The work of the social services
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns the social services' work and future legislation. M moves for approval of the committee's proposal and emphasizes that the social services should function preventatively and results-oriented 1, as well as that a new social services act will be introduced during the spring 2 3. S argues that the legislation is delayed 4 5 and wants the government to take the relative strategy further 6. KD wants the new law to have a clearer connection to knowledge 7 and is pleased with the investment in Housing first 7. SD wants preventative work to be encouraged 8. L is pleased with the new social services act 9. V wants preventative measures against over-indebtedness 10. C wants evidence-based methods 11. MP wants the state to take over personal records for international adoptions 12.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Malin Höglund (M)
Madam Speaker! Today we are debating the Social Affairs Committee's report 17 regarding the Social Services Authority's work. I would like to begin by moving to approve the committee's proposals in the report.
Madam Speaker! Sweden has a well-developed social service, which is an important part of the Swedish welfare system. It is through the social service that we can help those who are struggling and who need our help the most. The social service has the task of supporting and helping people in different life situations and is based on legislation that regulates what the social service may and may not do.
An important principle within the social services is that they shall be for everyone who needs help, regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. I am therefore pleased that we will soon have a new Social Services Act on the table that will function more preventatively and involve earlier interventions.
Madam Speaker! We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the problems that exist within the social services. One of the biggest challenges is the competence shortage that exists across the entire country. It leads to a higher workload for the employees and poorer quality of the services offered. To solve this problem, we must ensure that there is competence within the social services that can be of support to the municipality's residents.
Madam Speaker! Another challenge is that many who need help from the social services fall between the cracks. This is due to the silos that exist between different authorities or because the social services do not have the resources to provide the help that is needed. In the future, cooperation between different authorities is needed. We must ensure that the social services function in an efficient and legally secure manner.
Madam Speaker! We must ensure that the social services become more efficient and results-oriented. It is important that the measures taken actually lead to an improvement for the people who need help. To achieve this, we shall review how the social services are organized and how the resources are used.
Madam Speaker! Every individual has the right to a safe and stable existence, regardless of background and life situation. Foster homes are a very important part of this. They give children and young people who, for various reasons, cannot live with their biological parents a chance at a safe and loving upbringing. By giving a child or a young person a stable home and a family to belong to, we can help create a positive future.
Madam Speaker! I have previously told from this rostrum about how Mora municipality works with recruiting foster homes, contact families, and contact persons. A special day was set aside for the purpose of recruiting more who can be part of children's and young people's upbringing. The foster homes we had in the municipality and those who were curious about becoming such were invited to various lectures with, among others, people who had lived in foster homes during their upbringing or who were foster homes.
Social secretaries are out in various arenas to talk about how to become a foster home, a crisis foster home, or a contact home. Several things need to be done for us to get more high-quality placements within the entire social child and youth care. Earlier interventions, such as foster homes, are a better solution than late interventions and placement at Sis.
Madam Speaker! Last year I visited Abila Care in Falun. It is a very exciting company that works with outpatient care for youth and support for families. It is a complement to the municipal outpatient care. They are now also collaborating with Högskolan Dalarna to see what effect the treatment provides. They use motivational interviews with the youth while the parents do their part by participating in a digital education at home.
Madam Speaker! Sweden's municipalities shall in the future be able to offer citizens the support and service they need. Therefore, it feels secure that the government is now presenting a new Social Services Act which, in character, is a framework law and thus leaves greater room for a holistic view of the individual. Early interventions and preventive work can, at best, postpone or prevent long-term placements. It will give the municipalities the legal support they need to work more preventively and knowledge-based.
Gustaf Lantz (S)
Madam Speaker! I particularly take note of what the member said about a new Social Services Act at the end of his speech. How we have longed for it! But this is beginning to resemble the Hallandsåstunnel construction of social policy. No legislation is ever going to come. An inquiry was already submitted to the government in 2020, and it was exactly in motion that a bill was to be presented by the previous government. None of us in the opposition know why it is delayed. Where is the new Social Services Act, which was needed precisely right now and preferably many years ago?
Malin Höglund (M)
Madam Speaker! I thank Member Lantz for the question. A new Social Services Act is coming. We all know that. It will come now late in the spring before the summer. There is nothing strange about that at all.
