Protecting Children, Creating Citizens. Križ, Katrin
has implemented Safety Organized Practice (SOP), a strengths-based collaborative practice approach that emphasizes teamwork between the child, family, caseworker and community (Casey Family Programs, 2019).
Burford and Gallagher’s (2015) research showed the positive impact of family group decision-making on children’s participation. The researchers interviewed 32 teens in the US state of Vermont, most of whom were living in out-of-home care, about their experiences with the child protection system. They found that interviewees were very satisfied with the family safety plan and family group conferences. These types of meetings are part of a practice model introduced by Vermont, following state legislation passed in 2007 that encouraged children’s active participation in case planning. While these meetings have great democratic potential, only few families in Vermont get to access them, as it is up to the discretion of the public child protection agencies to offer them. These are the results of the researchers’ survey data:
We note that survey data gathered at the end of family safety plan meetings and family group conferences, which were both introduced as part of practice reforms, indicate high levels of teen satisfaction with these meetings. In particular, the family group conferences (N = 132) have received significantly higher ratings by teens on items such as ‘other people at the meeting really listened to what I had to say’; ‘I liked where the meeting was held’; and ‘I think the right people helped make the plan.’ These meetings almost always have a higher proportion of family members and people of the family’s, including the teen’s, choosing, and fewer professionals in attendance. (Burford and Gallagher, 2015, p 231)
Organization of the book
Legislation and policies may express goals and ambitions about children’s rights to be heard, but the everyday reality of children’s participation in child protection lies in the interactions between children and child protection workers. Child protection caseworkers may contribute to creating children’s citizenship by establishing boundaries of children’s inclusion and exclusion. They may, for example, exclude children from participation because they perceive some children, but not others, as deserving of participation. I examine in this book which factors child protection workers perceive as triggers of children’s participation and non-participation. I analyze how child protection workers said they involved children, and in what ways they reported producing genuine opportunities of participation.
Chapter 2 discusses prior scholarship about children’s experiences with participation and analyzes the barriers to children’s genuine participation created by child protection professionals in Norway and the US. Chapters 3 to 6 offer the main empirical contributions of the book. In Chapter 3, I analyze ‘non-participation triggers’ – the factors in a child protection case that lead child protection workers to exclude children from participation. In Chapter 4, I take a 180-degree-turn and describe participation triggers. These are the situations in which child protection workers heavily weigh a child’s reflection or opinions when making decisions. In Chapter 5, I examine how and at what stage child protection workers facilitate children’s participation. In Chapter 6, I investigate how workers involve teenagers compared to younger children. In Chapter 7, I weave together the findings from the empirical chapters and prior scholarship to present my central argument about the presence of a participatory practice approach. In Appendix 1, I describe the methods of data collection and analysis used for this study and the strengths and limitations of the data material. Appendix 2 offers questions for discussion.
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