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

ABSTRACT

1. Enhancing children’s participation in child protection is a frequent issue in social work. The aim of this article is to investigate the perceived knowledge and educational demands of actors in Sweden’s child protection system, regarding children’s right to participation and actors’ perceived ability to communicate with children. This article will try to answer two specific research questions: How do the social workers, lawyers and laypersons perceive their knowledge of legal frameworks concerning children’s right to participate?

How do the social workers, lawyers and laypersons perceive their ability to communicate with children? This article builds on a survey, with both closed and open answer alternatives, of study participants involved in child protection decisions: social workers, lawyers and laypersons.

The results show that, according to their self-ratings, knowledge of the legal framework and administrative rules for child protection were judged to be adequate amongst the three examined groups of actors, however they declared a need for a variety of educational support for the different actors. The need to develop more child-friendly communications skills was also identified. The discussion raises the question of whether or not the layperson system in Sweden enhances children’ participation.

KEYWORDS:

• Children’s rights
• child participation
• child protection
• court proceedings
• communication with children

Main text (with authors’ references and tables)

Children in Sweden have been regarded as their own legal subjects with individual rights, independent of their parents, for over half a century. Moreover, there have been ongoing changes to legislation with the aim of strengthening the focus on children’s rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was ratified in Sweden in 1990, but it will not be written into Swedish law until 1 January 2020. According to article 12 in the CRC the child has the right to express their opinion on things that directly relate to them. Governmental authorities including courts should ask the child for their opinion when they are making decisions concerning the child (Barne-, likestillings- og inkluderingsdepartementet 2015). For more about the legal background of this, see Larsson and Hultman (2019).

There is tension, however, between the two parallel main ideas in the legislation. On the one hand is the idea that children are independent and individual subjects with the right to influence and participate in decision-making that concerns them. On the other is the idea that society has an obligation to protect children who are not well treated by their parents or other caregivers, or who may themselves behave in ways that are seen to present a risk to their health and development (Heimer, Näsman, and Palme 2018). This tension is evident within Sweden’s social services as well as in other welfare states with similarly designed legislation (Burns, Pösö, and Skivenes 2017). When following the first idea, social workers may be criticized for abandoning the responsibility to protect vulnerable children, and when acting to protect children, for not properly letting them influence the decisions (Sandin and Halldén 2003).

One of the most difficult situations in which these ideas collide is child protection proceedings, where the issue at hand is whether parents should be allowed to keep a child at home even if the child should want to be removed and placed in a foster home or an institution. Besides the child and his/her family, there are three main actors involved in this decision-making process. Social workers play a crucial role in carrying out the investigations by which the child and family’s situation is assessed. In the Swedish system there are also two other important actors: laypersons and lawyers. The latter group includes both judges from administrative courts and lawyers representing children in child protection removal proceedings. The decisions are made by social welfare boards comprised only of laypersons, and in social administrative courts in which three laypersons and one judge have the authority to make the formal decisions over placing of children in out-of-home care. The social welfare boards take decisions over placements when there is consent from caregivers and children (over 15). If consent has not been given, the board applies for a placement at the social administrative court according to the Care of Young Persons Act (1990:52).

Even though social workers in Sweden have discussions with children during child protection investigations more often than was previously the case (Svendsen 2016), their participation, in both Sweden and other countries, still does not reflect the extent of the rights provided to them by laws and guidelines, either during child protection investigations or in decision-making assemblies over involuntary out-of-home care (Berrick et al. 2015; Burns, Pösö, and Skivenes 2017; Strandbu 2011). For example, it is still not a given that social workers in Sweden will talk to children during child protection proceedings (IVO, 2014; Nordenfors and Landmer 2013; Svendsen 2016). When it comes to children’s participation in the hearings on social welfare boards and in administrative courts there is a lack of detailed information. One study, however, shows that out of 250 reviewed cases there were only five in which the parents or guardians took part in the social welfare board meeting; none of these were children (Forkby, Höjer, and Liljegren 2016). Children also report limited participation in the social administrative courts (Schiratzki 2017).

