It is alongside the developing political agenda of childrenās participatory rights that my career as an early years practitioner, teacher and university lecturer has also developed. I, in common with many of my colleagues, have become increasingly concerned that childrenās freedoms have become ever more curtailed and subject to adult control within a culture which has become averse to almost any childhood risk at all. In some childhood institutions adopting the participatory agenda, at least superficially, has been seen as relatively uncontroversial but allowing children the freedom to participate within the context of statutory child protection interventions is complicated because participation potentially places children at risk . However, participation is also a means through which children can realise their rights to protection, not least because it allows them opportunities to increase capacity by developing decision making skills, confidence, articulation, social competence, social responsibility and resilience.
On two separate occasions during my professional life I had the opportunity to work quite closely with children who were undergoing statutory child protection interventions. In one of these cases I was part of the core group of family and professionals who met regularly to discuss and evaluate implementation of the child protection plan . In both cases I worked closely with the child in their educational setting. These children were both very young, but I was struck by how little they seemed to understand about their circumstances and how little relevance the child protection process seemed to have for them, and it was this that fueled my interest in conducting the research project presented in this book. My aim was to offer a critical examination of childrenās participation within the specific context of statutory child protection interventions. Using interview data collected from children who were undergoing child protection proceedings and evidence extracted from a systematic literature review of childrenās experiences of child protection interventions, I explored childrenās experiences of participation from the perspectives of children. This enabled me to identify the ways in which children typically experience and participate in statutory child protection interventions and to theorize this in relation to their interactions with professionals and the wider structural conditions of their lives. Part I of this book presents childrenās accounts of their experiences of statutory child protection interventions including three detailed narratives from my interview participants. Part II of the book develops a theory for why children participate in the ways that they do. In this opening chapter, I describe the context within which the research project took place and I give a brief overview of the method and analytical framework employed.
The Context
The child protection system in its present form has not always been so but has evolved over time from the unconnected philanthropic actions of a few charitable individuals into a highly organised social system which encompasses a myriad of interconnected organisations, phenomena and spheres of communication and which, at any given time, can be read as a codified statement of what society finds acceptable in terms of its treatment of children. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC 1989) has played a crucial role in attempting to improve living conditions for children globally and contains fifty-four articles setting out childrenās rights to provision, protection and participation which, it asserts, all children are entitled to. Childrenās rights to the provision of care, to the resources needed for survival and to protection from violence and exploitation are relatively uncontroversial. Childrenās rights to participation, however, have prompted heated debate and there are various theoretical positions on the extent to which children should have the freedom to determine their own course of action. These are polarised by the liberationist argument that children should be given the full rights of adults in order to free them from adult control and the caretaker argument that children are vulnerable and need protecting from their own poor decisions. This underlying debate is reflected in the practice, policy and legislation surrounding child protection work and informs discussions when conflicts occur between childrenās rights to both protection and participation, and also between the rights of children and the responsibilities of adults. The UNCRC (1989) sets out rights to participation notably in the following articles:
- Article 12 gives children the right to participation in decisions that affect them.
- Article 13 gives children the right to freedom of expression.
- Article 14 gives children the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
- Article 15 gives children the right to freedom of association.
- Article 17 gives children the right to access information that is important for their health and wellbeing.
These rights have put considerable pressure on policy makers in ratifying countries to develop legal and policy frameworks which enable childrenās participation at all levels of society. In the UK the Children Act 1989 was pivotal in imposing a duty on local authorities to ascertain childrenās wishes and feelings in relation to child protection interventions and the Every Child Matters (DfES 2003) agenda further sought to ensure the positive contribution of all children with particular regard to engaging children in decision making about their own lives. The Children Act 2004 established the post of Childrenās Commissioner whose remit includes promoting the participatory rights of children in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Children and Families Act 2014 extends this responsibility specifically to include children who are receiving social care services.
The Council of Europe (2012) in its recommendation to member states on the participation of children and young people under the age of eighteen stated:
Participation is about individuals and groups of individuals having the right, the means, the space, the opportunity and, where necessary, the support to freely express their views, to be heard and to contribute to decision making on matters affecting them, their views being given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity.
However, historically children have been viewed as objects of need and concern rather than people with the ability to act on their own lives particularly within the child protection arena. Adults have conflicting views of children as being vulnerable, innocent and in need of protection on the one hand, and incompetent, unruly and in need of control on the other. Archard (1993), Lansdown (1995), and Freeman (1994, 1987) have argued persuasively for the participation rights of children but conflicting perceptions of children and childhood mean that the concept of childrenās voice remains a contested one. Despite this the trend for childrenās participation is currently growing both in consultations with individual children about their own lives, and by involving them in policy formation though research and young activist groups. There is a considerable array of literature on the subject of childrenās participation which has generated various models of the extent to which children are involved in decision making and policy development (e.g. Franklin 1997; Hart 1992). However, participatory practice has been fraught with tension and conflict, not least because childrenās rights to self-determination are opposed on the grounds that they compromise the authority and responsibilities of the adults who are trying to protect them. Questions have been raised about whether notions of delegated power and partnership are appropriate or even ethical within child protection work where statutory enforcement and control are such prevailing forces (Healey 1998).
There are large numbers of empirical studies of childrenās lives which find time and again that children are active social agents in the construction of their social worlds, but which are uncritical and complacent about advancing theoretical debate and understandings of agency in childhood (Tisdall and Punch 2012). Some notable exceptions have attempted to take a more theoretical approach to childrenās agency situating it within a wider context of interdependency and reflecting upon where and how childrenās voices are located and produced (e.g. Oswell 2013; Spyrou 2011). However, none of this work considers the specific context of child protection. A few studies have reported on childrenās participation in various aspects of the child protection system and found that childrenās views are often not heard, that they have little influence over decisions that are made and that they experience a variety of barriers to genuine participation (e.g. Cossar et al. 2014; Dillon et al. 2016). My aim has been to build on this research by designing a project that would problematise the issue in order to develop a deeper and more theoretical understanding of childrenās participation in child protection proceedings.
Method and Analytical Framework
Within this book children are conceptualised as competent individuals who are experts in and have the capacity to shape their own lives. For these sa...