Prevalence and Patterns of Parental Consent in Swedish Child Welfare Services: Exploring the Role of Child Demographics and Procedural Characteristics

ABSTRACT Parental consent is a critical prerequisite for children to receive welfare interventions following an assessment of need. Without such consent, the likelihood that children will receive necessary interventions decreases substantially. Despite its importance, research on parental consent and the factors influencing it remains limited across most welfare contexts. Understanding these patterns is essential for designing effective child welfare policies and ensuring equitable access to interventions. This study addresses this gap by examining the prevalence of documented parental consent for child welfare interventions in Sweden and by exploring differences between full, partial and absent consent in relation to the sociodemographic characteristics of the child and procedural factors. The analysis draws on survey data from 11 705 child welfare investigations involving children aged 0–17 years, of whom 52.2% were boys and 47.8% were girls, and employs multinomial regression to evaluate the relationship between predictor variables and consent outcomes. Results are presented via average marginal effects (AMEs). The findings indicate that most parents provide full consent, although partial consent and refusal also occur. Both child‐related sociodemographic factors and procedural characteristics are associated with variations in consent outcomes. The implications of these findings for social work practice and future research are discussed.