Since children seldom participate in child protection hearings in Sweden, one way to gather their views and voices is in the investigations made by social workers. It has been shown that the methodology used to interview children impacts on their opportunities to express themselves and give information about their life situations (Cederborg 2010; Näsman 2012). Heads of child protection agencies have argued that if social workers are educated in or are introduced to methods of communication, this will have a positive influence on the involvement by children (Nellvik, Nylander, and Spånberger Weitz 2014). Also, little is known about how different actors in child protection processes in Sweden perceive their knowledge, skills and responsibilities with regard to implementing children’s rights. To have a profound knowledge about legal frameworks on children’s rights is essential for child protection actors in order to implement these in practice, even if we in this article only will be able to investigate their perceived knowledge.

The aim of this article is to investigate the perceived knowledge and need for education of actors in child protection processes over issues regarding children’s right to participation and actors’ perceived ability to communicate with children. The actors in child protection processes studied are social workers responsible for child protection investigations, and judges and laypersons responsible for child protection decisions on social welfare boards and in social administrative courts.

The article will try to answer two specific research questions:

1. How do social workers, lawyers and laypersons perceive their knowledge of legal frameworks concerning children’s right to participate?

2. How do the social workers, lawyers and laypersons perceive their ability to communicate with children?

The child protection system in Sweden

Compared with other welfare systems, child protection in Sweden is often characterized as being family-service oriented in line with the Scandinavian welfare model (Gilbert, Parton, and Skivenes 2011; Burns, Pösö, and Skivenes 2017). This is based on the intention for Swedish legislation to play a proactive role in the lives of individuals and families to identify certain groups or individuals in difficult life situations and prevent more severe problems later on. The family orientation emphasizes the central role of parents and families to understanding the situations of children and the aim to try to support families to improve conditions for children. Alongside this, out-of-home care placements are considered a last resort, and when they are needed the overarching goal is to maintain contact between a child and his/her birth family with a view to making it possible for the child to move back in the future. This focus has been criticized for putting too much emphasis on the views of parents and not enough on listening to the voices and wishes of children (Mattsson 2008).

The majority of child protection cases in Swedish social work are initiated by mandatory reports about concerns (Leviner 2011). Under this system, all institutions that have contact with children, e.g. schools, and health and social care facilities, must report concerns over children’s welfare to social services in accordance with the Social Services Act (SSA § 14:1). All safeguarding concerns shall be reported and the Social Services must immediately assess if it should start an investigation.

Sweden is unique in a European context for giving laypersons such a central role in the decision-making system for child protection (Hultman, Forkby, and Höjer 2020). Normally, professionally educated social workers in municipal child protection carry out child protection investigations when a case is opened. If the case develops and requires an out-of-home placement, the findings of the investigation are normally presented by the social worker or first line manager to politically appointed laypersons on the municipal social welfare board. Even if the board members are appointed by political parties as the result of elections, they are not supposed to act politically but as laypersons who exercise their judgement and experience as ‘good citizens’. The laypersons on the board will make the decision over voluntary removal with the consent of the caregivers and the child, when over 15 years old. When a removal is involuntary, i.e. consent is not given, the social welfare board will appeal to the administrative court, which then makes the decision (4 § LVU Care of Young Persons Act). The administrative court has one judge and three laypersons who make the decisions. The social welfare board rarely goes against the proposals of social workers, but there are other ways it can influence cases. The laypersons on the board influence proposals through questioning and by hearing statements from professional social workers during the proceedings (Liljegren, Höjer, and Forkby 2018). For a more comprehensive description of the legal grounds of the system, see Svensson and Höjer (2017).

The final characteristic of the Swedish child protection system described here is the predominance of voluntary rather than involuntary removals. In Sweden, three out of four removals are made with the consent of parents and children when they are over 15, almost the same as in Finland (Burns, Pösö, and Skivenes 2017). This is important information in relation to this study. The implication is that most child protection cases are decided by social welfare boards, and by that seen as voluntary removals. This means parents and children over 15 years old have given their consent. However, to what extent they have been involved when the actual decision is made may be limited. A study of social welfare boards in Sweden found that children rarely participated in the hearings in which decisions were made. Guardians participated more often, but still only in a minority of cases (Forkby, Höjer, and Liljegren 2016).

