OCRights

Oslo Centre for Children's Rights

asgeirer

  • Becoming Adult After Out-of-Home Care: What Norwegian Register Data Tell Us About School-to-Work Transitions

    By Trine Holten

    For most young people, the transition to adulthood is not a single event. It is a long and often uneven process, involving education, work, income, housing, health, and social belonging. It is also a process that is rarely undertaken alone. Many young adults continue to receive extensive support from parents and family well into their twenties: a room to return to, help with practical problems, financial assistance, advice, and emotional security.

    For young people who have grown up in out-of-home care, this background support cannot be taken for granted. This makes the transition from school to work a particularly important question for child protection research and social policy.

    In our recent study, Kirsti Klem Valset and I examine how young people with experience from out-of-home care move from school into adult employment. We use Norwegian national register data to follow individuals born between 1983 and 1985 from age 16 to age 36. This allows us to study not only whether someone is employed at one point in time, but how education, income, welfare benefits and labour-market attachment unfold across two decades.

    That distinction is important. A single outcome measured at age 22 or 25 may give a misleading picture. Some young people enter employment early, but remain in low-income positions for a long time. Others spend longer in education before reaching stable income. Others again move into trajectories marked by health-related benefits, weak labour-market attachment or social exclusion. The transition to adulthood is therefore better understood as a sequence than as a moment.

    Why school-to-work transitions matter

    Employment is not only a source of income. It is also one of the main institutions through which adults gain social recognition, everyday structure, economic independence and inclusion in society. In a Nordic welfare state such as Norway, where education is free and welfare institutions are comparatively inclusive, we might expect disadvantaged childhood experiences to be partly compensated for by public institutions.

    This is exactly why the Norwegian case is sociologically and politically important. If young people with out-of-home care experience still face elevated risks of disadvantaged school-to-work trajectories in Norway, then the problem cannot be explained simply by tuition fees, absent welfare institutions or a weak safety net. It points instead to a deeper life-course problem: disadvantages accumulated during childhood may continue into adulthood even in relatively inclusive welfare states.

    Our study is grounded in a life-course perspective. This means that we examine how earlier experiences, institutional support and timing shape later outcomes. Childhood adversity, interrupted schooling, placement history, family background, health problems and access to aftercare may all influence how young people move into adult roles.

    What we studied

    We focused on young people who had experienced out-of-home care between the ages of 13 and 17. This includes foster care and residential care. We also examined aftercare, that is, support provided after the age of 18 and up to age 23.

    The data allowed us to distinguish between different care histories. We did not treat all young people with child protection experience as one homogeneous group. This is crucial. Young people in foster care, residential care and support measures may have quite different backgrounds, needs and institutional experiences.

    Using sequence analysis, we identified five main school-to-work trajectories from age 16 to 36:

    1. NEETW to early death
      A highly disadvantaged trajectory, marked by being outside education, employment, training and welfare benefits, followed by early death.
    2. Health-related benefits
      A trajectory characterised by long-term reliance on health-related welfare benefits.
    3. Higher education to normal income
      A more favourable trajectory, where individuals complete higher education and move into ordinary earnings.
    4. Early normal income
      A trajectory where individuals enter employment relatively early and reach normal income.
    5. Long-term low income to normal income
      A trajectory where individuals spend a longer period in low-income work before eventually reaching normal income.

    These categories are not moral judgements about individuals. They are empirical patterns in register data. They help us see how institutional and social inequalities take shape across time.

    The main finding: out-of-home care is associated with elevated risk

    Our findings show that young people with out-of-home care experience are more likely than peers without child protection experience to follow disadvantaged school-to-work trajectories.

    They are particularly overrepresented in trajectories marked by health-related benefits and, in the most severe cases, NEETW status followed by early death. They are also less likely to follow the trajectory from higher education to normal income.

    This does not mean that out-of-home care itself simply causes these later outcomes. Register studies of this kind must be interpreted carefully. Young people placed in care often have experienced substantial adversity before placement. Their biological parents also tend, on average, to have fewer socioeconomic resources, and placement decisions are shaped by complex family and individual circumstances.

    Still, the pattern is clear: young people with out-of-home care experience face significantly more difficult transitions into adult education and work than young people without such experience.

    Foster care, residential care and differentiated risk

    One important contribution of the study is that we distinguish between different forms of out-of-home care.

