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Participation triggers

Katrin Križ · 23 Sept 2020

Abstract

This chapter assesses the case conditions that lead a child protection caseworker to take children's statements, opinions, and wishes seriously. The study participants from both Norway and the United States talked about situations involving collaboration between children and workers and child-led participation when they described the case scenarios where children's opinions counted. There were several common themes. Children's age mattered to the extent to which workers took their opinion seriously: most study participants described case examples that involved pre-teens and teens. Case context also mattered: more than one third of the participants described situations that involved a child who wanted to be removed from their home, and the workers then ended up supporting the child's wish. In many of these cases, the child's expression of their experience or opinion was one piece of the evidence that workers were considering in the case.