Children’s right to participate is set out in law and regulations (Legislative Bill, Prop, 2006/07:129). The child’s position will depend on their age. From the age of 15 they have the right to litigate in court (SoL 11:10; Care of Young Persons Act section 36). They have the right to present their view, invoke evidence, argue their position in court and appeal against decision (SOU 2015:71). However they cannot ask to be taken into care or appeal against a decision on discontinuation of care. Children under the age of 15 have the right to a legal representative who gives the child an independent status with respect to their guardians and the child welfare agencies. For more on the children’s right in relation to child protection cases see Hultman, Höjer, and Larsson (2020).

Previous research

There is evidence that Swedish social workers have not always listened to children, involved them in child protection investigations or treated them as individual subjects and actors with specific rights. Instead decisions are at times taken without meeting and talking to the children, not always involving them in the investigations or listening to their views (Andersson 2008; Svendsen 2016). Even if things are slowly changing and social workers are in contact with children more often to involve them in child protection investigations, it is not without difficulties (Olsson 2010; Inspektionen för vård och omsorg (IVO) 2014). Children’s participation in child protection investigations has been described as reoccurring problem for social work despite attempts change, and that it always needs to be readdressed and managed in a changing world (Burns, Pösö, and Skivenes 2017; Leviner and Lundström 2017; Socialstyrelsen 2016). Although there are legal requirements for social workers to meet and talk to children during child protection investigations, there is no legal guidance on how this should be done (Leviner 2012). Even when children’s views are visible in child protection investigations, often details about their views about the placement, their emotions and their thoughts about the future is lacking (Hultman and Cederborg 2013). Also in court proceedings in different countries¹ children’s wishes are more respected if their views are in line with prevailing norms, if they are considered as mature as their chronological age and if they prove that they are not influenced by anyone else (Daly 2018).

Knowledge about children’s rights

Even when social workers and heads of child protection agencies are aware of children’s right to participate, involving them is not always seen as an easy decision. A dilemma is presented between children’s right to participation, their need for protection and parents’ rights to be involved in decisions concerning their children (Nellvik, Nylander, and Spånberger Weitz 2014; Näsman 2012; Rasmusson 2011).

Sometimes there may be a tension between children’s right to participate and the views they express and how different actors in child protection processes perceive a child’s perspective. The experiences of heads of child protection agencies are that even if children’s voices are heard, they seldom have the opportunity to influence decisions about support. Parents and legal representatives may interpret the best interest of the child different from that of the children themselves. This is specifically the case when it comes to voluntary care, since parents have the right to the final say if the child is under 15 as mentioned above(Svendsen 2016). Sweden has been criticized by the UN Committee for the Rights of the Child for not following all paragraphs in CRC in regard of child protection proceedings and using tokenistic participation.

A number of factors have been identified as hindrances to the implementation of children’s right to participate in child protection processes, e.g. communication difficulties, participation advocacy (participation was not deemed necessary) or protectionism (when participation was considered inappropriate because it may have been harmful; Vis, Holtan, and Thomas 2012). Others have argued that child-centred practice is constrained by contextual factors relating to physical, relational and emotional dimensions. Understanding what children are communicating often requires social workers to respond to them in a flexible way and look beyond their presenting behaviour (Ruch 2014).

Communicating with children

It has been demonstrated that the relationship between social workers and children is important to their experience of participation (Weisz et al. 2011). Having a good relationship with a child may make it easier for him/her to say what he/she really means. In addition, good knowledge about a child may make it easier for responsible social workers to evaluate whether a child’s statement reflects his/her true feelings (Vis, Holtan, and Thomas 2012). However, it is often found that developing such a relationship is difficult. One reason for this may be the high turnover of social workers, which means that children are constantly meeting new professionals. Another reason may be that children only meet decision-makers during formal meetings, a context in which it is difficult for them to express their views (van Bijleveld, Dedding & Bunders Aaelen, 2015).