    Young people who were in residential care at age 17 were especially likely to follow disadvantaged trajectories, including health-related benefits and NEETW-to-early-death. This should not be read as evidence that residential care in itself produces these outcomes. Rather, it likely reflects that young people in residential care often have more complex life situations and support needs.

    Young people in foster care generally had more favourable outcomes than those in residential care, but still faced higher risks than peers without child protection experience.

    The policy implication is straightforward but demanding: care leavers should not be treated as one uniform group. Institutional histories matter. The type of placement, the timing of support and the continuity of adult relationships all appear relevant for later school-to-work transitions.

    Aftercare matters, but not in a simple way

    A central question in the study is whether aftercare makes a difference.

    Our findings suggest that aftercare can matter, especially for young people who were in foster care at age 17 and continued in foster care as an aftercare measure. This group was more likely to follow a trajectory marked by higher education and normal income than those who were in foster care at age 17 but did not receive aftercare. They were also less likely to follow the health-related benefits trajectory.

    This finding is important because it supports a broader interpretation of aftercare. Aftercare should not be understood merely as an administrative extension of child protection services. It may function as a compensatory institution in the transition to adulthood. It can provide some of the continuity, practical support and relational stability that many other young people receive from their families.

    At the same time, the findings do not suggest that all aftercare measures have the same effect. Aftercare is not a single intervention. It varies in form, intensity, quality and timing. Its consequences are likely shaped by the young person’s previous care situation and by the kind of support actually provided.

    Turning 18 is not the same as becoming adult

    One of the broader lessons from the study is that legal adulthood is a poor proxy for social adulthood.

    Most young people do not become independent at 18. They become independent gradually, with support. Yet young people leaving care may be expected to manage the transition to adulthood under conditions that are more abrupt and less secure than those faced by their peers.

    From a social-policy perspective, this is problematic. If the state has assumed responsibility for a child through out-of-home care, then the question cannot be limited to whether the child was protected at a particular point in time. We must also ask whether the institutional pathway made a viable adulthood possible.

    This requires a longer time horizon in child protection policy. The relevant outcome is not only immediate safety, but also educational continuity, health, work, income security and social integration over time.

    What this means for child protection and welfare services

    The study has several implications.

    First, education must be treated as central to child protection. Completing upper secondary education and having access to further education are crucial for later labour-market inclusion. Educational disruption during adolescence may have long-term consequences.

    Second, aftercare should be understood as a core part of responsible child protection, not as a marginal or optional service. Young people leaving care need stable, predictable and differentiated support.

    Third, welfare services must coordinate more effectively. Child protection services, schools, NAV, health services and local follow-up systems all become relevant in the transition to adulthood. Fragmented support can leave young people exposed precisely at the point where institutional continuity is most needed.

    Fourth, professional judgement must be life-course oriented. The task is not only to assess immediate risk or current functioning, but to consider what kind of adult trajectory the young person is being enabled to enter.

    A cautious but demanding conclusion

    Our study does not show that all young people with out-of-home care experience are destined for disadvantage. Many do establish stable adult lives. Nor does it show that aftercare is a simple solution to complex social problems.

    But the study does show that young people with out-of-home care experience remain at elevated risk of disadvantaged school-to-work transitions, even in Norway’s inclusive welfare-state context. It also shows that continued support, particularly continued foster care after age 18, may improve the probability of more favourable trajectories involving education and normal income.

    The conclusion is therefore both empirical and normative. If child protection is to be evaluated seriously, we must ask not only whether children are protected from immediate harm, but whether they are given realistic conditions for becoming adults. A child protection system worthy of its mandate must be concerned not only with placement, but with life chances.

  • NORDLOCH Oslo Conference 2026

    Register for the NORDLOCH Oslo Conference 2026

    OCRights is pleased to host the NORDLOCH Oslo Conference 2026 at OsloMet, 26–28 October 2026.

    The conference brings together researchers, doctoral candidates, policymakers, practitioners, and public-sector actors working with child welfare, child protection, children’s rights, register-based research, and longitudinal analysis across the Nordic region.

    The conference will focus on how longitudinal child welfare research can strengthen comparative Nordic learning, improve methodological quality, and contribute to rights-based public-sector development for children at risk. A central concern is how research can support better decision-making, stronger accountability, and more rights-sensitive welfare services.

