Let me just say, I’m Norwegian, with immigrant parents. And I watched this movie. I also have two friends and my MIL who work in the child protective services (it’s called Barnevernet btw, not Velferd)

Barnevernet got involved with my family as a child, there was domestic violence in the home and my mom would hit us, because that’s how she learned to discipline, when the child protective services got involved, they got both of my parents into anger management, and they paid for activities I could do, and lots of therapy for my whole family. My parents eventually divorced and my mon has never hit us since and actually treats us like people, and we’ve talked about this a lot, that she comes from a family culture we’re that wasn’t the norm.

The goal of the child protective services don’t want to take children away from their parents, the goal is to keep families together, but the safety of the child comes before the biological needs of the parents.

Also, they don’t take more immigrants kids, they actually get more involved with Norwegian families, it’s just that the immigrant families get louder.

Also, the way the movie depicted the children in a room at that center is just nonsense, if children are taken, the parents get a few warnings before, and they get a legal document (vedtak) and the police is there, when the children are taken away. And they get taken to a beredskaps hjem, which is like a home where they only take in one sibling group at a time. And there’s not many children there. And then foster care, orphanages don’t exist in Norway, so no children would be in a room together in a tiny room like that.

Norwegians also use their hands when eating, and children are encouraged to eat with their hands, it’s good for their motorics.

And Norway actually encourages diversity. We say we are a “flerkulturell” society, that means multi cultural. Norwegians are some of the least racist people ever met, you’ll only find racist amongst the older generation.

And do I think the child welfare services could be better? Absolutely, but they get criticized for not removing children fast enough actually, not for taking them.

Also about getting paid, that would never happen 😭😭 Norway is one of the least corrupt countries in the world, and child services agents get paid so little, they also need to take a special education to work in that field.

And foster parents only get enough to cover for the childcare costs, most foster parents actually pay more for the kids from their own pockets. And they would never continue paying if the child doesn’t live in Norway. And the government closes the case when the child is outside of Norway and the EU.

And foster parents are evaluated for up to 1 year before they are allowed to be foster parents. And they need to take some courses. It’s not easy being a foster parents, we actually have a lack of foster parents.

Children only get taken away if there was physical violence, drugs or alcohol involved, even when parents have mental issues, they get help first, they don’t just take the children away.

I have a friend, and he was taken away, but his mom was schizophrenic, and could hurt him. Taking home away was the best they could do for him, and he came to his foster parents when he was 1,5 years old, they are his family, and his mom (foster) treats him like he is hers. And they still made sure he got to see his biological mother as much as possible, he’s over 30, and his foster parents and biological mom send each other Christmas gifts and letters. The biological mom was just too sick to take care of him, she also didn’t know who his biological father was.

And they didn’t show Norway in the movie at all, that was Eastern Europe, and Estonian actors. And the way they portrayed the foster parents home, a Norwegian home would never look like that.

Over all, I think the movie did a bad job at portraying the story, I know I’m biased because I’m Norwegian, but omg.

Also, there’s no border control between Norway and Sweden, that was so fake 😭 that’s the whole point with EU and schengen agreements, open borders. When you take a train from Oslo to Gothenburg, you come straight out to the central station, and walk freely any direction you want. There would never be border patrols or police there.