You are hereby invited to contribute to a book about the Nordic Barnahus models. The aim of the book is to describe and critically discuss the models, using a comparative lens to identify promising practices as well as tensions and challenges.
Background
The concept Barnahus is used in the Nordic countries and translates to Children’s House. The concept derives from Iceland, the country that first adopted the model in 1998. The Icelandic Barnahus took the Children’s Advocacy Centres in the US and the idea of the ‘one door principle’ as its inspiration.
Within the Barnahus different governmental agencies (related to law enforcement, social services and health care) collaborate under one roof regarding investigations of suspected crimes against children, mainly physical and/or sexual abuse. Barnahus thus represents an inter-agency approach to children being victims of crime with a double aim of facilitating the legal process and ensuring that the child and family receives necessary help in order to cope with the child’s experiences.
Barnahus has been described as one of the main policy ventures in the Nordic countries related to children as crime victims (Johansson 2012) and has undergone and extensive Nordic diffusion process. Furthermore, Barnahus is referred to as an example of child friendly justice and promoted on the European level by the Council of Europe (Guidelines of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on child friendly justice, 2010 ).
The Nordic countries are most often described as similar when it comes to welfare and legal systems, not least concerning child protection systems, for example described in terms of a Nordic welfare model or a social-democratic welfare regime (e.g. Esping-Andersen 1990; Gilbert et.al. 2011; Forsberg & Kröger 2011). Yet, in the light of several conducted as well as on-going studies on Barnahus in the different Nordic countries (e.g. Åström & Rejmer 2008; Kaldal et.al. 2010; Johansson 2011; Bakketeig et.al. 2012; Stefansen et.al. 2012; Johansson 2012; Rädda Barnen 2013) important variations regarding the implementation of the Barnahus model are crystalizing, which actualizes the importance of gathering knowledge from the different countries as well as further develop an inter-disciplinary, contextual and comparative understanding of similarities and differences.
The implementation of the Barnahus model has led to interest from researchers from different disciplines. The Nordic Network for Research on Children’s Houses was established in 2014 with the aim of stimulating research and scholarly discussion on Barnahus/Children’s Houses from different perspectives and disciplinary traditions. The proposed book is a first step in this process.
Editors for the book project are Susanna Johansson (soch.lu.se), Anna Kaldal (jurinst.su.se), Kari Stefansen (oslomet.no) and Elisiv Bakketeig (oslomet.no).
Aims and Scope
The book will be written in English and is aimed towards an international audience. The aim of the book is to describe and critically discuss Nordic Barnahus models, using a comparative lens to identify promising practices as well as tensions and challenges.
An introductory chapter will be written by the editors and will focus on how the idea of Barnahus has been interpreted and implemented in the different Nordic countries, and overarching differences and similarities in aims and scope, as well as legal and organizational aspects of the measure.
One perspective that will be put forward is that the diffusion of the Barnahus idea may be seen as a continuous transformation of ideas rather than simple copying or imitations (Czarniawska 1997; Johansson 2012). We will utilize a contextual and comparative perspective to draw attention to how the measure is shaped by the legal and organizational context to which it has been introduced.
The following part of the book will contain in-depth-chapters from the different Nordic countries divided into themes (see below), drawing on different research projects and conducted studies.
Researchers can contribute to the book project in two ways: either 1) by writing a chapter related to a theme (see below) or 2) by contributing in seminar discussions etc. related to the writing process of the introductory chapter.
Possible themes
- The idea, practice and experience of child friendly justice / child friendliness
- Professional autonomy and inter-agency collaboration
- Social work and clinical treatment
- The forensic interview in Barnahus and the legal process
Process and important dates
- Submission of abstract/proposal to editors: 15. March 2015.
- Editor´s review for authors: 15. April 2015
- Editor’s proposal/synopsis to publishing houses: 15. June 2015
- Submission of book chapters / first draft to editors: 1. August 2015
- Book seminar at Sätra Bruk in Sweden, 15-16. October 2015
- Submission of revised book chapters to editors: 15. January 2016
- Review process – editors, referees, publisher – feb-april 2016
- Book seminar in Stockholm during NFBO conference 22.-25. May 2016
- Final versions and publication: August – December 2016
Read more about The Nordic Network for Research on Children’s Houses