    The programme includes a PhD forum, a policy-maker symposium, plenary discussions, and paper sessions with dedicated discussants. The conference is organised as an open, research-led meeting place for serious scholarly exchange on child welfare, child protection, governance, and institutional learning.

    The conference is hosted by Oslo Centre of Children’s Rights at the Department of Social Work, Child Welfare and Social Policy, OsloMet.

    Dates: 26–28 October 2026
    Venue: OsloMet, Pilestredet Campus, Oslo
    Registration: Register for the NORDLOCH Oslo Conference 2026

    We warmly invite colleagues across the Nordic region and beyond to participate in this conference and contribute to the further development of longitudinal, comparative, and rights-oriented child welfare research.

  • Best Interests of the Child Assessments in NAV

    OCRights has established a collaboration with the Norwegian Board of Health Supervision concerning a nationwide supervisory activity in 2026–2027. The activity focuses on NAV offices’ responsibility to assess the best interests of the child when families apply for financial social assistance. The supervisory activity includes self-assessment and improvement work for NAV offices.

    In 2022–2023, the Norwegian Board of Health Supervision found that children’s needs were not sufficiently safeguarded when families applied for financial social assistance. The results showed that NAV offices did not adequately map children’s needs, did not carry out sufficiently individual assessments, and made decisions on an insufficient or incorrect basis.

    The best interests of the child must be a primary consideration in all actions by public authorities that concern children. When an applicant for social assistance has children, NAV offices must pay particular attention to the children’s needs and assess what is in their best interests.

    In collaboration with the Norwegian Board of Health Supervision, researchers at OCRights will use data from the supervisory activity to study how NAV offices map and assess the best interests of the child, and whether supervision contributes to improved practice. Qualitative studies based on the supervisory activity are also planned. The aim is to promote knowledge-based practice and service development.

    Project manager: Therese Saltkjel
    Partner: The Norwegian Board of Health Supervision / Helsetilsynet 

  • Flexible Foster Homes 

    Flexible Foster Homes is a development project under Sammen for barnets beste. The project aims to develop a more flexible and knowledge-based measure for cases where the child welfare services are considering a care order, or where care has already been transferred without giving up the goal of reunification.

    The aim is to strengthen the basis for earlier, more precise and better adapted measures in the best interests of the child. The project will develop a knowledge base, a theory of change and practical tools that can support foster homes, municipal child welfare services and Bufetat in their further work.

    Flexible Foster Homes will contribute to clarifying and strengthening parental functioning through support, training and close follow-up, within safe and responsible frameworks. The project will also lay the groundwork for further testing and evaluation of the measure.

    Project manager: Asgeir Falch-Eriksen
    Partner: Bufetat, Eastern Region

  • Turning the Tables: Can “Upstream” Social Policy Prevent Child Maltreatment? 

    UPSTREAM is a research project that examines whether broad social policies can help prevent child maltreatment before harm occurs. Rather than focusing only on downstream interventions after children and families have entered child welfare services, the project investigates how income support, childcare, labour market measures and other welfare policies may reduce the social and economic pressures that increase the risk of abuse and neglect.

    Using population-wide administrative data from Norway, the project will study the effects of six major welfare reforms on child maltreatment and related inequalities. It will also examine the mechanisms through which these policies may work, including household stress, social inclusion and human capital formation. By analysing how different forms of public support affect families across social groups, UPSTREAM aims to generate new knowledge about how welfare states can better protect children through preventive and redistributive policy.

    The project contributes to research, policy and public debate on child welfare, social inequality and the long-term sustainability of the welfare state.

    Project manager: Kjetil van der Wel

  • Spreading Knowledge on Children’s Rights: OCRights Launches an International Course on Human Rights, Children’s Rights and Child Protection

    By Asgeir Falch-Eriksen

    Children’s rights are not self-enforcing. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989 and now ratified by virtually every state in the world, establishes a comprehensive legal and normative framework for protecting children from harm, ensuring their participation, and promoting their development. Yet the gap between legal commitment and actual practice remains wide in most countries. Translating international human rights norms into functioning child protection systems requires not only legislation, but also institutions, professional competence, democratic accountability, and a sustained political will to treat children as genuine rights-holders.

    It is precisely this gap — between norm and reality, between legal text and lived experience — that OCRights now seeks to address through a new international course: Human Rights, Children’s Rights and Child Protection.