Social workers also state that they do not feel competent or secure enough to conduct individual interviews with children (ibid.). Even when social workers think that it is important to safeguard children’s right to participate, they find communicating with children and young people challenging. There are a number of reasons for this, including structural (work overload and office space), practice-related (unrealistic expectations connected with some of the visits) and personal factors (their own preferences and confidence, and the personal emotional impact of the meetings; Handley and Doyle 2014).

When asked, young people say that the most important thing for them is availability, i.e. that a social worker has time to meet with them and gives them information on staying in contact (Dillon, Greenop, and Hills 2016).

In an ethnographic study in the UK about face-to-face encounters between social workers and children and families, Ferguson (2016) found small amounts of time were spent between social workers and children on their own. The author discuss the factors to explain this and mentions high workloads and practitioners levels of communication skills, playfulness and comfort with getting close to children.

In one study, social workers stated that they had developed considerable communication skills and felt able to ascertain the feelings and wishes of children as young as four years old. However, only 30% had training in communicating with young children, 16% in ascertaining children’s feelings and wishes, and 66% in child development. Their training was in-service and carried out on their own initiative (Handley and Doyle 2014). This can be problematic. Vis, Holtan, and Thomas (2012), for example, concluded that a lack of both qualifying and post-qualifying training in communication with children is a significant influence on social workers’ decisions over involving children in child protection processes.

Factors that influence social workers’ ability to ascertain the wishes and feelings of young children include: (i) their knowledge of child development, (ii) their skills in direct work with children and (iii) their views on children’s rights and responsibilities (Handley and Doyle 2014).

Methods

This article builds on a study conducted within the IDEA project, financed by the European Commission Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme). The aim of the IDEA project through its work in five partner countries (Ireland, Finland, Estonia, Hungary and Sweden) is to improve outcomes for children by building the capacity of professionals who represent their interests in the child protection system so they can empower children and advocate for the advancement of their rights. A survey was conducted in each country to investigate the perceived knowledge and educational demands of different groups of actors involved in the child protection processes. This article analyses the Swedish study.

The Swedish survey was sent out to the main actors in the child protection process: social workers, lawyers – in this case those acting as legal representatives in court decisions and judges in administrative courts, social welfare board members and layperson judges in the administrative courts.

There is no national register of judges, laypersons or social workers from which to find respondents, so an explorative search for emails to persons in these roles was initiated. A search for respondents was conducted in the three largest cities in Sweden (Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö) including the surrounding municipalities. There were some local lists with email contacts of laypersons in administrative courts and judges. Since it was not always known if these emails belonged to people with assigned roles in child protection cases, it is impossible to report actual response rates. Especially the limited responses from legal representatives and judges are troublesome. This is an important limitation of the study.

Another limitation is the fact that the data are gathered from 173 respondents, but only 12 of them are lawyers. It is not being claimed that these results are generalizable to all decision-making actors in Sweden. With this in mind, the data are presented to raise questions about possible differences between groups and as grounds for making tentative claims about the state of the practice in Sweden. It cannot be claimed that the respondents constitute a representative sample of social workers, laypersons or lawyers. However, the data collected from these three groups are still reported. Comparing the respondents with those of other studies of the three groups of actors in child protection processes, the sample seems to correspond in many ways. The authors are not aware of any other studies reporting on the research questions and believe that the outcomes of this work are an important starting point for discussing the issues raised. In all, only tentative conclusions are recommended, and more detailed research is needed. To stress this, there has been no attempt to find advanced correlations, rather mostly descriptive data are presented.

The third limitation is a result of the study’s reliance on self-reporting. Actors in the decision-making system who are asked to evaluate their competencies are incentivized to score themselves highly by the influences of social desirability and professional correctness (Zerbe and Paulhus 1987). However, the fact that some groups gave themselves quite low average scores contradicts this statement.

The survey includes both closed answer alternatives and open questions in which respondents are asked to justify their answers. The closed alternatives were analysed using SPSS version 25 with univariate and bivariate analyses. The questions analysed are presented in relation to each table in this article. The open answers were translated into English by the authors and then studied using a qualitative-thematic analysis approach (see Braun and Clark 2006). We coded the data and then organized the codes into possible themes. The identification of themes were guided by the aim, the research questions and the chosen theoretical perspective of participation. For this paper we were interested in how the study participants perceive their knowledge of legal frameworks concerning children’s right to participate as well as their ability to communicate with children. Other questions concerning different perceptions was also put and are reported in (Hultman, Höjer, and Larsson 2020).

