Exploring the essence of enabling child participation within child protection services

Abstract

The chances that children have to participate in child protection services are largely contingent upon the attitudes and skills of case managers. They have a crucial role in ensuring that a child's voice is being listened to and acknowledged in often sensitive dialogues. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate what case managers need to facilitate child participation. By handing case managers a participation toolbox developed by children and through the use of reflexive monitoring in action, we elaborated on the barriers faced in practice. The results show that the intention to facilitate child participation is quickly overruled by often subconscious thoughts and beliefs, stemming from the complex interplay of child image, protection, and participation. Case managers need to be aware of this interplay and how this unknowingly steers their actions. Therefore, iterative reflection should be facilitated within organizations for an actual change in their daily practice and to amplify the role of children in the decision‐making processes within child protection services.

Children’s Participation in Decision Making From Child Welfare Workers’ Perspectives: A Systematic Review

“…Child welfare workers in Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States perceived children’s participation as hearing the child’s opinion combined with informing them (Križ & Skivenes, 2017). Van Bijleveld et al (2020) found that child participation was defined by different concepts such as “involving children,” “being part of the process,” “giving their opinion,” “being taken seriously,” and “being listened to”; nevertheless, when reflecting on actual practices, the conversation mainly focused on “providing to” and “gathering information” from children. Furthermore, Alfandari’s (2017) study showed that interaction with children was a matter of “seeing” them rather than communicating with them.…”

“…The social position of children has changed considerably in recent decades, recognizing children as social actors (McCafferty, 2017; Röbäck & Höjer, 2009). Nevertheless, despite legislation and policies obligating children’s participation, it remains a complex area of practice (Kosher & Ben-Arieh, 2019; Van Bijleveld et al, 2020).…”

Influences on children's voices in family support services: Practitioner perspectives

“…However, this is not going to occur until the ongoing negative perceptions held by practitioners regarding children's capacity are addressed. As Bijleveld et al (2019, p. 8) identify, changing attitudes both conscious and deep‐seated is not easy. In this study, practitioners identified the highest barriers for children voices not being asked or heard was due to the respondent's perception of vulnerabilities.…”

“…While the majority of practitioners believe in the importance of hearing children's voices in family support services and believe their practice to be child‐inclusive, the survey findings point to a gap between respondents' intent and their reported level of children's actual participation. The complex interplay of underlying barriers, even with positive attitudes and appropriate tools, is identified as reducing the potential for behavioural change (Bijleveld et al 2019, p. 6). Identified in the literature is that to authentically and meaningfully empower children's voices, good practice begins first with considering and clarifying the way children and childhood are conceptualized (Christensen & James, 2017, p. 4).…”

“…Research in child and family and related fields has shown that while 'children's voices' is generally accepted in principle, there are a number of tensions in attitudes approaches and/or systems that restrict its implementation in service delivery (Livingstone & Blum‐Ross, 2017; McNamee & Seymour, 2013; Stafford, 2017). Common identified tensions include children being constructed as vulnerable and lacking capacity (Bijleveld Gana, Bunders‐Aelen, & Dedding, 2019; James, James, & McNamee, 2004), uneven power differential held by practitioners along with long‐established focus and job responsibility of child protection over all other rights (Kosher & Ben‐Arieh, in press; Le Borgne & Tisdall, 2017) and greater emphases on technocratic and managerialism practices (Ferguson, 2017).…”