English

Having a coherent life story that connects the past with the present is important to all people. It brings order to our lives and makes us capable of understanding our own experiences and identity. For children placed in care and for care-leavers, this often proves to be difficult because of the lack of life-witnesses, personal documents or family photos that are part of a normal family life. Accessing and reading their own personal child welfare records can therefore play an important role for this group. Records can often provide answers, create chronology and help people develop a stronger sense of identity.

In Denmark, a new initiative has been developed, focusing on this topic. This initiative is a collaboration between The Danish Welfare Museum (Danmarks Forsorgsmuseum), University College Copenhagen (Københavns Professionshøjskole), The Danish National Archives (Rigsarkivet) and TABUKA - The Association of Children placed in care and care-leavers. The Foster Care Children’s Union (De Anbragtes Vilkår) is ensuring the quality and appropriate sharing of our work during the project period.

This unique constellation of organisations enables us to connect the past with the present and the future for children and care leavers
We work together to ensure that:

• Children placed in care and care-leavers, are informed of their rights to access their child welfare records.
  
  
• Children placed in care and care-leavers, are offered support in locating and accessing their child welfare records.
  
  
• Children placed in care and care-leavers, are offered individual or group-based support while reading their child welfare records as well as during their efforts to make sense of a childhood in care.
  
  
  
• Children placed in care today are given the opportunity to participate actively in generating their own child welfare records, to further their footprint in the records.
  
  
  
• Child welfare records today, are written and produced in a manner that is perceived as respectful by the subjects of the records.
  
  
  

The mainstay of the project is commitment, co-determination, democratisation and the inclusion of personal experiences from children placed in care and care-leavers.

The project will run till 31st of May 2026.

For further information

Contact 
Jacob Knage Rasmussen, historian and project leader

  23 48 23 48
  kontakt@rettentilegenhistorie.dk