Actors in child protection processes in this study

The responses come from 173 informants: 55 social workers, 12 lawyers, 103 laypersons (the latter from both administrative courts and social welfare boards) and 3 who did not report a role in the decision-making system. The answers of the latter group are not reported in this paper, when comparing the three groups. The gender distribution amongst the respondents who were lawyers was 100% women. This is not representative of administrative courts where, based on anecdotal evidence and the list of lawyers to whom the survey was sent, there is a 2:1 ratio of women to men. This serves to underline the earlier caution with regard to the unrepresentative nature of the sample of lawyers in the child protection process. The situation is different for social workers and laypersons. The gender balance among professional social workers in Sweden is approximately 85% women to 15% men (Kullberg 2012). The same distribution is represented in this sample. The same is true of laypersons; studies have indicated a slight majority in favour of women on social welfare boards (55 to 45%) and a more or less even split within the court systems (51 to 49%; Höjer, Liljegren, and Forkby 2014). There is a near even distribution within the study’s sample. With regard to the respondents’ education background, all the lawyers in the sample have a law degree and all but 2 of the social workers have a degree in social work. The laypersons in the sample have a higher level of education than the average Swedish adult. Amongst the total population, only 1 in 3 has a university education, whereas in the sample the figure is 2 in 3. This is in line with other studies of laypersons in Sweden (Höjer, Liljegren, and Forkby 2014).

The perceived knowledge and educational demands

This sub-theme examines actors’ in child protection processes perceived knowledge of human and children’s rights in general according to the CRC. It also deals with children’s right to participate in decision-making in child protection cases. Respondents were first asked if they had any education in children’s rights (not in table). Of the lawyers, 1 in 4 and of the social workers, 1 in 20 said they did not have any education in children’s rights, despite the fact that they were educated in law and social work, in which this should be included. Perhaps less surprising, since they are not expected to have an educational background that would include it, is that 2 in 3 laypersons said they had not had any education at all about children’s rights.

Respondents were also asked about their perceived specific knowledge of the legal framework and regulations about these matters (see Table 1). The question asked what knowledge they had about the topics of importance to child protection processes.

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).

The results show considerable perceived knowledge about legal frameworks among all the respondents, especially on national laws governing child protection, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and children’s rights. It is noted that lawyers believe they have better knowledge on most of the areas compared with other actors, although the differences are sometimes small. Despite not being expected to have expert professional knowledge in the groups on some frameworks, and better than social workers on others. It is not known whether this reflects knowledge they have gained by participating in legal processes as laypersons or something else.

The respondents to the survey all have roles in the child protection system. More than 8 in 10 professionals believe they have good knowledge of the legal framework for child protection. Perceived knowledge about human rights is not as high as this among any group of actors, and with regard to jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights and how Sweden complies with the CRC there are obvious knowledge gaps. When it comes to the process rules in the administrative court, the relatively low figure for social workers may be explained by the fact that social services are most often represented by the manager of the child protection team together with a lawyer representing the municipality, not the social worker in charge of the case (Svensson and Höjer 2017). As a result, the actual knowledge of how the processes are handled may be lower among first-line social workers. This is not unproblematic since the social workers are the ones who meet the families and children most often and should be able to explain how the process is handled. There are obvious difficulties in increasing children’s participation in the process if there is insufficient knowledge about it.

Respondents were also asked about the perceived need for education about the legal framework (see Table 2).

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’.

The obvious first impression is the perceived need for more education among social workers compared with other actors. Even when it comes to national legislation concerning the placement of children in care, almost half of social workers believe they need education. In another survey question (see Table 1), 85% of social workers said they had good knowledge about the legal framework on child protection. Laypersons do not perceive the need for as much education as social workers do. This can be seen in a comparison with Table 1, which shows that laypersons claim to have less knowledge about the Convention on the Rights of the Child than social workers but still do not think they have a similar need for education on children’s rights as social workers.

