It is generally assumed that in the countryside of Northeast Netherlands children enter primary school with a language delay. Despite the apparent consensus, unequivocal evidence demonstrating that the number of young children with language delays and the magnitude of these delays is, however, lacking. …

This article takes a close look at the openings of 12 different Dutch adoption assessment sessions. In the first of a series of 4 adoption assessment sessions, social workers perform different actions that are analyzed in detail. The overall focus is on how contact and relationships are established in …

The objective of this study is to contribute towards understanding how welfare and justice discourses become apparent in institutional conversations where social workers involved in child protection have dual professional identities: that of helper and of gatekeeper. In this article we analyse a specific …

Prospective adoptive parents who take part in a Dutch adoption assessment procedure are asked to write down their life stories. In this article we examine how information from the life stories is deleted, selected and transformed into a topic to talk about in an assessment interview and/or to write about …