What was the case with the Social Services Act that the previous government began to pull out was that it was not to be cost-driving in any way. The new government saw what needed to be done and took a new approach. Among the staff within social services, a change that is more modern and more in step with the times has long been requested.
Gustaf Lantz (S)
Madam Speaker! I agree completely and clearly that we need a new Social Services Act. Above all, it is needed for the social workers who are at the forefront, working towards our citizens who need help. They have needed it for a long time.
We have received different promises all the time. That makes one eventually stop trusting the messages. But I really hope that this is true and that we can get the new Social Services Act according to the promised schedule. I intend to continue asking the question, and I do not intend to give up until we have a proposal to take a stand on.
Malin Höglund (M)
Madam Speaker! It is better that we do things correctly and properly than for it to be fast and wrong? A new Social Services Act is coming now, and it is to enter into force during next year - in July, is the idea. I look forward with great confidence to it coming. That we can be sure of.
Gustaf Lantz (S)
Madam Speaker! My colleague often says, half in jest and half in earnest, that one cannot relax until one has gotten all their children into the nursing home. It describes quite well the worry that comes with parenthood and other close relationships in life. The price of love is worry, toil, and sacrifice. But love is greater. We are prepared to do almost anything for those we love. We do everything we can, but also things we cannot. We borrow energy from our own bank that must sooner or later be repaid, sometimes at the cost of burnout. Not even love can, in the long run, compensate for an unsustainable life situation.
I will think of the oxygen masks on airplanes. As a child, I thought it was brutal that it stated in the folder in the seat pocket in front that the adults should put on the masks before the children. When we went to parties, we had the children get cake first. When there was life-threatening danger, however, we would suddenly come in second.
But it is quite logical. In order to be able to help, one must function. Providing support to relatives is, of course, about the relative being seen and not being put in a bad position, but it is at least as much about the person who is ill or in some other way in need of help from relatives receiving the best possible care, also from society as a whole.
I believe that many of us have seen older couples in our vicinity affected by dementia. However, too few of us have seen the municipality relieve them with interventions. But what a difference it can make! When a person takes over the care for a few hours, the relative can recover from managing, nagging, and answering the same questions over and over and over again.
Anyone who has practiced bench press knows the feeling when one's own strength is not enough for the bar to come all the way up. Arms and bar tremble. But then someone stands behind and helps with a finger, and suddenly it works. Suddenly it even feels quite easy. It is the help on the margin, when margins do not exist, that can make it work.
Madam Speaker! The Social Democratic-led government adopted Sweden's first national relatives strategy in April 2022. It was an important step so that more families could receive this help. We now want the government to take the work on the relatives strategy further. Beautiful documents do not help in themselves. But at the same time, there is nothing so practical as a good theory. We must simply ensure that the strategy is put into practice and that relatives actually receive help. It is both important and urgent.
Madam Speaker! A completely ordinary family with small children wakes up to loud noises. A person has just shot out the family's patio door and forced their way in. On the ground floor, the 40-year-old father in the family is sleeping. The youngest child, a two-year-old, is sleeping in his and his wife's bed, so he has laid down in another room.
His wife hears shots and how the husband cries out his pain. She and the youngest child scream. The screams do not deter the shooter. Instead, he goes upstairs and passes the children's playroom, which is adjacent to the bedroom. There the mother stands and hugs her two-year-old girl. In her arms, the child has her beloved stuffed animal in the form of Winnie the Pooh. He tells the mother to turn around. Then he shoots. The perpetrator fires several shots. One of them goes through the mother's body and further through Winnie the Pooh and injures the small child. All this happened because the family happened to have the same surname as a gang criminal.
This is from Aftonbladet's coverage of a legal case of the week.
Madam Speaker! What does this do to a family? What does this do to a society? Are there even words to answer these questions?
We must do everything to ensure that children and young people make a U-turn when they are heading towards the gangs. For this, relatives are needed. Imagine the worry if your son came home with a pair of shoes or items of clothing that should not be included in his clothing budget - the worry that he was heading into a gang and the worry that all of you in the family would be affected by a total, boundless, ruthless, and vile violence.
