Organizing for agency: rethinking the conditions for children’s participation in service provision

Abstract

In the organization of child care services, constraints restrict the potential for children's participation in the formation and delivery of support programmes. These constraints involve the prioritization of risk management, poor understandings of what participation entails, and entrenched socio-cultural perspectives of children as vulnerable and requiring protection. However, when children's participation is recognized as an imperative, both morally and as a means of enhancing service efficiency, and when organizational visions and practice ideologies uphold the importance of children's involvement in decision-making, spaces for children's agency can become part of everyday practice routines. Drawing on three examples of organizational innovations in child-directed social work, this article explores the benefits involved in "organizing for children's agency".

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

“…I've been told since day one, we don't work with the children; that's not our area. This finding highlights, supports, and demonstrates that the way programs are constructed and interpreted in practice is highly influential because programs are laden with assumptions, beliefs, and values; shape the focus of work; and specify service deliverables (Bolin, 2018). This lack of recognition and lack of visibility of children directly influences children's opportunity to have a voice (James, 2007).…”

“…Power differentials held by practitioners also persist within the long-established emphasis of protection over other children's rights (Kosher & Ben-Arieh, 2020;Le Borgne & Tisdall, 2017). Such barriers are why children's voices often remain suppressed (Bessell, 2016;Bolin, 2018;Irani et al, 2018). Not having a voice impacts children's wellbeing and development, as well as potentially producing practices that expose children to more harm (Carnevale et al, 2015;Kosher & Ben-Arieh, 2020).…”

Children’s agency in the family, in school and in society: implications for health and well-being

“…Four of the articles focus on children's agency in relation to care and health-care organizations, using clinical and non-clinical samples. For example, Bolin (2019) considers children as interpretive agents with legitimate knowledge whose participation should be engaged by service providers when making of decisions in programs of care. Wickström (2019) documents adolescent girls' evasion, resistance and repurposing of psycho-educational program exercises to suit their own needs and preferences.…”

“…First, there is a diversity of contexts where children act as agents. These include the macro level contexts of culture (De Mol et al, 2019) and acculturation (Bergnehr, 2019), poverty (Cheang and Goh (2019), school (Bolin, 2019;Wickström, 2019) and dyadic family relationships Kuczynski et al (2019), Robson and Kuczynski (2019), Gurdal and Sorbring (2019). Nowhere to be found is the individual agent operating devoid of context.…”

“…Instead, the present articles highlight the possible contributions of children and young people to the services that they receive. Bolin (2019) argues that acknowledging children's agency when organizing child care services contributes to everyday practice routines that helps children and their families in a more effective way. Children's agency in family interventions should be harnessed so children can contribute to the remedial process and not just resist it.…”