Invoking secure care in child welfare cases: legitimizing the last resort

According to Swedish law, in the case of concern for a child, social services are required to assess the child's need for support and protection. On some occasions, there is a need to enforce involuntary care and place the child in a secure institution due to an assessment of norm-breaking behaviour. Applying Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this study aims to shed light on how problem identities are constructed in child welfare assessment texts by drawing on certain discourses to legitimize placement in secure care – a measure considered a last resort in the Swedish child welfare system. The results show that children are presented as intentionally acting subjects through the establishment of urgency and escalation, with 'evidence' presented from experts and past assessments when building a 'case' for a child with problematic behaviour being 'fit for secure care'. To successfully invoke the need for secure care, the text must follow the 'assessment genre', defining the main problem in terms of the behaviour of the child, drawing on discourses on responsibility, individualization and dangerousness. Hence, while the behavioural focus is rational in terms of the purpose of the text, it risks reproducing the problem identity of a dangerous and accountable child and ultimately creating a self-perpetuating cycle.