FAQ

The social services are present in every municipality and they work to ensure the well-being of everyone who lives in the municipality. A person who is struggling may need help and support from the social services. They have a special responsibility to ensure that children and young people grow up in a safe and secure environment.

The work of the social services is done by social workers. Their job is to talk to families where there are problems and to suggest different kinds of help. If there is an adult or a child in a family that needs help from the social services, it is quite common that other members of the family will also need help.

Social workers must always listen to the children to ensure that they get the best possible outcome.

The social services can help families in many different ways. The type of help provided depends on what the problem is and what the family and the child need help with to make things better at home. The most common measure is for the social services to offer non-institutional services – that is, services that are provided to children and young people who remain living at home with their family.

It may be that the child and family need someone to talk to about the problems they are having – for example, families who have a lot of arguments and conflicts in the home can meet with a person who works to help families resolve such problems.

For children, it may be possible for them to be assigned a contact person or contact family. Help is also available for young people who have problems with drink or drugs, or who have become involved in criminal activity.

If living at home is a problem, the child may need to live somewhere else for a while. This is known as the child being placed into care. In the first instance, placement is always voluntary and is done in cooperation with the child and family.

In the first instance, you can contact your case officer. You can also contact the case officer’s manager. If you believe that there are shortcomings in the way that the social services are working, you can contact the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO), which is the supervisory authority for the social services.

If you wish to remain anonymous, you can choose to withhold your phone number when you call. You can also send emails from an email address that does not contain your name.

Parents have the main responsibility for ensuring the well-being of their children and that they have a safe and secure childhood. They also have a responsibility for the child’s upbringing and to set boundaries in ways that are appropriate for the child.

All parents can find parenting difficult and challenging, and it can be hard to know when to say yes or no. Children can need both freedom and boundaries in order for their needs and their rights to be ensured. The ability to say no to your child can be just as important as saying yes.

It is not possible to give a general answer as to which boundaries a child needs – they need to be adapted to the individual child, and will also depend on factors such as the child’s age and their maturity.

Parents must not ill-treat their children or subject them to violence or oppression. This means that parents are not allowed to hit their children, threaten them or talk disparagingly about them. Children must always feel safe to tell their truth and to share their perspectives with their parents.

If you find any aspect of your parenting difficult, the social services are there to support you.

The most common kind of help is for the family to talk to a social worker. The social worker listens and provides advice about what needs to change in order for things to work better at home.

Sometimes parents may need help to ensure the well-being of the rest of the family – for example, they may need help to stop drinking alcohol or to manage their finances more effectively. They may also need help if there are a lot of arguments at home.

Many municipalities provide parent groups and parental training. Contact the social services in your municipality to find out what help is available where you live.

If someone is concerned about a child’s well-being, they should report this to the social services. This could be in the form of an email or a phone call that states which child the person is concerned about and why. This is known as a notification of concern.

Anyone can submit this kind of report – it could, for example, be a friend, a parent or a neighbour who is concerned. Most commonly, however, such reports are made by someone who works for a school, the police or the health service, or other places where people frequently come into contact with children. These people have an extra responsibility to inform the social services if they are concerned about a child’s well-being – in such circumstances, they have a legal obligation to submit a notification of concern.

A notification of concern may be submitted to the social services for various reasons. Such concerns often involve the parents perhaps not being able to take care of the child, or it may be the child who is engaging in dangerous behaviour.

When a notification of concern is received, the social services read or listen to what the person submitting the report is worried about. The social services will usually contact the child and the parents to talk about what has been reported in the notification. If the social services then conclude that the claims in the report are not correct, the case will be closed.

The social services will receive the report and read or listen to what the reporter is worried about. The next step is to decide whether the concern is sufficiently serious that the social services need to take urgent action to protect the child. This may be the case, for example, if the child needs to be removed from a dangerous situation quickly. However, for the vast majority of children who come into contact with the social services, the situations are neither dangerous nor urgent. In these cases, the social services will usually contact the child and the parents to talk about what has been claimed in the report. They also tend to talk again with the person who made the report.

