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When a child for some reason can’t live with their parents it is up to the welfare system to provide a home and care for that child. In Sweden long-term foster care placements are the most common state interventions for those children. Recent studies have shown that as much as one out of four foster care placements break down in the child’s adolescent years. To experience one or a series of tough separations from important elders has shown to have negative effects on the development of the child. This does not align with the welfare systems’  responsibility to always act in favor of the child. Always acting in favor of the Child is at the core of the Convention on the rights of the Child. In the following qualitative content analysis five state documents (three from the National Board of Health and Welfare, one from The Ombudsman for Children and one governmental investigation document) have been examined. The aim of the analysis is to examine how the documents portray placement breakdowns in foster care and how much they focus on the child rights perspective in their portrayals. Previous research and two theories regarding children are used as the theoretical framework to help analyze the essay results. The two theories are Bronfenbrenner's ecological system theory of child development and the theory of childhood sociology with emphasis on children as actors. This essay comes to the conclusion that the state documents are well informed of the complex nature of placement breakdowns and the dissonance between the problem of breakdowns and the child’s right perspective. The documents also contain a number of interventions that in theory could reduce the number of breakdowns. What is revealed is that the process of acknowledging the problem, finding a solution and implementing it in the social care practice takes a lot of time and is a slow process. The discussion includes that further research of what can be done on a municipal level would be of use.

Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 170-184).

We have many developmental theories contributing to our understanding of children as they meander steadfastly toward maturation. Yet, none have reported on how young children interpret the qualitative meaning and importance of their own music-making experiences. Music created by average, not prodigious, young children is perceived by adults as “play” music rather than “real” music. But do young children take the same view as adults? When Piaget speaks of the young child’s qualitatively unique view and experience of the world (Ginsberg & Opper, 1988), can we assume that his statement encompasses young children’s predispositions related to music-making? Music is understood to occur when people act intentionally to produce and organize sound into rhythm and form. The guiding questions for this study are, What evidence is there to show that, when following an adult music leader, young children can engage in authentic music-making behavior and produce identifiable musical structures that move beyond random sounds or ‘noise’? What evidence is there to show that children's music-making behavior develops according to developmental stages? trek This qualitative field study observed and videotaped over 100 children between 2 and 7 years old who chose to engage in music-making behavior in a socially-rich school environment during structured activities guided by an adult “music leader.” The data gathered from this study suggest that young children’s motivation to make music derive from predispositions unrelated to notions of cultural and artistic expression thereby differing from adult musical needs and are instead based on more primary responses to their own developmental needs and their social environment. Functioning as “music leader,” the PI appeared to serve as an indispensable interface for assuring authenticity in the children’s music-making at all stages of development. The older children did not introduce any novel behavior specifically related to making music. However, due to the progression of cognitive and social maturity across the range of ages, new extra-musical behavior (EMB) slowly emerged at each developmental stage always seeming to enrich the experience relative to a particular group.