There are today activities within some municipalities that target relatives of persons who commit crimes or are in the risk zone of ending up in gang criminality. That is good.
But it is unreasonable that it depends on which municipality one lives in whether such support is given. To offer an equal support across the entire country, we believe that a national support line for relatives of criminals needs to be established. These are matters of life and death for young people and their relatives. But it is also a matter for the whole society, in order to prevent serious crime.
In my Facebook feed, I dive into the lives of friends and acquaintances: a student reception here, some wise words of wisdom there, some Netflix tips and so on. That is life. But then things also appear that we rarely talk about. It is friends who bravely dare to tell about life tragedies. In such situations, I wish that everyone knew that they would receive support far beyond the words written in the comment section.
Access to support for relatives is not equal. The regions have different guidelines, and the availability of support varies greatly across the country. I believe it is time to consider legislation to create equal access to relative support. This is also the proposal we Social Democrats are pushing for.
Madam Speaker! I have not had time to speak about all our proposals in the area of social services today. They are many. But I thought it felt important to let the relatives take the floor. They are not just a resource but also people with their own needs who deserve to be treated with respect. We politicians can show that with legislation and money. It is exactly that simple!
Camilla Rinaldo Miller (KD)
Madam Speaker! I vote in favor of the committee's proposal and therefore move for the rejection of all motions.
Madam Speaker! It may seem as if I am reusing old speeches, for what I am about to say I said in a debate as recently as last Wednesday. But I also said then that these words deserve to be repeated. Here they are.
The goal of the Christian Democrats' social policy is to support communities, families, and individuals in self-sufficiency and good care and to enable active participation in society. Social services therefore have a broad and fundamental task within the public sector.
The social services have the ultimate responsibility to ensure that people in the municipalities are doing well. They must have a roof over their heads and food on the table. The mission, however, goes further than that and is about providing social and economic security and working for good living conditions and participation in social life. This is particularly important when it concerns children and young people, because we Christian Democrats believe in the importance of families and small communities. We must safeguard the security that is provided at the beginning of children's and young people's childhood.
Parents are those who can best take care of their children.
Madam Speaker! We Christian Democrats look forward to the new Social Services Act being presented – a Social Services Act with a clearer connection to knowledge and a preventive perspective. Because without knowledge and a preventive perspective, the social services can never fully function as intended.
According to the current Social Services Act, the social services' activities shall be based on respect for people's self-determination and privacy, and in measures concerning children, the children's best interests shall always be particularly considered. Here, the law needs to become even clearer. The municipalities have an important task in supporting families and protecting children.
It can be perceived as frustrating that the work takes time, but it is extremely important that it is done correctly and that the changes are good. I am nevertheless confident that the government is working on the proposals, that the preparation is being done as expeditiously as possible, and that it will be well-balanced so that a good basis is obtained for a referral to the Council on Legislation.
Madam Speaker! No matter how we turn and twist the social services' mandate, it is fundamentally the preventive work that is decisive. By that, I do not primarily mean economic gains, but the suffering it spares both parents as well as children and young people. None of us, regardless of whether we have our own children or not, want a single child to be subjected to a broken upbringing with alcohol, drugs, violence, and abuse as a natural part of everyday life.
But even when it comes to adults and the social services' interventions, we of course want the measures to take place in time and before an individual person needs to endure too much suffering.
We Christian Democrats are therefore pleased with the government's expanded commitment to Housing first. It is considerably easier to feel hope and faith in the future, and to believe in one's own ability to improve one's situation, if one can start by feeling the security that it means to have a home with a bed of one's own to crawl into in the evening.
The government is following up on the national homelessness strategy that the previous government decided on in July 2022. It includes four points. Two of these are that homelessness shall be prevented and that the Housing First method shall be introduced nationally. The government expects to allocate 80 million kronor per year until 2026 to implement the homelessness strategy.
Madam Speaker! Finally, here in my third debate of the day, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the members of the Committee on Social Affairs for giving me a friendly welcome and reception during the time I have served in the committee while my party colleague has been on parental leave. I would also like to wish the Speaker and all the members of the Committee on Social Affairs a pleasant summer holiday when it comes.
