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

Abstract

Australia's 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended to organizations that children should participate in decisions affecting their lives as a safety standard. While a substantial body of research about children's voices in statutory or out-of-home care now exists, there remains a paucity of research into children's voices in family support services delivered by nongovernment organizations. This is despite the primary service purpose being to benefit children. This lack of focus in family support was identified as a research priority by a nongovernment organization in Queensland, Australia, which lead to a collaborative research programme. This article reports on initial research from a survey study to describe the current state of play from practitioners into their perceptions and practices of children's participation in family support contexts. A voluntary and anonymous online, qualitativepredominate survey was opened to 110 practitioners in family support services, of which 50% responded. The findings identified that children's voices were compromised by perceptions of children's capacity relating to age and vulnerability, the parental focus of the service coupled with perceptions of parent's needs and gatekeeping behaviours and service pressures that work against the conditions required for children's rights to voice.

Children’s participation in practice: comparing the views of managers and practitioners in an early intervention and prevention programme

“…Practitioners, who work directly with children and families highlighted the characteristics of children and families as facilitators, particularly those who have good communication skills which allow them to express themselves more easily. This is in line with previous research where communicating with children has been described as one of the challenges of participation (Kosher and Ben-Arieh, 2019); achieving this principle in practice is not easy (Harkin et al , 2020).…”

“…Some managers had contradictory views, as some perceived there is a lack of organisational structures, resources and time for practitioners to engage in participatory practice, whereas others had mentioned these as facilitators. These limitations, however, echo the findings of previous studies where limited resources have been identified as a barrier for participation particularly where the lack of resources prevents practitioners from turning children’s feelings and wishes into reality (Harkin et al , 2020; Kirz and Skiveness, 2017). Effort and time is needed to embed participation (Fudge et al , 2008; Harkin et al , 2020; Hogg and Williamson, 2001; Hogg, 2007; Zakus and Lysack, 1998), and this study has borne this out.…”

“…Despite this, there remains a paucity of research into how children's participation is supported in family support services (Harkin et al , 2020). This paper aims to explore children’s and families’ participation in practice in an Irish context.…”

“…The establishment of Tusla as an independent statutory authority marked a major change in the Irish child welfare system towards maximising the preventative and early intervention capacity, underpinned by a children’s rights perspective and a holistic approach (Devaney and McGregor, 2017; McGregor and Devaney, 2020; Devaney et al , 2021c). Organisational capability and willingness are influencers on hearing children's voices (Harkin et al , 2020). Tusla’s founding legislation, the Child and Family Agency Act 2013, places a strong emphasis on partnership and co-operation with children and families in the delivery of services.…”

Frontline Workers’ Challenges in Hearing Children’s Voices in Family Support Services

“…This resulted in the development of Project 1 (in 2018-2020) that sought understanding of the everyday experiences of their frontline practitioners (Phase 1) and children 6-17 years of age whose families received family support services from the UnitingCare NGO (Phase 2); and the subsequent Project 2 (in 2019-2021) that developed critical reflection workshops with management and staff to help transform practice. Prior to this research, an online baseline survey of practitioners' attitudes and assumptions toward children's participation in practice was conducted (Harkin et al, 2020). The survey received 55 respondents (50% response rate) from the organisation's family support practitioners (social workers and colleagues) and included qualitative and quantitative findings that informed Phase 1 of this research.…”