Stories

Project Stories

13.02.2026

Artistic Methods to Break the Silence on Out-of-home Care

Työryhmän jäset ovat asettautuneet Lastentarhamuseon lelujen, kuten keinuhevosen ja puisten autojen, keskelle.
Members of the working group, from left to right, Marianne Notko, Tuomas Laine-Frigren, Antti Malinen, and Marita Oja were photographed at the Kindergarten Museum in Helsinki. Photo: Emilia Anundi


A multidisciplinary, art-science-linked project, the To be Heard project examined the experiences of abuse in foster care and the related lack of confronting the subject. During the project, it was noticed that artistic methods could offer safe spaces to process violent experiences that are difficult to speak about aloud.

What Is It About?

  • The Kuulluksi (“To Be Heard”) project researched cases of abuse in foster care from the viewpoint of how these experiences could be conveyed through art.
  • The project was born from a study by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health on the history of child protection, which revealed the extent of abuse in child protection and led to the first apology issued by the Finnish state.
  • The multidisciplinary project provided both historical information and practical guidance on how art can be used to deal with difficult experiences and break the silence.
  • The project involved researchers, artists, child protection developers, and former and current customers of child protection. The project’s artistic activity was located in the Oulu and Jyväskylä regions.
  • In this article, PhD, docent of Social History Antti Malinen, DSc, docent of Family and Violence Research Marianne Notko, MA, theatre expression director Marita Oja, and PhD, docent of the History of Sciences and Ideas Tuomas Laine-Frigren tell about the project.

A girl walks to the kitchen and is delighted to see that her mother has made her sandwiches as a snack. She takes a bite. Then, her mother appears and gets angry, because the sandwich was meant only for her biological child.

The scene is from a short film played by the professional actors from the Jyväskylä-based Playback Theatre Storia but is based on actual foster care customer experiences.

The purpose of foster care is to secure a safe environment for a child, but this is not always the case.

When researcher Antti Malinen was working on the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health’s project, Exploring the Past of Child Protection (2016), which explored cases of abuse in foster care between 1937 and 1983, he understood that the violence occurring in child protection was surrounded by a deep culture of silence.

“The children who were abused in child protection did not talk about their experiences with anyone. At most, they shared them with their family members of therapists,” says Malinen.

Children–Unreliable Narrators?

“To be Heard” was a fitting name for the project funded by the Kone Foundation. The project studied how cases of abuse occurring in foster care between 1950 and 2025 could be made visible.

Behind the silence is the role of children in history, where the word of a child not trusted. Children may have been scapegoats for their family’s issues.

“In professional speak, there has been talk about wickedness, for example. People have thought that children come up with things in their head or act out of spite. Some have thought that it is the child’s situation is their own fault,” says researcher Tuomas Laine-Frigren.

“Philosopher Miranda Fricker uses the term of epistemic injustice, according to which it is difficult for the child to present their own experiences as truth. In the 40s and 50s, children could be labelled as psychopaths on rather light grounds. Although things have obviously improved considerably, even today there is a diagnostic, normative view that affects how we treat children”, adds Malinen.

Työryhmä on kuvattu niin, että kuvan etualalla on päiväkodeissa käytettäviä värikkäitä istuintyynyjä.
Photo: Emilia Anundi

Art Is Not a Tool, But Has Inherent Value

In Finland, artistic methods, such as visual arts, drama and storytelling elements, have been utilised in research since the 80s and 90s. Music and culture have certainly been present in childrearing in other ways, for example in school Christmas plays and in the daily life of children and schoolchildren, but the To be Heard project is the first large-scale project in Finland to examine artistic methods in child protection.

Artistic methods were thus not a secondary part or an “educational tool” but became the focus of the project. Many participants felt that they could use creativity as a tool to process sensitive or shameful experiences safely.

“Art was made for art’s sake and activities have been occurring every week for a year and a half. It has become common, normal and predictive,” illustrates Marita Oja, and artist from Cultural Cooperative ILME.

