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Colin, now three years old, has lived for two years in a family home with the couple Susanne Säfström-Markebjer and Daniel Säfström in Vallentuna, north of Stockholm. He was placed with them after the municipality moved him from two emergency homes as he was separated from his biological parents due to home neglect.
Colin actually has a different name. It is a fictitious name also used in other media.
On 18 September, police and social services staff from Österåker Municipality arrested him and took him to a new family home. The fifth house of the order for the three-year-old.
“You need specialized care”
– The municipality says that they are relocating him due to difficulties in cooperation with us. In fact, it is a retaliatory measure because we demand that Colin receive specialized attention and because we criticize the management of the municipality. She needs care due to trauma and severe language disorder, says Susanne Säfström-Markebjer.
– The municipality has responded to our demands with threats and reprisals. In the end, two policemen and two from social services came to pick him up. They take him out of safety with us, move him like a piece of furniture, he says.
The case receives a lot of attention on social media. More than 30,000 have signed a petition for the child to “return home.” Artists such as Pernilla Wahlgren and Charlotte Perrelli have been involved in the case.
BVC reported social services
The Child Welfare Center in Vallentuna IVO informed social services in Österåker municipality in April this year since Susanne Säfström-Markebjer spoke about her problems. The adoptive mother said that “The social administration expressed that they will take the child away from them if they question how they handled the child’s case”, is indicated in the notification.
The Swedish Health and Care Inspectorate (IVO) submitted the report without action after a municipality social secretary, among other things, replied that “It has a very good collaboration with the family home”.
A few months ago, according to Susanne Säfström-Markebjer, the municipality cited “cooperation difficulties” as a reason for transferring the child. The municipality has not filed any complaints about the infirmary or that the child feels bad about them, he says.
Hidden tape recordings
In hidden recordings of adoptive parents’ meetings with social services, played by SVT, a manager is heard criticizing that they interfere with the work of social secretaries:
– You must do your job and they must do their job and you must not get involved in it. Then I said that this family home needs our frame and that we will try to keep them out. But what I hear and I notice is that you want to get involved and then the question is how should we get rid of that.
Another representative from social services says:
– You have many opinions about the handling, that was the concern.
“A last resort”
The municipality says that for confidentiality reasons it cannot comment on individual cases and that “our work is always based on the best interests of children.”
– It is very unusual that we have cooperation problems and even more unusual that we have to transfer a small child from a family home, says Susanna Kiesel, social director in Österåker municipality.
– Removing a child from an established environment is a tough and difficult decision, it is a last resort and only done when all other possibilities are exhausted, he says.
You must take legal action
Attorney Elisabeth Massi Fritz, who represents the family home, says her clients intend to take legal action against the municipality and the officials who handled the case, if the municipality does not change its decision.
– We will act in the best interests of the child and the rest of the children to prevent the municipality from treating them in the same way. This is a child to whom social services have been transferred before, several times in addition. And the boy is only three years old, says Elisabeth Massi Fritz.
– The alleged cooperation problems of the social services refer to the fact that they feel that the family is too involved in the child. The opinion of my clients is that social services have chosen to educate parents and want them to shut up. It also shows the audio files that exist, it says.
