Peer-reviewed article
‘Unlocking child participation’: Development and validation of the Child Participation Post-Separation Scale (ChiPPS)
Rianne van Dijk, Charlotte Mol, Zoë Rejaän, Susan Branje, Maja Deković et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study developed and validated a new measurement scale called the Child Participation Post-Separation Scale (ChiPPS) to assess how children participate in decisions about their living arrangements after their parents separate. The scale was created with input from young people with lived experience and tested on 218 adolescents, identifying five key dimensions of child participation: expressing views, feeling heard, dysfunctional participation, influence, and feedback. The results show the scale reliably measures children's experiences in decision-making and relates meaningfully to their psychological well-being and adjustment after separation.
Key points
- The ChiPPS includes five lower-order subscales (expressing views, feeling heard, dysfunctional, influence, feedback) and two higher-order subscales (decision process, due weight)
- The scale was developed with consultation from 15 youth experts by experience to ensure it reflects children's actual perspectives
- All subscales showed good internal consistency and meaningful associations with measures of children's involvement, satisfaction, parenting, psychological need satisfaction, and adjustment
- The scale captures both beneficial aspects of participation and potential dysfunctional risks for children in separated families
- The instrument provides a reliable tool for researchers to measure child participation in post-separation decision-making contexts
Limitations
This is a validation study of a measurement instrument rather than an evaluation of an intervention, so it cannot tell us whether increased child participation in post-separation decisions actually improves outcomes. The sample was limited to 218 adolescents in the Netherlands, which may limit generalizability to other countries or younger children.
Abstract
Children have a right to participate in all decisions affecting them according to international human rights law. In the context of parental separation, many decisions need to be made regarding children’s lives in which their right to be heard should be safeguarded. From a theoretical perspective, meaningful child participation is considered beneficial to them, but when parents have separated it can also be dysfunctional, bringing risks to the children involved. To better grasp child participation and its anticipated benefits and risks, we developed and validated the Child Participation Post-separation Scale ( ChiPPS ). Throughout the developmental phase, a panel of youth experts by experience ( n = 15) was consulted to ensure its content and face validity. Based on a sample of N = 218 adolescents ( M = 15.9; SD = 2.25), five lower-order subscales ( expressing views, feeling heard, dysfunctional, influence, feedback ) and 2 higher-order subscales ( decision process, due weight ) were identified in the factor analyses. All subscales showed good internal consistency and were meaningfully associated with single-item measures of children’s involvement and satisfaction with the decisions made, and adolescent reports of parenting, psychological need satisfaction, and adjustment (convergence validity). Overall, the ChiPPS captured multiple distinct, yet intertwined dimensions of children’s experiences, feelings and understanding in the decision-making process regarding their living arrangements following parental separation. This provides researchers with a reliable instrument to measure child participation post-separation that is meaningful both in terms of children’s rights and in relation to their adjustment.