Adoptivfamiljer : "Födelsemeddelande" från socialtjänst till barnavårdscentral

Sammanfattning: Child health care in Sweden is today automatically informed of newborns in the district and itis therefore natural for the maternal and child health nurses to contact and invite the new family to the child welfare clinic. So far the social services in the studied county have not reported new adoptive families to the child welfare clinics; instead the families have to contact the clinic themselves. The aim of this study was to investigate how social services inform the child welfare clinics of new adoptive families. The aim was also to investigate how and when the maternal and child health nurse thinks that contact should be established and what information/knowledge she feels a need of in contact with new adoptive families. The study has a qualitative design and interviews have been conducted with social workers, a representative of an adoption agency and maternal and child health nurses working in child welfare clinics. The results show that there is no established routine today to report new adoptive families from social services to child welfare clinics. Social workers, the representative of an adoption agency as well as maternal and child health nurses almost all thought that such a routine would indeed be useful because the adoptive family would more easily enter the system. The view of the maternal and child health nurses varied if they should have contact with adoptive parents before they travel to collect their child, as well as about home visit to new adoptive families. Social workers and the representative of an adoption agency both thought that child health care needs more knowledge about adoption to be able to support adoptive families. A majority of the maternal and child health nurses said they did not need special knowledge of adoption in contact with a new adoptive family. This kind of disparity in opinions could be interpreted as a sign of insufficient communication and collaboration between agencies serving the same clients. An opening from both sides is therefore desirable.