EXPERIENCES OF TURKISH IMMIGRANT FAMILIES WHOSE CHILDREN HAVE BEEN TAKEN INTO CARE IN GERMANY

The Turkish labour migration to Germany that started from 1960s has brought about various problems. Child protection services towards Turkish immigrant families whose children have been taken into care is amongst these problems that has constantly been on the agenda in the recent years yet not researched holistically so far. The objective of this study is to set out the experiences of immigrant families, whose children have been taken into care, in their own language. The study strives to understand and make sense of the child protection practices towards Turkish immigrant families whose children have been taken into care by German Youth Welfare Services and the problems they experienced during this process. This study, which is the first research that has examined experiences of Turkish immigrant families, is providing a snapshot of experiences of Turkish immigrant families whose children have been taken into care rather than claiming an understanding of the full picture. The study found that Youth Welfare Services represent “fear and distrust” in the eyes of Turkish immigrant families. The absence of a systematically culturally sensitive social work practice came out in the interviews both with the families and experts although there is work undertaken in the field of multicultural social work in Germany. Immigrant families feel they are not understood by child protection workers, their culture or values are not respected and they are judged by child protection workers. Additionally, families feel their children’s cultural needs, i.e. religion, language are not taken into consideration and thus, their children’s care experience is having negative impacts on their children’s identity needs, i.e. language, lifestyles and culture. One of the most dramatic findings of the study was that families liken the experience of their children being takein to care to death. Families describe their children’s abrupt accomodation without their knowledge and their subsequent inability to reach them as something beyond death. As such, there is need for more research in order to better understand the child protection practices towards immigrant families and how these impact on ethnic communities in order to pave the way for a service delivery that is child and family oriented rather than procedure driven. In this context, it is felt that there is research gaps in experiences of Turkish children who are in foster care or in children homes or who have left care and these areas would be useful for the future research to focus on