Shaping minors with major shifts: Electronic child records in the Netherlands

Abstract

At the end of 2009, the Electronic Child Record (ECR) must replace all paper records in Dutch youth healthcare, i.e. digital dossiers containing health and psycho-social data on children aged 0-19. At the same time, society demands a more effective youth-care system, due to several family tragedies that gave rise to high media attention as well as growing problems with high-risk youth. These developments form the impetus for fundamental changes in youth care in respect of the relationship between children and youth-care professionals, connectivity of information systems, transparency (or rather opacity) of organisations and information systems, and the construction and use of children's identities. The ECR seems to have acquired a dynamic of its own and is steadily moving forward to becoming embedded in an ever more sophisticated system of controlling the socio-psychological and physical development of youngsters-at-risk. Hence, the goals of the ECR may be gradually shifting from achieving more efficiency vis-à-vis social sorting and risk-management systems. This development has side effects that should be addressed by policy makers to truly promote the interests of children and citizens more generally. © 2010-IOS Press and the authors.