Who Are the Backa barnen? A Register Study of Collaboration for the Best Interests of the Child

All children have the right to support at the right time. Sweden's new Social Services Act requires social services to work preventively, and early support can matter greatly for children's well-being and for society. Krokom Municipality is introducing Backa barnet from autumn 2026 to promote the health of children and young people.

Backa barnet is a collaboration model in which schools, social services, healthcare and the police work together to identify children and young people who need support early and to coordinate the support around them. The model is based on the Scottish Getting It Right for Every Child approach. Participation is voluntary: guardians consent to the agencies sharing information about the child's needs.

What do we want to know?

Little is known about which households take part in complex welfare programmes of this kind, how they are recruited, and whether the programmes reach the children with the greatest needs. The project therefore examines:

1. How are participants recruited to Backa barnet?
2. What circumstances do the participating households have?
3. What support does participation lead to, and what does this tell us about following up on the best interests of the child?

We also examine how professionals working within the model perceive the collaboration: how well they know its purpose and ways of working, and how well it functions in their view.

How the study is carried out

The project has two parts. The first uses individual- and household-level register data from the municipality, comparing participants in Backa barnet with one or more comparison groups, for example children subject to notifications of concern or coordinated individual plans (SIP). Data are pseudonymised, results are presented so that no individual can be identified, and the data collection will undergo ethical review. The second part is a survey of practitioners working with Backa barnet in schools, social services, healthcare and the police.

Benefits and results

The municipality gains knowledge of how recruitment works and whether the programme reaches the children who need it most. The results are also relevant to other municipalities considering the model, and the project lays the groundwork for future studies of the programme's long-term effects.

For research, the project contributes new empirical knowledge about participation in complex welfare programmes, where the knowledge base is limited. Previous research on Backa barnet and similar models has mainly concerned implementation and professionals' experiences; this project adds register data showing which households actually reach the programme and what support it leads to.

We report regularly to the municipality and the Backa barnet steering group, and will publish the results in a scientific article and a Swedish-language text for practitioners and decision-makers.