Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides children with the right to express their views in matters that affect them, particularly those of an administrative and judicial nature. This paper examines the academic discourse in child protection research concerning how Article 12 of the CRC is implemented and how it is manifested in child protection service (CPS) casework practices. The systematic review was performed following the principles of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA) statement and included 16 peer‐reviewed articles published in English in academic journals from multiple scientific databases from January 2009 to January 2019 reporting primary research with children about their experiences of participation in CPS. Despite the widespread ratification of the CRC several decades ago, the studies in the current review establish a clear and predictable pattern of an inability of children to express themselves throughout CPS proceedings. Findings consistently indicate that children in different countries felt they were not being asked, listened to or heard, in some cases even regarding harmful and unsafe situations. We argue the academic discourse must move beyond these findings and discuss how research can contribute to dealing with these obstacles and improving practices by focussing on Article 12 in particular and human rights in general throughout CPS practices.

Drawing on three semi-structured focus group interviews with a sample of 14 social hackathon participants in southern Estonia, this article reports the findings of participants’ experiences of the co-creation process in developing new services or innovative solutions to community problems by using a method of social hackathon. In general, hackathon was perceived as a creative and ‘out-of-the-box’ type of approach, a non-traditional way of thinking and an openness to constructing solutions in a new and creative way. Furthermore, the hackathon was recognised as a fitting tool for the social worker to find solutions in the community with service users.

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