Abstract Research consistently shows that youth participation in child protection decision-making is limited and challenging. This study used video-elicitation interviews and combined Critical Childhood Studies with Positioning Theory to explore how interactions between social workers and young people shape participation. Seventeen recorded meetings allowed both groups to reflect individually on their interactions, which is uncommon in this field. To illustrate a recurring pattern of youth reluctance to reflect in meetings, a detailed analysis is presented of one filmed and transcribed meeting between a social worker and a young girl, along with interviews with both participants. The study reveals how social workers and young people are pre-positioned and negotiate their positions during meetings, thereby shaping participation. It shows how self-reflection and the verbal expression of emotions can become obligations within youth participation, and how youth resistance or reluctance may be viewed as a critique of available positions. The article also highlights broader challenges of maintaining meaningful participatory ideals within an institutional framework focused on protection and risk assessment. Overall, it calls for a shift in child protection policy and practice to recognize youth participation as a relationally negotiated and context-dependent phenomenon.
This article presents an overview of the theoretical stance within the BMBF-funded project "geste - Educational Aids as Work on the Common Good - Between Effect-Oriented Management and Equal Participation in Germany and England", focussing on the subproject of sociology of work. For approaching the working conditions of employees in residential child and youth care, the authors propose to understand participation in work as a power struggle. This perspective enables a critical stance concerning employees' participation with regard to their working conditions that is discussed for the German case.
Objectives: This study aimed at evaluating the correlation between mother-child relationship and the rate of participation of children and adolescents with cerebral palsy in leisure time activities.Methods: This study is a descriptive and correlational research.The statistical population included cerebral palsy children aged 7-17 years with a mother who is at least 25 years old.A sample size of 152 children was selected using systematic random sampling.The children filled the King's assessment of participation and enjoyment questionnaire, whereas the mothers responded to a survey of Roth's mother-child relationship evaluation.We collected the data and analyzed them (Spearman's correlation test, One-way ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis, and Mann-Whitney) using SPSS 16 software.Results: The results showed that there is a correlation between mother-child relationship and the rate of participation of cerebral palsy children in leisure time activities.There was a significant correlation between acceptance of child and the increasing involvement in leisure activities in case of cerebral palsy children.Over protection, excessive ease, and child rejection in a mother-child relationship was associated with reduction in the participation rate of the cerebral palsy children and adolescents in leisure activities.In case of quadriplegic children, the acceptance of child and participation rate was low compared to hemiplegic and diplegic children.Excessive ease of a mother-child relationship in girls was more than boys, but boys experienced more child rejection of a mother-child relationship than girls.Discussion: Participation rate, frequency (how often), and the enjoyment of participation in leisure time activities were correlated with mother-child relationship.Participation differences were existed among CP groups.
Alireza Amiri, Minoo Kalantari, Mehdi Rezaee et al.
Research Findings: Family child care providers widely participate in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), yet their participation experiences have not been studied. To fill this gap, we used a mixed methods approach that combined survey data collected from a random sample of 224 CACFP-participating licensed family child care providers and in-depth qualitative interviews (n = 40 survey respondents). Working within a cost-benefit framework, we sampled from Chicago and small cities and towns in central Illinois in order to compare providers’ perceptions of the benefits and burdens of CACFP participation by reimbursement level and urban/rural location. Reimbursement rate was related to providers’ perceptions of the adequacy of the reimbursement and how difficult it was to purchase food that met program requirements. Location was related to providers’ perceptions of how difficult it was to prepare meals that met program requirements. Practice or Policy: Our findings suggest modifications to reduce inequities in who has access to the higher reimbursement rate. How providers qualify for the higher reimbursement rate could be reconsidered to ensure that providers outside of urban areas are not disadvantaged. Sponsoring organizations could expand efforts to provide technical assistance and nutrition education, especially for providers outside of urban areas.
Katherine Elizabeth Speirs, Rachel A. Gordon, Elizabeth Powers et al.