For many children and families, their contact with the social services ends after these conversations. Or the social services may start something called a preliminary investigation. This involves investigating the child’s situation in more detail to see whether the child or the family needs help and support from the social services. The social services always work on the basis that the measures that are required should be provided voluntarily, in cooperation with the family.

The social services must keep the notification for a certain period of time. However, it is only notifications that result in an investigation that become cases with the social services. Notifications of concern are covered by a duty of confidentiality. This means that in the vast majority of cases, the social services must keep the reports secret.

Placing a child into care means that the social services ensure that the child is removed from their family and will live somewhere else instead.

If the child needs to be placed, the social services will first try to find a family within the child’s network – that is, with someone who is already known to the child and the family, such as a relative or a friend of the family.

If this is not possible, the child may be placed in a family home proposed by the social services.

A family home is a family that welcomes the child into their home to live with them.

If a child needs to be placed urgently, they may need to be placed temporarily in an emergency home. This is a family that is prepared to take in a child at short notice and where the child can stay for a short period.

Some children or young people need more care or treatment than a family is able to provide. They can then be placed in a residential care home (HVB), which is a residential facility with staff. Older teenagers or young adults who can largely care for themselves but who need access to staff can be placed in supported accommodation.

Adults who need protection from threats, violence or other forms of abuse can be placed in sheltered accommodation. Children can also be placed in sheltered accommodation, together with their guardian.

This varies greatly from case to case. Some children are only placed for one day or for a very short period of time, whilst others may be placed in care throughout their entire childhood.

The social services try to place the child close to their home so as not to break contact with the home environment. Ideally, the placement will be within the same municipality. However, there are situations where it is not in the child’s best interest to be placed close to their parents – for example, if the child has been taken into preventive care due to abuse by the family.

It is important that the child remains connected to their own background, language and culture. In the first hand, the social services must explore the possibility of placing the child in a home within the child’s network. They must always consider what is best for the child.

The social services have a responsibility to plan the placement in a way that allows the child to have contact with their family and other people who are important to the child.

The social services are always responsible for ensuring that children who have been placed into care are being well cared for. Families who would like to become family homes are assessed by the social services. A family home is a family that takes in children who, for various reasons, cannot live with their parents. A child may also be placed in a residential care home (HVB). An HVB must be licensed by the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO), which is the supervisory authority for the social services.

The social services must also closely monitor the care provided to the children. This involves talking to the child, visiting the child where they live, and talking to the family home or staff and the child’s guardians. Decisions to place a child into compulsory care must be considered or reviewed by the social welfare committee at least once every six months. Compulsory care must end as soon as it is no longer needed.

Swedish law states that anyone who becomes aware, or suspects, that a child is being abused should report this to the social services. This also applies to children who have been placed into care. Staff in organisations that are aimed at children and young people must report any concerns immediately. HVB staff who become aware that something is not right or of any risks that are involved in the care provided to children and young people are obliged to report this immediately to the person in charge of the institution.

A family home must have the conditions to offer the child care that is both safe and secure. The family home must also be able to meet the child’s specific needs. The social services have a responsibility to check that potential family homes meet the requirements, and they must also monitor the care provision closely.

This is determined by considering the individual needs of each child and consequently the kind of work that will be required by that particular family home. The amount of compensation is regulated by national recommendations that have been published by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR), which is an organisation for municipalities.

LVU is an abbreviation of a Swedish law known as the Act (1990:52) with Special Provisions on the Care of Young People. This law allows the social services, on behalf of the Swedish society, to protect children and young people under the age of 21. However, most of the help provided by the social services to children and parents is voluntary, so the social services do not usually need to work with decisions made in accordance with LVU.

The current law came into force in 1990, but this was preceded by other legislation that regulated the taking of children into preventive care.

A decision to take a child into preventive care in accordance with LVU must be based on the existence of a tangible risk of harm to the child’s health or development. This could be due to problems in the home environment or the child’s own behaviour. Violence or demeaning treatment by the family is one example; another is that the child places themselves in danger, uses drugs or is committing crimes. Another requirement is that it can be assumed, or that the social services know, that the parents and child will not consent to the child being placed in care.

