Here you will find frequently asked questions about Children Under the Radar.
What is the purpose of Children Under the Radar?
The main goal of Children Under the Radar is to limit harm and the development of problems in children and young people at an early stage.
The sub-goals are:
- to detect more cases of child abuse and serious neglect
- to give healthcare personnel confidence when making assessments related to the duty to notify the Child Welfare Services (§ 33)
- to ensure a high professional standard in this work
Why have health trusts and hospitals chosen to implement Children Under the Radar?
The Failure and Betrayal reportfrom 2017 identified weaknesses in how public services handled cases involving children and young people who had experienced child abuse and serious neglect. Among other things, the report found that notifications were not always sent to the Child Welfare Services when the criteria for the duty to notify had been met.
The report recommended strengthening healthcare personnel’s skills, particularly in identifying violence, sexual abuse and neglect. One specific measure mentioned in the report is to integrate checklists into patient record systems that can provide decision support when healthcare personnel consider whether or not to notify the Child Welfare Services.
Healthcare personnel are in a unique position to identify children experiencing abuse and neglect at an early stage. To feel confident when assessing when to notify the Child Welfare Services, healthcare personnel need, among other things, knowledge ofSection 33 of the Health Personnel Act. Children Under the Radar provides training and tools to build competence in this area.
How can the Children Under the Radar initiative help healthcare personnel make sound assessments in situations where they must determine whether there is reason to believe that a child is experiencing abuse and neglect?
Children Under the Radar was developed to increase healthcare personnel’s competence in dealing with serious concerns about patients’ children and assessing whether the criteria in Section 33 of the Health Personnel Act are met.
The law emphasises that the duty to notify the Child Welfare Services is an individual responsibility for healthcare personnel. Children Under the Radar therefore focuses on strengthening the competence of each healthcare professional through training, guidance and the use of an adapted checklist, to support more thorough assessments and better decision-making.
When should Children Under the Radar be used?
Children Under the Radar is used when adult patients with minor children need urgent medical care due to:
- a serious mental health condition
- suicidality
- intoxication
- violence
Who is Children Under the Radar designed to support in decision-making?
Children Under the Radar is tailored and developed as decision support for healthcare personnel working in:
- ambulance services
- emergency departments
- mobile emergency teams
Could Children Under the Radar lead healthcare personnel to confuse Sections 10a and 10b of the Health Personnel Act with the duty to notify under Section 33?
Sections 10a–b of the Health Personnel Act concern assessing children’s need for information and follow-up in the event of illness and death in the family, while Section 33 concerns the duty to notify the Child Welfare Services. Health trusts and hospitals have separate training, procedures and routines for each section. Training, procedures and routines relating to Sections 10a and 10b are mandatory for all healthcare personnel. The same applies to general training and procedures relating to Section 33.
Children Under the Radar includes specific training, procedures and checklists for dealing with certain patient groups in very serious and acute situations. For now, this has only been developed for healthcare personnel in emergency services.
Feedback from the health trusts shows that Children Under the Radar improves competence and supports healthcare personnel in assessments relating to the duty to notify. The checklist helps prevent routine notifications through sound assessments, documentation and decision support.
Could Children Under the Radar lead to an increase in unlawful notifications to the Child Welfare Services?
Children Under the Radar helps healthcare personnel make professionally sound assessments through competence-building, training and the use of checklists.
The focus is on sending the right notifications rather than routine notifications. All health trusts and hospitals implementing Children Under the Radar are encouraged to work closely with the Child Welfare Services to learn from one another and share knowledge. The initiative contributes to more equitable services, with consistent procedures for handling such cases.
Could Children Under the Radar overburden the Child Welfare Services, causing the most serious cases to be lost in the paperwork?
The Child Welfare Services involved in the work have themselves stated that it is their responsibility to prepare to receive the notifications that come in, and they are not concerned about being overburdened as a result of implementation.
That said, it is important to emphasise that the number of cases involved is very limited, and that most healthcare personnel rarely have to make these assessments.
Preliminary feedback from the Child Welfare Services shows that introducing Children Under the Radar at health trusts and hospitals has improved the content of notifications, resulting in more appropriate and targeted notifications.
Will patients lose trust in support services and be reluctant to seek necessary help?
Research on the introduction of the equivalent checklist, The Hague Protocol, in the Netherlands shows that patients maintain their trust in healthcare services. However, this issue has not yet been fully examined in the Norwegian context.
