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Children's participation in child protection—How do practitioners understand children's participation in practice?
Woodman, Elise Roche, Steven McArthur, Morag
Woodman, Elise
Roche, Steven
McArthur, Morag
Abstract
Children's participation is essential to achieve good outcomes for children involved in child protection systems. Despite this, research has consistently found children report low levels of participation, are poorly consulted and feel inadequately involved in decisions about their lives. To explore how practitioners understand children's participation, 18 in-depth interviews were conducted with statutory child protection practitioners in Australia. The interviews explored the ways child protection practitioners understand children's participation. Our findings show practitioners conceptualize children as rights holders and believe it is essential to hear directly from children about their needs and wishes to keep them safe. Practitioners identified the importance of transparent processes and decisions. Different understanding of participation emerged, with some participants talking about children as their central focus but not discussing meaningful participation of the child. It appeared that children's participation relied largely on the views and skills of individual workers, as well as their ability to incorporate meaningful participation in limited time and in complex practice environments where children's safety is a primary concern. Systemic changes to address time barriers, training practitioners to understand and implement participatory practice, and seeking children's input into service design, will support consistent and meaningful participation.
Keywords
child and family welfare, child protection, children, children's participation
Date
2023
Type
Journal article
Journal
Child and Family Social Work
Book
Volume
28
Issue
1
Page Range
125-135
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Allied Health
Faculty of Health Sciences
Institute of Child Protection Studies
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Health Sciences
Institute of Child Protection Studies
Faculty of Education and Arts
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
License
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
File Access
Open