Age limits for participation in child protection court proceedings in Sweden

Abstract

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and Swedish legislation, children have the right to participate in child protection proceedings. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse the notion of age and maturity in child protection proceedings in order to elucidate how these aspects could influence children's rights to participate. We focus on the view of three groups of actors involved in child protection proceedings in Sweden—social workers, lawyers, and laypersons in social welfare boards and administrative courts—and on how children's age and maturity should be taken into consideration in decisions on their participation in court. The analysis is based on survey data. The study found that social workers, laypersons, and lawyers have different views on when children are old enough to have the right to litigate in court. Additionally, there is no consensus on how the maturity of the child can be assessed to inform the decision about participation. More discussion is needed about what competences a child needs to participate in court and to what extent this right should be limited by their age. Importantly, courts and decision‐making proceedings can be made more child friendly.

Social workers as relational actors: descriptions of care order preparations in Finland

“…However, partnership relations with parents are not uncontested, not to mention those with children (Calder 2008;Broadhurst 2010;Venables and Healey 2019;Hultman, Höjer, and Larsson 2019). Although the views of children and parents are not studied empirically in this paper, one may assume that for them the care order preparations can offer a platform of partnership, but also one of resignation, fight or escape (e.g.…”

‘Informed consent’ in consensual child welfare: some reflections on its controversial nature

“…They may result in difficulties in, for example, communicating with children as service-users (e.g. Bijleveld et al, 2015;Handley & Doyle, 2014) or in assessing children's maturity for expressing consent (Hultman et al, 2019).…”

A systematic review of children’s participation in child protection decision‐making: Tokenistic presence or not?

“…The theme of protectionism is discussed in numerous studies, indicating that workers tend to adopt a protective position with regard to children's participation (e.g. Alfandari, 2017;van Bijleveld et al, 2019;Collins, 2017;Hultman et al, 2019;Kosher & Ben-Arieh, 2019). Križ and Skivenes' (2017) study found that child welfare workers mentioned that children needed protection from possible harmful effects as a consequence of participation and that children do not always know what is in their best interest.…”

“…Concerning participation, Križ and Skivenes (2017) highlight that Article 12 of the UNCRC grants children a prominent place in all matters that affect them. Hultman, Höjer, and Larsson (2019) refer to the Committee on the Rights of the Child (2009), which states that there should be no age limit, in law or in practice that would restrict a child's right to be heard in matters that impact them. Despite policy-makers, researchers and practitioners being increasingly focused on the participation of children in decision-making in the child protection system (Alfandari, 2017;van Bijleveld, Dedding, & Bunders-Aelen, 2015;Bouma, López López, Knorth, & Grietens, 2018;Franklin & Sloper, 2009;Hinton, Tisdall, Gallagher, & Elsley, 2008;Pålsson, 2017;Sanders & Mace, 2006), children's right to participation in decision-making remains challenging in practice (Kosher & Ben-Arieh, 2019;Mateos, Vaquero, Balsells, & Ponce, 2017;Ruiz-Casares, Collins, Tisdall, & Grover, 2017).…”