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Danish dark past thread

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Oscar:
Minister not impressed
Denmarks Radio, February 27, 2012

The Minister for Social Affairs, Karen Hækkerup, is very concerned about the approach being taken at the country’s residential schools for children and young people with behavioural problems and has given notice of reforms to approval and inspection procedures.

As a first step the National Social Appeals Board will carry out a detailed review of the whole area of inspection, the Minister told DR News.

Her response comes after TV news programme 21 Søndag exposed fierce criticism of the Solhaven centre which receives large amounts of money from the municipalities to look after children and young people with behavioural problems.

Professionalism challenged
Karen Hækkerup notes that the institution was reported to the police after allegations of violence against the children in its care.

“I am not impressed by methods which involve breaking people down in order to build them up again. That type of thing belongs in a military strategy and is not appropriate for vulnerable children,” she says.

Hækkerup believes that professional standards should be laid down for those centres which look after our most vulnerable citizens.

“It is not acceptable that some people do not understand what they are dealing with. That is why I am taking up the issues of reform of approval and supervision,” she says.

Oscar:
This is just in: Press release from Domestic prisoners of conscience. We have asked them to deal with problems here in Denmark because we have attracted too much attention by certain groups in Denmark.

The interest of an adopted girl put aside for politics

We have just received news about the forced removal of an adopted girl from a foster family who had been approved by the social services and host several children in categorized as at-risk teenagers.

The girl had been adopted by a Danish couple some years back but she had too much luggage based on her life in Africa so the Danish couple was unable to provide her with support to deal with her past. The Danish couple reached out to the social services in the town of Naestved. She was placed in a foster family and everybody was happy.

The girl seemed to adjust to her life in the foster family. She attended a local school with little absence. There seemed to be no reason to move her to another solution. But the social services in Naestved had their own agenda. In Naestved they have a special behavior modification program who marketed themselves as a program which can deal with every kind of problem teenagers may have.

For the town of Naestved to attract clients to their program from other cities they use every opportunity to put teenagers into the program. Even teenagers like Amy which functioned very well within the foster family. They proudly state that they don’t kick teenagers out just because the teenagers act out. They just hire employees with more muscles. Soldiers are the employees called by the manager of the program in one article in a magazine for social workers.

But this young girl doesn’t need soldiers. She doesn’t need power play by employees. We can hardly understand how it is to live in Africa in countries which have been marked with armed action.

The social services removed her by force from her foster family. They were aided by police. How should this poor girl act when she properly is used to that the police kills children living on the street before they ask questions, if the police in her native country ask questions at all.

What kind of care does this girl get now? We do know that this specific behavior modification program employs people who drink alcohol during their work hours. Several newspapers stated so in 2008. The program didn’t drag the newspapers in court so the journalists must have hit something right there.

This case raise the question whether Denmark as a country are able to participate in the business of buying children for adoption from the third world. It is difficult to state whether her adoption to Denmark was of service to her. Maybe it is time for countries which sell their children to Denmark for adoption of a typical price of DKK 80,000 to stop this traffic while the case of Amy is fully investigated.


* About this program in Fornits Wiki (Link)
* The mayor of Naestved is watching the video where the girl is removed by forced (link)

Oscar:
Amy Rebecca Steen
Adventures and Japes blog, Posted on 11/03/2012

The best thing for the authorities in Denmark is that only 5.5 million people speak Danish.

The second best thing is that only a tiny minority of the people of Denmark are politically minded which translates to only a few thousand people giving an actual shit at any one time.

Næstved is a small town just outside Copenhagen. In common with all the towns in Denmark, it has financial worries. The global financial crisis has hit Denmark hard and the central government has passed the buck to the individual “kommunes”, who have to find the savings or suffer the consequences.

As you might imagine, from experience with your own country, the kommunes make the savings from the weak. They close schools with high proportions of socially disadvantaged students, they cut back on support for disabled people and as seen in this case, they make savings on vulnerable children in the state’s care.

Eleven year old Amy Rebecca Steen was placed in foster care, in which she was thriving. The council needed to save money, so they placed her in a half-way home for alcoholics. When the council came to remove her, they brought the police. When she resisted, social services and the police violently assaulted her to get her into the car. The police have been informed. Excuse me if I do not hold my breath for justice to be done here.

The mayor was shown footage of her assault. Halfway through he actually looks like he might cry. The journalist says “So, Mr Mayor, what do you think about that?” and his response is the following:-

“That’s what happens if you try to solve situations with force. Of course, honestly, the family… I mean, the foster family did not contribute more positively to the removal of Amy.”

I cannot translate the rest of what that moral coward Carsten Ramussen has to say because he makes me sick. He says some stuff about the foster family having to contribute more positively because the kommune has the right to remove the girl. Etc etc blah blah blah.

If he were still a full human being and not a shell, he would have said “this is a police matter, the amount of force used is unacceptable, she is only eleven for God’s sake”. Here, the politicians are inured to violence being used on the weak to make savings in the budget. Better to criticise people standing up for what is right, than to look at what is wrong.

The Danish national press has not picked up the story. It is only being reported  locally in newspapers (and god bless them). It did make the national tv news but only briefly. The story is over, as far as they are concerned.

This is how unremarkable something like this is, in Denmark. This is how it keeps out of the international press.  This is how the hype that Denmark is a socialist paradise is continued. It is NOT like “anywhere else”. It is awful here. You just do not hear about it unless you can speak Danish, unless you read other local newspapers, unless you turn on the tv on the right day at the right time.

Go back to your bubbles, people, nothing to see.

Links:-
Næstved Kommune removed Amy with force
Næstved Kommune reported to the police
Næstved Kommune didn’t dare remove Amy
The kommune struck under the cover of darkness
Amy removed by force
Heavy handed forcible removal reported to the police
Borough dialogue in Næstved

Reddit TroubledTeens:
Thank you for all the additional info, Oscar. I have linked this in our thread about international programs:
http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/c ... _worldwide

What happened to Amy Rebecca Steen is truly horrible, I'm outraged she would be treated like that in the name of money. Her story sounds so similar to what happens to thousands of kids here in the States.

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