This webinar took a deeper look at the Barnahus Quality Standards 2 & 5: Multidisciplinary and interagency collaboration, and Interagency case management.

Summary 

Turid Heiberg, Children at Risk Senior Adviser at the Council of the Baltic Sea States, delved into Standards and highlighted the need for an all-encompassing and coordinated approach to support the child victim effectively. This necessitates a well-functioning collaboration among various professionals from different fields such as medical, mental health, child protection, law enforcement, and the judiciary. Turid underscored that the aim is to combine their diverse skills and expertise, creating a child-centred model that prioritizes the child’s best interests.

Ólöf Ásta Farestveit, leader of Barnahus Iceland, presented the Icelandic work, discussing the collaborative and multi-disciplinary nature of child protection work in Iceland. Ólöf highlighted how different professions engage in case management and make collective decisions for the benefit of the child.

Anders Forsberg, Head of Barnahus Stockholm, discussed the Barnahus journey in Stockholm. The team in Stockholm serve a district with about 1.2 million citizens. Since its beginning in 2004 in a small apartment, the Stockholm Barnahus has evolved significantly. In 2014, they established a new model for collaboration and co-operation. The cooperative model based on transparent guidelines and mutual respect. Stockholm Barnahus conducts regular multidisciplinary meetings. Despite the challenges of Multidisciplinary work, they believe they’ve found a workable structure that promotes learning from each other and allows for comprehensive support for the children they serve.

Ana Marjia Spanic, Pscychologist, The Child and Youth Protection Center of Zagreb, discussed inter-agency case management and their work at the centre. Their multidisciplinary team consists of psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, social workers, special educators, speech therapists, nurses, and lawyers. The team is customized according to the needs of each individual child, with the first professional to see the child often deciding who the other members of the team will be. The team in Zagreb conducts daily team meetings to ensure efficient collaboration. Through collaboration, they make individual plans for each child and provide immediate treatment if needed. The team has continuous case tracking with medical charts for each child and documentation gathered from other relevant institutions. In Croatia, there are legal obligations to save the data for ten years, all of which are protected according to privacy protocols.

The PROMISE Webinar Series is co-organised with Terre des Hommes, a partner of this project, as part of the ChildHub’s child protection webinar series.

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