Significance
This book shows how child protection caseworkers promote participation in the context of the tension between paternalism (the focus on protection of children and young people who are vulnerable to maltreatment) and participation that is inherent in child protection practice. Child protection professionals, given the nature of their work, approach children from a protective (rather than a rights) standpoint (Shemmings, 2000). This stance is legitimized by workers’ professional authority to make decisions in children’s best interests and protect them from abuse and neglect. For example, Skivenes and Strandbu (2006) and Vis et al (2011) have shown that children’s formal right to participation in Norway does not necessarily translate into participatory practice in child protection. This is how Vis et al (2011, p 326) have described the contradiction between children’s participation and the ethos of child protection among social workers in Norway:
Although most social workers in principle believed that participation is appropriate and beneficial, it was apparent that child participation in decision-making was less likely if the case manager thought participation was unnecessary or posed a risk for the child. It is here that the UNCRC principle of participation as a child’s right appears to conflict with a child protection service that is grounded in a child welfare ethos. In many child protection proceedings, children’s rights to participation are set aside in focusing on children’s best interests. When children’s health or welfare is at stake, participation tends to be viewed as not necessary in order to make the right decision. (Vis et al, 2011, p 326)
The tension between children’s right to protection from harm and their right to participation was expressed by James et al (2008) in this way: ‘the “cared-for” may often find themselves at the mercy of the “carers” who control them, a process often leading to the denial of citizenship rights through social exclusion’ (p 85).4 This is how Archard and Skivenes (2009a) described the contradiction between children’s genuine participation and the paternalism underlying child protection systems:
The problem arises because the two commitments seem to pull in different directions: promotion of a child’s welfare is essentially paternalistic since it asks us to do what we, but not necessarily the child, think is best for the child; whereas listening to the child’s own views asks us to consider doing what the child, but not necessarily we, thinks is best for the child. (Archard and Skivenes, 2009a, p 2)
The participation of children in child protection-related processes can positively impact them by improving their safety and well-being and resulting in lower levels of foster placements (Vis et al, 2011). Vis et al (2011) conducted a review of 21 studies from Europe, the UK and the US to assess the effects of children’s participation on their physical, mental and social well-being. They found that participation has a therapeutic effect by strengthening children’s relationships with social workers and other professionals. Participation may increase self-esteem and children’s sense of mastery and control and reduce stress and anxiety. Participation is beneficial because it reinforces the effect of other interventions by tailoring them to children’s expectations and wishes. By promoting children’s interests in child protection, participation allows for the development and implementation of more realistic case plans for the family and greater permanency for children. It keeps children safe by helping social workers discover and substantiate child abuse and neglect in investigations (Vis et al, 2011).
Other research evidence, too, points to the positive aspects of children’s participation in child protection. The research conducted by Weisz et al (2011) about the risks and benefits of children’s participation in foster care-related dependency or family court hearings in the Midwestern US analyzed the reactions of 43 children (between eight and 18 years) who had participated in review hearings in dependency court to the reactions of 50 children who had not participated. (The children who attended the hearings were typically older than 12 years.) The researchers found that children’s involvement in the hearings was not emotionally harmful to them. The children who had attended the hearings had a better understanding of the details of their case and case plan. They reported more positive feelings about the process, especially when they met with a judge who provided encouragement, asked questions about children’s preferences and engaged them in conversation (Weisz et al, 2011). Judges’ attitudes and behaviours towards children in court hearings about their case can play an important role in facilitating children’s participation. However, recent survey-based research with court officials in England, Norway, Finland and the US (California) has shown that courts could be more responsive to children, especially in terms of child-friendly language and time frames that are sensitive to children (Berrick Duerr et al, 2018).5
It is important to show the ways in which child protection caseworkers promote children’s participation because the barriers to children’s participation in child protection are formidable. Prior research evidence, which I discuss in more detail in Chapter 2, has made this abundantly clear (see, for example, Schofield and Thoburn, 1996; Thomas and O’Kane, 1999a; 1999b; Leeson, 2007; and Križ and Skivenes, 2015). The lingering cultural position of children as objects in today’s adult-centric societies is one of the many barriers to children’s participation in child protection today. The distinct and strong formal rights that children enjoy in the United Nations CRC and in law stand in contrast to the way in which governments and professionals working with children perceive and treat them. On one hand, children’s rising social position has been well-documented in the scholarly literature on children and childhood: in sociology, for example, the scholarship by Zelizer (1994) and James and Prout (1997) represents early examples of research on the social construction of childhood. On the other hand, despite children’s rising social status, they are still considered ‘becomings’ rather than ‘beings’. Adults view children as the individuals who they may become in the future rather than focus on who they are today (Qvortrup, 1990; 2009). Child protection laws and policies, too, construct children in terms of who they may become, especially when policies focus on helping children develop into productive citizens in the future, as Lister (2006) and Piper (2008) have shown in the context of child protection policies in the UK.
A great deal of this book is devoted to child protection workers, describing how they create barriers to participation by drawing symbolic boundaries around the inclusion of children in decision-making. Symbolic boundaries are defined by sociologists Michèle Lamont and Virág Molnar (2002) as ‘the conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects, people, practices, and even time and space’ (p 168). These classification systems, which are based on cultural attitudes, create hierarchies between people that confer on some the status to exercise power and exclude others (Lamont et al, 2015). The ‘participation boundaries’ drawn by the research participants in this study involved situations in which they felt they could not speak with children and young people, for example when the participants feared that their involvement in decision-making might distress or retraumatize children and young people. Study participants did not involve children and young people when they could not verbalize their feelings and opinions because they were incapacitated by a severe physical disability or mental illness. A child’s age served as a prominent symbolic divide between children’s inclusion as well: children 12 years and older were typically viewed as individuals who should participate, while younger children were more likely excluded from genuine participation. There were country differences. Several of the US study participants described teens as ‘liars’ and ‘manipulators’ of adults. The types of perceptions that workers had of the teens they worked with were important because the participants who perceived them in negative terms did not appear to seriously consider their opinions. The participants in Norway were more likely to regard teens as participants because they viewed them as reasonable agents and strong enough to resist the child protection agency’s interventions. Many study participants in both countries reasoned that an intervention measure, such as, for example, counselling or a drug use disorder treatment, would be fruitless unless teens bought into it.
Questions and concepts
I examined the views and experiences of child protection workers in Norway and the US to illustrate