PUBLIC-SECTOR AND PRIVATE-SECTOR OUT-OF-HOME CARE IN DENMARK

This study aims to discover why Danes make little use of resources from the private sector in what has been represented as a model child-care program. With their welfare system under mounting strain at the same time tax money is being curtailed, special attention is paid to the expensive out-of-home placement practices common to local child-welfare operations. There is now token experimentation with kith-as alternatives to traditional child-care institutions and foster homes-but resistance to placements in the households of extended families continues. Welfare administrators and politicians yield to the judgment and the decisions of a professional system dominated by social caseworkers.