Narrative to Break the Illusion of Perfection

Artistic activities were implemented for two different target groups. The first included children and young people currently in foster care. Art workshops were organised for them, including visual art, word art and handicrafts. The goal was to induce experiences of success to children and strengthen their experience of how their story deserves to be heard.

At the same time, To be Heard forums were organised for former child protection customers aged 20–60, which included playback theatre and improvisation. Participants could share their experiences of abuse in a safe space, and professional actors brought the experiences to life on stage and used them to produce short films. The theme at the forums was hope for the future.

Short films repeated the experience of how foster families maintained the illusion of perfection, and problems were not visible outside the family. Breaking the silence is also important as it allows foster families to openly talk about their issues without fear of blame so they can receive help. Very similar experiences were found among people of different ages, indicating that the problems are passed from one generation to the next with a culture of silence.

“Throughout the decades, the feeling of having no worth was the most common,” says Laine-Frigren. “The feeling of not being heard, seen or treated as an equal in the family.”

Researchers Outside the Comfort Zone

When talking about a project involving people in a vulnerable position, ethics comes first. Social science skills alone do not suffice.

Malinen mentions Johanna Backman from Pesäpuu ry and Mikko Oranen from Hoivatie Oy as important links for finding artistic and social science skills necessary for the project. Cultural Cooperative ILME and Playback Theatre Storia were also included.

Before the research, broad ethical preliminary assessments were made. The safety of participants was always prioritised.

“While the purpose of the project was to break the silence, no one was forced to share their experiences. The To be Heard forum for adult participants included instructions stating not to go too much into detail. It influenced the kind of information we received, but it also enabled us to understand everyday situations”, says Malinen.

For example, not letting a child decide the length of their hair or the type of clothing they wears may sound trivial, but they reflect how many former foster care clients have experienced intense parental control.

Working with the children was done in the foster care units, so if a difficult feeling came to the surface, a staff member would help.

Many employees in the project had to discuss very difficult topics on occasion. The interviewees felt that the supervision offered by the Kone Foundation played an important role in maintaining the wellbeing of researchers participating in the project.

“We also continued it independently through remote meetings even though the official supervision had ended, as the sharing of experiences was well received.”

From Apology to Cultural Change


According to researchers, there is still much work to be done to ensure that violence occurring during child protection is not hidden from society.

In 2016, Minister Juha Resula issued the first state apology in the history of Finland on behalf of children who had experienced abuse in foster care. For a moment, the problems of child welfare made headlines, but then they were forgotten again. “Apologising is important, but we also need a change in how we think about children and foster care,” emphasises Marianne Notko.

“When a child is placed in foster care, this is often seen as the last resort. From the viewpoint of society, the matter is solved. If the abuse continues, the system and the authorities must be able to say aloud that the child is still not living in a safe environment.”

The To be Heard project has resulted in various postgraduate theses and the publication, Luovuuden tilat: Taiteen soveltaminen lastensuojelussa (Creative Spaces: Applying Art in Child Protection), which instructs how to create safe spaces for processing experiences of abuse through art, was created during the project. Short films produced by the playback theatre Storia can be seen on the project’s website.

A rare step forward is that some of the child protection units are continuing their artistic activities with their own funds. So the methods have been well received. One challenge for the future is how creative and experiential arts activities fit into the busy, tightly scheduled and resource-constrained daily routine of child protection.

Yhteystiedot

Senior Researcher Antti Malinen, Tampere Institute for Advanced Study
antti.malinen@tuni.fi


Art can serve as both a tool and a space that provides an opportunity to explore and make sense of experiences that are difficult to put into words. When art is created by hand, through words, images, or, for example, the means of forum or community theatre, researchers and artists participate, engaging in the process, observing, and interpreting.

The value of art is built on the metaphorical protection it offers: even difficult subjects can be approached through symbols and creative activity, from a safe distance.

Art, and collaboration with artists, can open up a space in which one may act in one’s own way, be seen, and be encountered without the pressure of performance.

Photo: Emilia Anundi