    What the Course Is About

    The course approaches child protection as a fundamentally normative and institutional challenge. It asks what cosmopolitanism requires of states, professions, and democratic institutions when children are at risk of harm, and how child rights can be operationalised in the face of cultural pluralism, political resistance, and limited resources. The framework is deliberately broad: students are invited to examine not only the legal dimensions of child rights, but also their moral foundations, their political implications, and the everyday dilemmas they generate for frontline professionals.

    The course is structured around the CRC’s threefold duty to children: the duty to prevent harm, the duty to protect after harm has occurred, and the duty to rehabilitate and socially reintegrate children who have experienced serious violations of their rights. These three pillars — drawn directly from Articles 19 and 39 of the Convention — serve as the analytical backbone of the course and as the organising framework for students’ own comparative work.

    Theoretically, the course draws on cosmopolitan political philosophy, liberal constitutionalism, discourse ethics, and institutional theory. It engages with foundational thinkers in these fields while maintaining a sustained focus on practical and empirical questions: How do child protection systems differ across countries? Where does legal norm-setting fall short in practice? How do street-level professionals navigate conflicting obligations? What makes a child protection system legitimate, trustworthy, and rights-sensitive? What happens when democratic majorities resist the protection of minority children, or when authoritarian tendencies erode the foundations of rights-based governance?

    One of the distinguishing features of the course is that each student selects a country of their own choosing and uses that country’s child protection system as a sustained case study throughout. Through a series of guided tasks, students progressively build a portfolio that maps their chosen country’s legal architecture, governance structures, professional practices, and outcomes for children. This comparative dimension ensures that the course produces not only theoretical insight, but also the kind of country-specific knowledge that is directly relevant for work in child welfare services, NGOs, public administration, research, and international organisations.

    Online and On-Campus: A Flexible Format

    The course is offered in a combined format: a series of online lectures preceding an intensive on-campus week. The online component consists of four two-hour lectures that introduce the theoretical and normative foundations of the course — cosmopolitanism and the moral status of children, human dignity and constitutional rights, democratic legitimacy and the system of rights, and the governance architecture of child protection from international norm to street-level practice. The on-campus week deepens and extends this foundation through seminars on governance, system design, professional discretion, and the challenges of digitalisation and authoritarian backlash. Students present their portfolio work, receive detailed feedback, and engage with peers from different legal and welfare traditions — an exchange that is itself part of the learning.

    Assessment rests on a written portfolio of eight pages and an oral examination, supplemented by short written tasks and active participation throughout the course. The portfolio format is deliberate: it requires students to accumulate and integrate knowledge progressively, rather than reproducing it at a single point in time. It also produces work that is directly applicable beyond the course itself.

    Why This Course, and Why Now

    The international context makes this course timely. Children’s rights face significant and growing political pressure in many parts of the world. Anti-gender movements have explicitly targeted children’s rights frameworks as sites of contestation. Authoritarian governments increasingly treat child protection as an instrument of social control rather than as a normative obligation towards children themselves. At the same time, the digitalisation of child welfare — predictive risk modelling, algorithmic decision support, cross-border data flows — raises new and urgent questions about due process, bias, and accountability that existing frameworks are not fully equipped to answer.

    Against this backdrop, building rigorous, internationally comparative competence in children’s rights is not a luxury. It is a professional and civic necessity. Practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and advocates need analytical tools that allow them to identify where systems fall short, to argue for rights-based improvements with theoretical precision, and to situate their own national experience within a broader comparative and normative frame.

    This is what the course is designed to provide.

    An Offer to Universities and Institutions

    OCRights is committed to offering this course as regularly as demand requires. The course was developed at ELTE University in Budapest and is taught by Asgeir Falch-Eriksen, Associate Professor at OsloMet and Assistant Director of OCRights, who has published extensively on human rights, child protection, professional practice, and welfare state theory.

    OCRights extends a standing invitation to universities, research institutions, professional schools, and organisations interested in hosting or co-hosting the course. We are open to partnerships that adapt the course to different institutional contexts — whether as a module within an existing programme, as a standalone intensive course, or as a capacity-building offering for practitioners and professionals in child protection and related fields.

    If your institution is interested in hosting the course, or if you would like more information about its content, format, and requirements, we warmly encourage you to reach out. Every context in which children’s rights are studied seriously is a context in which the protection of children becomes more possible.

    Contact OCRights: ocright@oslomet.no

    Or contact the course lecturer directly: Asgeir Falch-Eriksen — asgeirer@asgeirer