Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs

The Norwegian Child Welfare Services (Norwegian: Barnevernet, literally "child protection") are the public agencies responsible for child welfare in Norway. They consist of services in each municipality, which are aided and supervised by different governmental bodies at the state as well as the county level.

The Child Welfare Services’ statutory obligation is "to ensure that children and youth who live in conditions that may be detrimental to their health and development receive the necessary assistance and care at the right time." Roughly 3% of all children in Norway receive some sort of measure from the Child Welfare Services, most of them in the form of relief measures to the child and its parents (such as counselling, advice, external support contacts, access to day care etc.). In about one quarter of the cases, the children are placed outside their homes (mainly in foster families or institutions) after care orders.

The Norwegian Child Welfare Services were established, and their activities are regulated, by the Child Welfare Act of 1992, which has the purpose "to ensure that children and youth who live in conditions that may be detrimental to their health and development receive the necessary assistance and care at the right time," and "to help ensure children and youth grow up in a secure environment"

The superior authority in the field of child welfare in Norway is the Ministry of Children and Equality (Norwegian Barne- og likestillingsdepartementet, abbreviated BLD). The Ministry is responsible for developing regulations and guidelines, but is not involved in individual cases.

Each Norwegian municipality is obliged to have Child Welfare Services. These are responsible for the local and day-to-day implementation of the Child Welfare Act (such as preventive work, investigation, support service, approval of foster families, follow-up of children placed in foster families or institutions). This "municipal child welfare" is aided by two agencies that constitute the "governmental child welfare":

In addition, the following bodies at the county level are involved in child welfare:

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Wikipedia