foster parents and good and caring, so I don't want to diminish your results.  My question is meant to prompt a conversation into whether you think that there could be potential policy changes in the foster system to mitigate the insecurity and mistrust that Julie and Marie experienced.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf