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

Abstract

This article examines children's views on and experiences with participation in the child protection system's decisionmaking process. The systematic review follows the PRISMA statement and includes 12 peer-reviewed articles published in academic journals from 2006 to 2017. Findings suggest that children's contact with their worker was limited or nonexistent, which minimised opportunities to express views regarding their situation; child-worker contacts lacked dialogue, information about the process of intervention and trusting relationships, meaning that without a voice, children were not engaged in making decisions. Although data are limited, they suggest little or no dialogue with children by child protection workers. Furthermore, children voiced their experiences of not being informed of or understanding the process or decisions made about their lives.

‘The Pandemic Affected My Life in a Negative Way’: The Experiences of Estonian Children in Child Protective Services During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic

“…Similarly, Jones et al ( 2020 ) suggested that the pandemic would enable the reshaping of CPS to include children as part of the solution. Although listening to children's experiences enables stakeholders to better understand and respond to their needs and support their well‐being, international CPS practices lack children's voices or take a tokenistic approach to listen to children's views (Kosher & Ben‐Arieh, 2020 ; Toros, 2021 ; Falch‐Eriksen et al, 2021 ; van Bijleveld et al, 2020 ). In general, children's participation is believed to benefit both children and society (Björnsdóttir & Einarsdóttir, 2017 ), including in times of crisis.…”

Experiences of Adolescent Participation in Educational Institutions in Croatia

“…In addition, the continuity of the relationship between adolescents and educators is an important element, as many adolescents have no experience of stability and continuity due to numerous interventions in which they were involved, as well as the fluctuations of caretakers. Previous studies also confirm the conclusion that adults (professionals) are one of the key elements for the inclusion of children in decision-making, but also for the development of young people's participation capacities [5,14,18,[21][22][23]53].…”

“…When expressing their desire to participate, young people mention very specific topics/decisions in which they would like to be involved and which are very important for their quality of life in the institution: the choice of beneficiaries who come into their group, persons with whom they wish to share their living space, the choice of activities in which they want to be involved, and the possibility of influencing the decisions at the level of the social welfare system (such as the amount they get as pocket money). So far, studies have also shown that children in residential care mostly have abundant experience regarding non-participation in everyday decisions, care planning, management meetings related to their life in care, information about admission, the course of treatment, and leaving the social welfare system [14,22,23]. It is important to bear in mind that this group of adolescents exhibit (at least) two vulnerabilities in parallel, i.e., they are both children and beneficiaries of the social welfare system.…”

“…It is precisely because of this dynamic nature and the variety of constrained opportunities for participation that children can simultaneously experience several different types of participation [16]. The meta-analysis of previous studies on the topic of child participation in residential care indicates that children have abundant experience in terms of non-participation in decisions regarding everyday life in care, care planning, participation in the management meetings related to living in the social welfare system, information about admission, course of treatment, and leaving care [14,22,23]. The results of the research show that some children participate in the day-to-day decision-making, but that a large part of them are excluded from decisions concerning their life, education, and social relations [14].…”

“…The most frequent participation was observed in aspects of everyday life in the institution (e.g., food, pocket money, leisure time in the home, creation of group rules), while young people were given no opportunity to participate in the choice of their roommate, the course of care, and the selection of employees. Analyses of recent studies have also shown that adults are one of the key elements in the involvement of young people in decision-making, but also in developing their capacity to participate [5,14,22,23]. For example, young people agree that it is easier to share their thoughts with interested, involved, and available professionals with whom they have established a good and lasting relationship [18].…”