Nearly one in twelve children aged 0–9 living in Denmark has a non-Danish citizenship, yet the country still offers no specific statutory right to support for children whose parents are seriously ill, leaving many international families to improvise care in a system where most guidance and documentation are in Danish.
When a five-year-old child cannot tolerate heat and her chronically ill mother struggles to keep up, Danish authorities can provide recommendations and training for health staff but no guaranteed help for the child herself. That gap is now drawing scrutiny as patient organisations push for a statutory right to support for children living with seriously ill or vulnerable parents.
According to Statistics Denmark’s StatBank (FOLK1C), 7.9 percent of all children aged 0 to 9 in Denmark had a non-Danish citizenship in 2023, up from 6.2 percent a decade earlier. In the youngest cohort, aged 0 to 4, the share climbed to around 8.5 percent. These thousands of very young children depend on Danish health and social services their parents may struggle to navigate.
Training without teeth
The 2022 Finance Act earmarked 15 million kroner to improve identification and support for children as relatives, a term covering kids living with parental mental illness, substance misuse or critical physical conditions. Allocated over the period 2022 to 2025 for Denmark’s 800,000-plus minors, the sum funds staff training and procedures but does not create an enforceable right for the child.
A national evaluation published in March 2024 by Sorgcenter and the Danish Health Authority found that only about half of hospital departments have a formal procedure to identify such children, and even fewer have clear referral pathways to psychological or social support. Many health workers see supporting children as relatives as an extra task with no dedicated time or resources, leading to low prioritisation when workload pressure mounts.
Language as a barrier
For international families, the problem compounds. According to the same 2024 evaluation, guidance documents, consent forms and most psychosocial programmes operate primarily in Danish, and health professionals report uncertainty about using interpreters with children. Implementation is uneven and heavily dependent on local routines and individual staff interest.
At the same time, social inequality shapes who receives decent care. A 2024 report from Astma-Allergi Danmark found that children from resource-poor families receive consistently poorer asthma management, missing appointments and struggling with daily treatment routines. Experts suggest that foreign parents may be particularly vulnerable to these risk patterns, though the asthma report does not systematically disaggregate its data by origin.
Political pressure builds
In October 2023, eighteen patient and professional organisations including Danske Patienter signed an open letter urging the Folketing to grant children as relatives a legal right to help. They argue that current recommendations and small budgets leave support dependent on regional priorities and individual goodwill, meaning which child gets help can depend more on where they live than how serious the situation is.
Norway offers a contrast. Its Patients’ Rights Act, under section 10-4, explicitly requires health services to safeguard minor children of patients with mental illness or substance misuse, creating an enforceable obligation rather than a recommendation. Sweden has national guidance from Socialstyrelsen emphasising family-oriented psychiatric services, though Denmark’s framework remains primarily recommendation-based.
What families can do now
Danish regions and some policymakers worry that creating a formal right could embed unfunded mandates. The fifteen million kroner is not enough to finance guaranteed services for every affected child, and officials question how to define eligibility and which authority should take the lead.
Meanwhile, expat families facing a crisis need to be proactive. The entry point is the family’s general practitioner, who can refer both sick parent and child to relevant services including child psychiatry, family counselling or municipal social departments. Municipalities are legally obliged under the Serviceloven to support children in need of special assistance, but these services are triggered only when someone raises a concern.
The Poison Hotline at 82 12 12 12 offers round-the-clock advice in case of suspected overdose or poisoning. Municipal family departments, listed on each kommune’s website, handle child welfare and family support, though most information remains in Danish. Borger.dk and Nyidanmark.dk provide some English-language health and rights guidance, but detailed pages on children as relatives are sparse.
Patient organisations stress that many so-called problem children are simply reacting to family instability or an overburdened parent, and that early intervention can prevent later, more expensive psychiatric admissions. For the moment, that intervention depends on families knowing where to ask and having the language skills to do it.