Mona Olin (SD)
Madam Speaker! The Sweden Democrats stand by all their reservations, but I move for approval only to reservation 14.
We are going to speak about one of the most important pillars of our welfare system, the social services. The social services' task is to offer support and help to people in vulnerable situations, to prevent social problems, and to protect the most vulnerable in society.
The social services rest on the principle of everyone's right to a dignified life. It offers help and support to those who find themselves in social, economic, and personal difficulties. The social services' activities encompass a broad spectrum of interventions, from financial assistance and housing support to treatment for substance abuse and protected housing for those affected by violence. This breadth makes the social services a central actor in society's safety net. One of the most fundamental aspects of the social services is its responsibility for children and young people.
Madam Speaker! That children grow up in a safe family is crucial for their development and well-being. A stable and loving environment strengthens the child's self-esteem. The family's security gives the child a secure foundation to stand on.
Children growing up in vulnerable environments need special support to be able to develop in a safe and healthy way. The social services work to ensure that these children receive the care and protection they need. I have said it before, and I say it again: Society needs to offer support and resources for parenthood and family life. This support can range from open interventions for the family to foster care placements or special support measures in school.
We in the Sweden Democrats want the preventive work - which includes family support, parenting support programs and cooperation with schools to identify and help children in the risk zone - to be encouraged and developed.
By offering education and support, the social services can help parents create a stable and loving home environment. This reduces the risk of children developing behavioral problems or ending up in crime. Through early interventions, many problems can be mitigated or completely avoided.
I also want to advocate for digital tools for preventive measures. Sverigedemokraterna argues that it is important to establish a national support to facilitate for the municipalities to offer digital tools to increase accessibility to the social services and strengthen the preventive work. By doing this, more people can receive support in managing life crises in a more effective way, which benefits not only the parents but also the children and society as a whole.
At the same time as the social services have an extensive obligation to help and support, it is important to emphasize the individual's own responsibility. For the social services' interventions to be effective, it is required that those who receive support also take responsibility for their own situation. This can mean following agreed-upon plans, participating actively in offered programs, and doing one's best to improve one's own life situation.
The Sweden Democrats look forward to the inquiry on activity duty, which shall provide proposals for a clear and adapted activity requirement to be directed at adults who receive social assistance and who have the capacity to work.
For the social services to function optimally, cooperation between school, health and medical care, police, and voluntary organizations is required. This cooperation creates a holistic picture of the individual's situation and provides more effective interventions. Examples of such cooperation exist in several municipalities and should be disseminated more clearly.
Digitalization can also streamline the social services' work by simplifying administration and facilitating information sharing and coordination between different authorities.
Madam Speaker! Public employees, including social workers, are unfortunately often exposed to threats and violence in their work. To reduce this exposure, several measures are required. Ensuring that they have safe workplaces, offering support and counseling after difficult situations, and ensuring that there are clear routines and guidelines for how threat and violence situations should be handled are just some parts of that work.
For the social services to be long-term sustainable, investments in resources and in competence are required.
The Sweden Democrats consider that several measures need to be taken within the social services administration. We propose that the government should work to increase continuity within the social services administration in order to retain important experience. Furthermore, a national specialist education for social workers working with children and young people should be considered. This would promote legally secure investigations and assessments. The Sweden Democrats argue that the introduction of specialist social workers with a focus on children and young people would raise competence and create career paths with greater responsibility and better pay scales.
We also see a need to relieve the social workers by introducing social service assistants, who can take over certain work tasks. This would give the social services better conditions to perform high-quality work and contribute to the employees staying in the profession.
Madam Speaker! The work of the social services is fundamental for a functioning and humane society. By offering support and protection to the most vulnerable, the social services contribute to creating security. At the same time, it faces great challenges that must be handled with strength and determination.
With this said, it is gratifying that many decisions have already been taken to achieve better success in efforts for those who need society's support. A new Social Services Act, which was agreed upon in Tidö, is being developed right now. The social services shall be reformed. Early preventive measures shall be prioritized, and the social services shall, among other things, be knowledge-based and conducted in accordance with proven experience.
By investing in resources, improving cooperation, investing in preventive measures and ensuring a good working environment for social workers, we can build a social service that is easy to access, is long-term sustainable and is efficient.
