What do actors in child protection processes in Sweden know about children’s rights to participation and about talking to children?

Figures & data

Table 1. Percentage of lawyers, laypersons and social workers who report having good knowledge of the legal framework, in per cent. In brackets, the share who answered that they have very good knowledge of the legal framework.

Good (very good) knowledge about	Lawyers	Laypersons	Social workers
Legal framework on child protection	83.3 (58.3)	70.0 (14.0)	85.4 (23.6)
Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR)	66.6 (33.3)	63.0 (13.0)	60.0 (10.9)
Jurisprudence from European Court of Human Rights	58.4 (16.7)	24.0 (5.0)	7.3 (0.0)
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)	91.6 (33.3)	66.0 (17.0)	78.2 (20.0)
The Child Rights Committee’s general comments on how Sweden is following the CRC	25.0 (0.0)	27.0 (3.0)	18.2 (0.0)
Process rules in social administrative court	91.7 (61.7)	81.0 (33.0)	67.3 (30.9)
Process rules in social welfare board	83.3 (50.0)	64.0 (22.0)	90.0 (40.0)

aThe possible answers to the knowledge questions were a) very good, b) quite good, c) neither good nor bad, d) quite bad and e) very bad. The table shows the percentage of respondents who answered either ‘a’ or ‘b’. In brackets, the percentage of respondents who only answered ‘a’. The question was put: How good or bad is your knowledge about (+ issues mentioned in table).

Table 2. Percentage of lawyers, laypersons and social workers in sample who reported a perceived need for education about the legal framework on children’s rights and child protection.

Educational need about:	Lawyers	Laypersons	Social workers
Constitutional and human rights	33.3	23.3	40.0
Children’s rights	16.7	35.0	47.3
Process rules for administrative court	8.3	25.2	49.1
Process rules for the social welfare board	33.3	35.0	23.7
National legislation concerning the placement of children in care	16.7	35.9	45.4

aThe question was put: ‘Do you have an educational need when it comes to each of the areas presented in the Table?’ The possible answers were ‘yes’ and ‘no’. The table shows the percentage of respondents who answered ‘yes’.

Table 3. Percentage of respondents who meet children in person in child protection cases in which they are involved.

Meet with children in person	Always or almost always	Often	Sometimes	Occasionally	Never
Meet with children Lawyers Laypersons Social workers	25.0 2.0 80.0	0.0 5.1 10.9	25.0 17.2 5.5	25.0 43.4 1.8	25.0 32.3 1.8

Table 4. Greatest challenges for respondents to communicating with children. All respondents. Numbers of respondents who believe this is one of the greatest challenges to communicating with children. More than one answer was possible. N170.

Greatest challenges	Numbers
1. Trust between myself and the child	82
2. A wish not to stress the child	64
3. The language used	63
4. The environment where we meet	61
5. The lack of aids and instruments	52
6. The child’s inability to share information	29
7. The risk parents would be humiliated	15

Table 5. Percentage of respondents who adapt written legal documents to make them easier to understand for children and are interest in learning how to do so.a.

Actors	Yes	No	Do not know
Adaption of language in documents – Lawyers – Social workers	45.5 25.5	54.5 74.5
Interest in learning how to adapt language in documents Lawyers Social workers	36.4 94.5	45.5 0.0	18.2 5.5

aThe questions asked in the survey were ‘A large part of the child protection processes that may lead to children being placed outside of the home is in writing. Legal and other official documents may be hard for them to understand. Have you adapted your way of writing to make it easier to understand for children?’ Second question: ‘Do you wish to learn more about how to formulate official documents for children?’ The possible response ‘Do not know’ was only available for the second question.