This article examines how agency, participation and democracy are lived, negotiated and made visible in child care with very young children. Drawing on a doctoral ethnographic case study in a Portuguese infant-toddler room, it presents a secondary qualitative analysis of field notes, pedagogical documentation and a semi-structured educator interview. The study challenges deficit-oriented and adult-centred understandings of babies by showing that agency is expressed relationally and bodily through gestures, movement, affect, refusal, repetition, proximity seeking and participation in routines. Participation is understood as an everyday pedagogical condition constructed through attentive listening, time, space, documentation, family dialogue and reflective professional decision-making. The findings identify four interrelated dimensions of democratic praxis: responsive care; environments that invite initiative; pedagogical documentation as visibility and dialogue; and professional reflexivity in addressing tensions between discourse and practice. The analysis shows how babies’ embodied expressions can become consequential in pedagogical decision-making. Democracy in child care is therefore understood not as a topic to be taught, but as a relational, ethical and political way of organising everyday pedagogical life, enabling the youngest children to experience belonging, recognition and participation from the beginning of life.
During the course of a program evaluation for Footprints Dance Project Society of Alberta, we uncovered a discrepancy between children and parents regarding both motivation for program participation and expected outcomes. At Footprints Dance Project, we work with a diverse group of children, primarily from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Despite advertising ourselves as an organization providing dance programs for children to experience dance—promoting a love of dance and artistic activities—one third of our parents expressed a primary expectation for their child to develop life skills through our program. Thirty-seven percent of our parents did not mention learning dance as an expectation of our community dance program at all. This contrasted starkly with both our child respondents’ motivations as well as our own assumptions. We discuss this dichotomy and its implications in community programming, both for program delivery and recruitment.
Abstract The relationship between children's human rights to protection and to what is commonly referred to as ‘participation’ has received significant attention, with many scholars critiquing the purported tension between the two approaches and demonstrating how child participation should be a core feature of child protection. Less attention has been paid to the converse and, we argue, essential precursor of participatory protection practice – the significance of the child's right to be protected from harm as a means to ensuring successful child participation. Drawing on the example of the multidisciplinary Barnahus model, this article explores the multifaceted relationship between participation and protection, suggesting that there needs to be greater acknowledgement of the role of collective child participation in delivering the conditions where individual children who have witnessed or experienced violence feel and are safe to express themselves.
The comprehension of the Toddler Family Development (TFD) Program among families in Indonesia remains limited, likely due to insufficient access to information and low participation rates. Limited participation can negatively affect a family’s ability to support optimal child growth and development. This study examined the relationship between access to information on the TFD Program and family participation in child growth and development. Using secondary data from the 2019 Program Performance and Accountability Survey in Indonesia, the cross-sectional analysis included 21,497 respondents. The results revealed an association between access to information on the TFD Program and family participation in child growth and development (OR: 1.53; 95% CI: 1.34–1.75). Families with limited access to TFD program information were 1.5 times more likely not to engage in child growth and development and parenting activities. Engaging in the TFD Program can help parents with the better growth and development of their children under the age of five.
China is at a critical juncture in its rapid population policy adjustment, which will have a profound impact on women's labor-force participation rate, which is related to women's economic independence, the social status of their families, and overall productivity. Against this background, we used CFPS tracking data from 2014 and 2016 to quantitatively analyze the impact of the "comprehensive two-child" policy on female labor-market participation and its heterogeneity, using a dual difference measurement. The study found that the introduction of the "comprehensive two-child" policy significantly reduced female labour participation by 7.29%. The results were still robust when the key variables were changed. Further research has shown that the impact is significantly heterogeneous, i.e. the implementation of the policy has a deeper and more pronounced impact on rural female labour force and female labour participation with one child. Therefore, more flexible employment support measures should be adopted at the government, social and enterprise levels. While ensuring the smooth implementation of child-bearing policies and promoting higher levels of child-bearing, education and training should also be strengthened to improve the earning capacity of couples of child-bearing age. Increase the supply of public pension services and safeguard the rights and interests of the living; Provide effective solutions to the problem that the implementation of policies significantly reduces female labour participation.