Lina Nordquist (L)
Madam Speaker! The social services, in its capacity as a safety net, meets residents when they have fallen helpless and are in the worst situation. It ranges from very small children to very senior persons. It can be about people who temporarily need money for food or clothes on their bodies. It can be people who have been subjected to violence and violations, persons who do not practically manage to pay their rent even if the money is in the account, and of course children who have parents who cannot manage the responsibility. In the worst case, it is the social services that must make decisions that society needs to take over the entire responsibility for a child's upbringing.
Madam Speaker! These are naturally large and very difficult tasks, which require their staff.
The government is now working with urgency to secure the competence that is needed - this has not previously automatically existed in social workers' education. It is about safe working conditions, about security, about feeling good at work and about daring to make difficult decisions and knowing that one is doing what is right and what is best in difficult situations. It is about providing the right tools when it comes to everything from confidentiality to intermediate coercion.
The task is not simple. It is about lifting people to an economic and social security and so that they shall become an active part of society - so that they can both participate in the community and have an influence. It looks nice and dry when one reads it. But often these are people who have had it terribly difficult. It is a long, long way to reach that goal.
I will be brief, Madam Speaker. I will save my words until the reforms that have now been initiated are launched and become a reality. But I still want to say that I am very happy that a new Social Services Act is now being developed, which focuses on a holistic view of the individual. I think it is extremely important that a great focus is placed on prevention in that law.
I also think it is incredibly pleasing and hopeful to see that a holistic approach is now being taken regarding children who cannot stay with their families - when everything has been done to try to prevent, lift, and get the child to manage in their own family. When it is no longer possible, that child must still be given the opportunity for a good start, a fine future, and a rich life. That makes me happy.
Finally, I just want to say that I am very pleased that the government is working to strengthen the support for relatives, whoever they are and whenever in life they need this support.
Gudrun Nordborg (V)
Madam Speaker! I am like a guest here today in the social affairs committee's area. But from my previous professional life, I have extensive experience with the issues that you work with.
I want to begin by moving for approval of the Left Party's reservation 7 on provision of support and other support measures. I do so as part of the preventive work that is so fundamental in all social work. As members of the Left Party, we want people to step in much more strongly and return with proposals on how we can make concrete preventive measures against over-indebtedness, which is a major problem for very many people today and which increases social vulnerability.
This is also a field where one is provoked by seeing the government and agency officials granting themselves pay raises that are very large, like an increase in the possibilities for rut- and rot-deductions, something that altogether cannot be relevant for the groups who would need the funds the most.
I would then like to focus on an issue that several have touched upon from the rostrum here today, and that is the situation of children and women when they have been subjected to violence. I am now moving slightly outside the motions but still with a focus on what is extremely important to invest in within social work. I do this as a feminist and as a children's rights activist, and I cannot refrain from highlighting the great social responsibility that has been placed on the social services for the woman who is also a mother and who leaves a violent relationship – or rather, a violent man and father.
When a woman leaves a violent man, she has until April 1st been able to take children with her to the protected shelter. Now, a decision by the social services regarding the placement of the child is required for this to be possible. This is done "for the child's best" – that is what they call it.
Many duty officers and we in Vänsterpartiet pointed out before the reform that there was a risk that this could lead to the father who had been violent towards the mother still being perceived as good enough for the child to live with him. He could even be granted custody.
Now we see this happening. It causes black headlines in the media, and I and my party comrades receive desperate emails questioning how this is possible.
Honorable members of Parliament! We must change this! We must demand a competence in violence, which we have done for decades, to prevent violence from occurring. We must, above all, also help the children who are in the proximity of violence. If we do that, we also achieve an immensely important crime-prevention work in the long run, because the children, especially boys, who are forced to see dad hit also learn violence as a means of power. They are overrepresented among those who commit violent crimes, including in gang crime.
We must put a stop to this and really take the mantra "the best interests of the child" seriously.
Anders W Jonsson (C)
Madam Speaker! The debate on the social services has unfortunately veered quite a bit towards only how one can take tougher measures against youths who commit crimes and how one can break the secrecy in the simplest possible way.
