deal of discretion. For example, it is up to the case manager to decide whether to let children participate in planning meetings (Vis et al, 2011).
Child protection workers who investigate abuse and neglect in public child protection agencies in California are more constricted when investigating child maltreatment because they utilize standard assessment tools during an investigation. Many of the Californian child protection agencies, including the ones in this study, employed an actuarial tool called a Structured Decision-Making Scheme (SDM) for their risk assessments (Berrick Duerr, Peckover, Pösö & Skivenes, 2015; Berrick Duerr, 2018). Actuarial tools such as SDM provide factors predictive of maltreatment which workers score to provide an overall risk score (Ryan et al, 2005; D’Andrade et al, 2008; Berrick Duerr, Peckover, Pösö & Skivenes, 2015). The higher the point tally, the higher the risk in the case (California Department of Social Services, 2012). The Norwegian risk assessment approach, which differs from that employed in California, rests solely on professional discretion and knowledge: the norm in Norwegian child protection practice is to rely on individual workers’ professional assessment of the situation. However, there are indications of a turn towards more systematic guidelines in the Norwegian system, such as the so-called Kvello method (Kvello, 2010) that several municipalities are now using (Skivenes, 2011). Several Norwegian research participants in this study mentioned employing ‘The River of Life’ tool, which allowed them to gather information about children in a structured manner during a child protection investigation.
Californian child protection workers are expected to follow a practice model that includes expectations about how children should be treated in terms of participation (Berrick Duerr, Dickens, Pösö & Skivenes, 2015). Many counties in California, including the two counties in which my study participants worked, practised an approach to meetings called Team Decision-Making (TDM) meetings, also called family team meetings. These types of meetings provide children, family members and other parties who know the family with a structured opportunity to be heard in a child’s case (Berrick Duerr et al, 2015). Berrick Duerr (2018, p 222) describes TDMs like this:
A meeting that brings together a family and other interested parties such as friends, neighbors and community members, with staff from the child welfare agency and other helping agencies (e.g., mental health, schools, etc.). Working together, the members learn what that family hopes to accomplish, set realistic goals, identify the family’s strengths and needs, and make a plan for who will do what to keep the children safe.
According to Reed and Karpilow (2002): ‘California child welfare workers use family group decision-making approaches to engage parents, children, and extended family members in making critical decisions regarding the safety and possible placement of the children and identifying services the family needs to continue or resume safely caring for the children’ (p 39). Since 2014, California has implemented Safety Organized Practice (SOP), a strengths-based collaborative practice approach that emphasizes teamwork between the child, family, caseworker and community (Casey Family Programs, 2019).
Burford and Gallagher’s (2015) research showed the positive impact of family group decision-making on children’s participation. The researchers interviewed 32 teens in the US state of Vermont, most of whom were living in out-of-home care, about their experiences with the child protection system. They found that interviewees were very satisfied with the family safety plan and family group conferences. These types of meetings are part of a practice model introduced by Vermont, following state legislation passed in 2007 that encouraged children’s active participation in case planning. While these meetings have great democratic potential, only few families in Vermont get to access them, as it is up to the discretion of the public child protection agencies to offer them. These are the results of the researchers’ survey data:
We note that survey data gathered at the end of family safety plan meetings and family group conferences, which were both introduced as part of practice reforms, indicate high levels of teen satisfaction with these meetings. In particular, the family group conferences (N = 132) have received significantly higher ratings by teens on items such as ‘other people at the meeting really listened to what I had to say’; ‘I liked where the meeting was held’; and ‘I think the right people helped make the plan.’ These meetings almost always have a higher proportion of family members and people of the family’s, including the teen’s, choosing, and fewer professionals in attendance. (Burford and Gallagher, 2015, p 231)
Organization of the book
Legislation and policies may express goals and ambitions about children’s rights to be heard, but the everyday reality of children’s participation in child protection lies in the interactions between children and child protection workers. Child protection caseworkers may contribute to creating children’s citizenship by establishing boundaries of children’s inclusion and exclusion. They may, for example, exclude children from participation because they perceive some children, but not others, as deserving of participation. I examine in this book which factors child protection workers perceive as triggers of children’s participation and non-participation. I analyze how child protection workers said they involved children, and in what ways they reported producing genuine opportunities of participation.
Chapter 2 discusses prior scholarship about children’s experiences with participation and analyzes the barriers to children’s genuine participation created by child protection professionals in Norway and the US. Chapters 3 to 6 offer the main empirical contributions of the book. In Chapter 3, I analyze ‘non-participation triggers’ – the factors in a child protection case that lead child protection workers to exclude children from participation. In Chapter 4, I take a 180-degree-turn and describe participation triggers. These are the situations in which child protection workers heavily weigh a child’s reflection or opinions when making decisions. In Chapter 5, I examine how and at what stage child protection workers facilitate children’s participation. In Chapter 6, I investigate how workers involve teenagers compared to younger children. In Chapter 7, I weave together the findings from the empirical chapters and prior scholarship to present my central argument about the presence of a participatory practice approach. In Appendix 1, I describe the methods of data collection and analysis used for this study and the strengths and limitations of the data material. Appendix 2 offers questions for discussion.
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