Public engagement event: intersecting inequalities in child welfare

This event is designed for practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and care-experienced youth to come together and critically assess current practices and research priorities aimed at tackling child welfare inequalities.

Recent weeks have seen widespread frustration in the Dutch Tweede Kamer over the failing youth protection system, with severe capacity shortages, unmanageable caseloads, long waiting lists, and children and families who are not listened to or even mistreated by care services.

Child welfare inequalities worsen these issues, as marginalized groups (including low-income families, ethnic minoritized, and LGBTQIA+ youth) experience disproportionate interventions and poorer outcomes from biased policies and resource gaps. Open discussion is essential to reveal how systemic failures harm the most vulnerable and to push for change.

To provide a critical space to do so, the program of this event will cover a broad range of topics, including disparities on decision-making in child protection, stigma and marginalization experienced by system-involved youth, inequalities related to gender and sexual identity among adolescents in care, structural harms impacting children and families, and organizational responses to welfare inequality.

The event will offer space for discussion, welcoming participants to engage and reflect collectively. While the sessions will be held in English to facilitate international exchange, especially with colleagues from Germany, we embrace an inclusive language approach and encourage questions in Dutch as well.

This event is free of charge, but registration is required. Please register by January 26 to secure your spot. Spaces are limited.

• 9:30-10:00 Registration.
• 10:00-10:30 Opening session by project leaders. Mónica López López, University of Groningen, and Stefan Köngeter, University of Hamburg.
• 10:30-11:00 Intersecting inequalities and decision making in child protection, Floor Middel, University of Groningen.
• 11:00-11:20 Coffee break.
• 11:20-12:00 Intersectional policy analysis and the stigma of system-involved youth. Larissa Oomen and Gabriela Martinez Jothar, University of Groningen.
• 12:00-12:30 Queer and in care: Reducing inequalities relating to gender and sexual identity among adolescents in care, Mónica López López and Mijntje ten Brummelaar, University of Groningen.
• 12:30-13:30 Lunch break (not provided).
• 13:30-14:00 Structural harm and the Dutch childcare benefits scandal: Implications for children and families. Peter Dijkshoorn.
• 14:00-14:30 Diversity, inclusion and belonging in child and youth welfare. Stefan Köngeter and Moritz Frietzsche, University of Hamburg.
• 14:30-15:00 Migrant and Muslim communities: Organisational responses to welfare inequality. Inga Selent, University of Hamburg.
• 15:00-15:30 Voices of care-experienced people.
• 15:30-16:00 Interactive session: Collective reflections and action.

Organized by University of Groningen & University of Hamburg

This event is part of the I-COPE project (Intersecting Inequalities in Child Welfare: Cross-Border Partnership for Equity and Social Justice), a collaboration between the University of Hamburg and the University of Groningen. With intensified public debates, legal reforms, and social movements in Germany and the Netherlands, this project calls for rethinking policy and practice from an intersectional and social justice perspective.

Want to get in touch? M.lopez.lopez rug.nl

Instagram: @equity.chidlwelfare