I am not saying that completely new opportunities for interventions were not needed when it concerns young people who commit serious crimes or that the previous secrecy rules have always been to the benefit of the young person, but many other changes were also needed. Unfortunately, I do not see the current government taking the lead in that work.
Centerpartiet wants us to take more steps and faster. What we have heard several times here from the rostrum today is that reference is made to the new Social Services Act which is to enter into force in 2025. It will certainly entail a change for the better, but the risk is obvious that important parts are not included.
The new law will certainly entail a focus on preventive work, and that is good. It will also likely entail that the requirement to work evidence-based, based on proven experience and science, is tightened, which is also good, but this is such a type of area where the government could already now prepare for what is to come.
While waiting for the new law, the government could already now task its agencies to review which methods and tools exist for investigation and interventions, which methods and tools have research and evidence behind them, and where knowledge is lacking. In cases where there is evidence of effects, we want the methods to be implemented in municipalities, and where evidence is lacking, it is research and result follow-up that is needed.
This is something that the National Board of Health and Welfare could be commissioned to start working on already. We must get better at quickly identifying the children and young people who are in risk environments, and we need to know that the interventions provided actually have an effect.
Madam Speaker! It is completely incomprehensible to me that when it comes to the area of social services, every municipality should have to find its own methods and interventions. Within healthcare, it would be completely unthinkable to work in that way. Furthermore, the government should set requirements for follow-up at the individual level to ensure that we get the behavioral changes that we want. This applies to both open interventions and interventions within Sis.
We agree that some children and young people need care and interventions from society, but then we must also be sure that the interventions they receive actually produce the desired effect. Many talk about that we could already at MVC or BVC see that here we have a child who will have problems, and when we find these families, it must lead to interventions that we know produce an effect.
Madam Speaker! There are some who say that it is not possible to measure social behavior. I would like to assert the opposite. There are today measurement methods used in some activities where one can actually measure if an intervention has the desired effect, that is, if the undesirable behavior subsides. These methods should be used significantly more.
As I have said before, I and the Center Party think that some good things are happening when it comes to preventive measures, but we lack a focus on the really early interventions that can be provided at MVC and BVC. If we catch these families faster, we can also counteract some of these young people falling through the cracks.
In addition to removing the risks for the individual child, we also know that school and completing one's schooling is the greatest protective factor when it comes to children and young people who risk falling into the wrong path. Therefore, we must ensure that cooperation works well between social services and school for the children who need it. This must happen as early as in preschool, and even here, the government needs to ensure that there are working methods in place.
This government has, just like previous governments, time and again allocated funds to strengthen the school's preventive measures, but what has been missing is the follow-up. Without proper follow-ups, preferably on a scientific basis, all initiatives become like fireworks.
To change the social services, changes are also required in the social worker education. There must be a national clarity regarding which knowledge and which skills are expected of an individual after having completed the social worker education.
Madam Speaker! Let me also say a few words about international adoptions. Even there, the municipalities' social committees have a responsibility.
An investigation is underway here to examine how we can organize the work in a better way. Incorrect adoptions have occurred during the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Here we must ensure that it does not happen again. Part of this, I believe and the Centerpartiet believe, is that it cannot be a municipal responsibility to investigate and provide support to the adoptive families. Today, so few are adopted internationally that the knowledge no longer exists in the municipalities. Some municipalities handle one adoption every four years. Therefore, it must become a regional or national mandate.
Legal changes are also needed to ensure that the documentation is saved in a secure way so that children and families can receive them when they wish, and also so that the individual support becomes better. The risk of suicide is higher among these children and young people than among others.
Madam Speaker! I stand behind all of the Center Party's reservations, but I choose to move for approval of reservation 5.
Ulrika Westerlund (MP)
Madam Speaker! I will begin where the previous speaker finished. I also want to address international adoptions and the problems that have received increasing attention in recent years. It is clear that in a large number of cases, various types of crimes have been committed, for example, that children have not lacked parents at all but have instead been stolen from their original parents in order to be adopted. This is obviously not the case in all situations where children have been adopted, but it is likely that it concerns a non-negligible number of cases.
This is a very serious situation that does not only affect Sweden, but Sweden is the country that has adopted the most children in relation to its own population size. Sweden is therefore an important party when it comes to working with redress for these persons.