In 2023, decisions on compulsory care in accordance with LVU were made for around 3,500 children and young people throughout the country. This includes both immediate taking into care and other care-based decisions made in accordance with LVU

No. Religion is not a basis for a child to be taken into care. The decision to take a child into care in accordance with LVU must always be based on an assumption that there is a tangible risk of harm to the child’s health or development. This could be due to problems in the home environment or that the child’s own behaviour represents a risk.

It begins with the social services receiving information in some way that a child is being harmed or is at risk of being harmed. The social services then have a responsibility to investigate the child’s need for support and protection. This work shall always be based on what is best for the child.

If the child needs to be protected and urgently placed into care, and the guardians do not give their consent, the social services can decide to take the child into immediate preventive care. This means that the child is taken into care and given an immediate placement, without the consent of the guardians. The court will then decide whether the social welfare committee’s decision should stand. The social welfare committee has the possibility to involve the police in the actual removal of the child, but this is only used when necessary.

If the situation is not urgent but the social services still consider that the child needs to be taken into compulsory care, they can submit an application to the court. The court then decides whether there are grounds for the provision of care in accordance with LVU.

It depends on the situation. The social services always make assessments on a case-by-case basis – that is, the decision will vary from child to child. If there is a tangible risk of harm to a child’s health or development and there is no consent for voluntary care, the social services must decide on the provision of care in accordance with LVU. The social services must not wait to intervene until a child has been harmed.

Yes. The social services, like all other Swedish authorities, must use an interpreter if they have contact with someone who cannot speak Swedish. Any important documents that have been written must also be translated, if necessary.

Yes. Parents can appeal against decisions for their child to be taken into compulsory care. It is always a court that decides whether a child is to be taken into care. Parents can appeal against the court’s decision.

Both the child and the guardians have the right to public counsel, which means they will receive legal assistance that is paid for by the state. As soon as compulsory care is no longer needed, it should be ended. The decision on compulsory care must be considered or reviewed by the social welfare committee at least once every six months.

As soon as care provided in accordance with LVU is no longer needed, it should be ended. If the child is still in need of care, the placement can continue voluntarily in accordance with the Social Services Act (2001:453), which is also known as SoL. The objective is that the child is to be reunited with their parents as soon as the objective of the care placement has been achieved. The placement should not last for any longer than is necessary.

If there is a tangible risk that the child’s health or development may be harmed if he or she moves from a family home, the social services can decide that the child shall not move. Such a decision is always taken in the best interests of the child. The child always has the right to receive relevant information and will be given the opportunity to express their views.

The social services have a responsibility to ensure that the child’s needs for access to parents and guardians are met, as far as is possible. However, if the situation so requires, the social services may decide to limit this access. In some exceptional cases, the social services may also need to keep the child’s whereabouts secret from their parents or guardians.

The social services must provide the guardians and parents of children who have been placed in care with the advice, support and other assistance they may need. This can include, for example, offering parental training, counselling, parenting support, and support in dealing with those who are caring for the child.

The rules that prohibit people from leaving the country have been in place since 2020, as part of the Act (1990:52) with Special Provisions for the Care of Young People (LVU). On 1 June 2024, these rules were broadened to increase society’s ability to protect children from being harmed abroad.

An international travel ban means that a child is prevented from leaving Sweden, partly by blocking and revoking the child’s passport.

The travel ban can be used to protect children from, for example, being sent abroad to be raised in particular ways or to be subjected to genital mutilation or attempted conversion, as well as travelling to terrorist organisations and conflict zones. It can also be imposed if a child is at risk of being taken away from Sweden in order to be married.

The social services can apply for an international travel ban to the administrative court, which makes the decision. There must be concrete circumstances that lead the social services to believe that the child would be at risk of harm if they were to leave the country.

If the situation is urgent and there is a risk that the child will be taken out of Sweden before the court has time to make a decision, the social welfare committee can decide on a temporary travel ban. Such a decision must then be approved by the court.

Once a ban (or a temporary ban) on international travel has been issued, the court or the social services will send a copy of the decision to the police. The police can then block and revoke the child’s passport. Travel using foreign passports can also be prevented. A new Swedish passport cannot be issued while the travel ban is in force.