Paid, Professionalised and Proceduralised: Can Legal and Policy Frameworks for Child Advocacy Give Voice to Children and Young People?

Abstract

Significant developments have taken place over recent years in the legal and policy framework for children's participation in decision‐making and the role of advocacy within this context. Whilst there is much here to be welcomed, there are also emerging concerns about the nature and direction of advocacy for children and young people in public care. This paper draws on evidence from an empirical study of children's participation in statutory reviews—one of the key arenas for decision‐making relating to looked after children—in order to consider critical themes identifiable within the developing field of child advocacy.

Keywords:

• Participation
• Advocacy
• Children's Rights
• Reviews
• Representation

Notes

1. ‘Governments shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child’. Article 13 accords children the right to freedom of expression and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.

2. For example, Re R (A Minor) (Wardship: Consent to Treatment) [1991]; Re W (A Minor) (Medical Treatment: Court's Jurisdiction) [1992].

3. The Standards are issued under s.7, Local Authority Social Services Act 1970, and thus are mandatory unless exceptional circumstances justify variation.

4. ‘The social work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance wellbeing. Utilising theories of human behaviour and social systems, social work intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamental to social work’ (IASSW, 2002).