The question involves several different organizations working for the rights of adoptees, and I want to bring up some of the demands that the organizations presented at a parliamentary seminar in May last year and which we in Miljöpartiet subsequently submitted in a motion.
It is not a satisfactory situation that sensitive information concerning private individuals is held by private actors, for example adoption organizations. The state should take over the personal records and ensure secure storage. It is also central that the persons concerned themselves can gain access to the material, now or further in the future. Even if an adopted person in some cases does not wish to gain access to the material, there is the possibility that the person's children may want to gain access to it much further in the future. How a transfer should take place should be investigated.
With modern and widely available DNA tests, more and more people are gaining access to information that only a few years ago was not considered possible to obtain. Unknown relatives can simply become known to a person who performs a simple DNA test with one of the commercial actors. The result of such a test can for a person become the beginning of the answers to the questions about how one's own adoption took place and who the original parents are or where they are. Even though the costs have decreased drastically in recent years, it can still be too high a cost for many. It is not reasonable that a person who may be a victim of a serious crime cannot find out because of their own finances. It should be investigated how all those concerned can be given access to a DNA test.
In October 2021, an inquiry was appointed regarding Sweden's international adoption activities. The inquiry shall, among other things, propose changes to regulations, organization, and processes to strengthen the child rights perspective and legal certainty. This is very welcome. It may be necessary to strengthen the Agency for Family Law and Parenthood Support, MFoF, regarding, for example, supervision in international adoption processes, to ensure that adoptions are not carried out in countries without reliable regulation.
It is necessary to make continuous assessments of corruption and other obstacles to a legally secure process in the countries of origin. It may also be necessary to strengthen the role of Swedish authorities in international adoptions to ensure that adoptions are not carried out in an insecure legal manner.
Madam Speaker! I change the subject and move to the question of homelessness. There is a good example in one of our neighboring countries, namely Finland. The Finnish national housing foundation, the Y-foundation, is often highlighted as one of the more important elements in Finnish policy against homelessness. The Green Party therefore considers that the government should investigate the possibility of establishing a national housing foundation with a similar concept. In Finland, the foundation is run by a collection of different actors in collaboration. It should therefore be considered whether a steering group under the State Housing Transformation with representatives from, for example, the National Board of Health and Welfare, the National Board of Housing, non-profit housing actors, Fastighetsägarna, and Sveriges Allmännytta should be established to jointly drive such work forward in Sweden.
A safe home is one of the foundations for a functioning life. The primary cause of homelessness is a lack of housing, particularly rental apartments with reasonable rents that people with low incomes can afford, and there are reports that more people are being evicted than before and that the challenges with social and structural homelessness have increased. It is often about people with mental illness or substance abuse, frequently in combination, but also about people living in economic vulnerability, with weak ties to the labor market, who cannot arrange their own housing and therefore end up in a situation of homelessness. At the same time, research shows that the longer you are in a situation of homelessness, the greater the risk of developing problems with substance abuse and mental illness. Addressing homelessness is therefore extremely central for several reasons.
Madam Speaker! In conclusion, I would like, as usual, to mention something about the importance of preventive work and that the social services must have actual conditions to carry out this work. It requires both competence and resources. The general state grants to the municipalities must increase, and social workers must be given reasonable conditions to do a good job.
Newly graduated must receive guidance and time to develop in their professional role. Otherwise, the risk is that too many will want to leave their professional role, not least now when expectations and demands are high on the social services' role in preventing crime and providing support and help to children and families. Individually tailored support and interventions for individuals and families are required, as is working consistently to achieve better trust between people living in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas and the authorities. This can be done through more outreach activities and better community introduction, but also by having more authorities, district administrations, and municipal offices move to these areas.
Madam Speaker! The very last thing I want to bring up is the importance of support for relatives, which has also been raised by several previous speakers, such as those who care for sick or elderly family members. There is an imminent risk that one's own health will deteriorate if it becomes too burdensome to care for a relative. There must be flexible and easily accessible opportunities for relief. Legislation should also be considered to create equal access to relative support across the country.
I move for approval of the Environment Party's reservation 21, but I stand behind all of the Environment Party's reservations.
The deliberation was hereby concluded.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.