When comparing perceived educational needs, there seems to be a greater demand for education on children’s than human rights among laypersons and social workers, when the opposite is true for lawyers.

Communication with children

Most actors in child protection processes report the view that talking directly to children is important in cases. The study shows that more than 8 in 10 lawyers and social workers thought talking directly to children was important for them in the child protection cases in which they were involved (not in table). The laypersons differed in this respect. Only 3 in 10 agreed that it was important to do so. In open responses to the question some stated that they are not supposed, or even allowed, to address children in court. The process rules do not restrict layperson judges from asking questions, but in practice it is up to the judge to decide the nature of the communication. The normal procedure is that if a layperson judge has a question, he/she gives it to the judge who will then decide whether or not to ask the child directly. The fact that process practice normally does not allow the lay persons to be more active in this respect, does not necessarily explain why it would not be important to do so. When respondents are asked if they actually meet children and parents in person during cases in which they are involved, there is a distinctive pattern (see Table 3). Social workers do so almost always, lawyers from time to time and laypersons seldom or never.

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

The question was put: How often do you meet with children in person in child protection cases where you are involved?

It seems evident that today social workers are actually the ones meeting the children. This is more prominent than shown by figures from previous research (Nordenfors and Landmer 2013; Svendsen 2016), in which there is an obvious difference, including among social workers, between the policy (of talking to children) and the practice (of actually doing so). This research shows that 8 in 10 social workers report always or almost always talking to the children. For lawyers or laypersons, the situation is more or less the opposite, they never or seldom talk to the children directly.

Of course, this study does not give any indication of the quality of the communication, or if it helped the children to present their views of a case. Respondents were asked whether or not they felt confident in their ability to communicate with children of different age groups in their work (not in table). All the respondents said they found it easier to communicate with older rather than younger children. Overall, social workers demonstrated more confidence than the other groups in the sample, although the differences were very small. It is surprising that all the respondents feel confident communicating with children despite the fact that it is mostly the social workers who do so in the course of their work. Fewer than 1 in 5 respondents also feel very confident communicating with children and the authors believe there is room for development here.

Previous research has made the authors aware of the different challenges of communicating with children (e.g. Handley and Doyle 2014). Seven of these were presented to the respondents, who were asked to rank which were the greatest. Their answers are ranked in Table 4.

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

The first five challenges relate to the child protection system itself: trust in it, how stressful it may be, and the language and environment in which it takes place. Almost half of the respondents reported that building trust is one of the greatest challenges to communicating with children. Many identified not wanting to stress the child, the language used and the environment in which children and respondents meet as the main challenges. Almost 1 in 3 reported a lack of aids or instruments to help their communication with children. A much smaller number believe that it has to do with the child’s inability to share information or the risk of parents being humiliated.

The questions was put: Which are the greatest challenges linked to communicating with children in relation to your work? (You may choose more than one alternative)

One important aspect with regard to communicating with children is writing, for example inquiries made by social workers or judgements by judges after legal proceedings. The legal framework stipulates that the views of children must be examined and declared in the investigation. Children’s participation in the process shall also be accounted for in the investigation – even if there are certain age restrictions, for example concerning the right to litigate in court (see Hultman, Forkby, and Höjer 2020). Previous research has shown that one of the obstacles to children’s participation is the language used in court proceedings and reports written by social workers (Burns, Pösö, and Skivenes 2017). In the study, social workers and lawyers were asked if they had adapted their way of writing to make it easier for children to understand and/or if they were interested in learning more about different ways of doing so (see Table 5).

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.

Approximately half of the lawyers adapt their language in documents to make them easier to understand for children, whereas only 1 in 4 social workers do so. Participants were given the opportunity to comment on the question, and the thematic analysis revealed three main responses. One was to try to adjust the language in the decisions in different ways, for instance as one respondent said: ‘You must try to write simply and clearly – and remember that a child shall read it’. Another stressed the legal importance of clarity and gave other examples on how this issue could be handled, either by themselves or by others: ‘You could try to have a specific meeting with the child and go through the text and explain its meaning’. Yet another suggested sending a text message to the child in order to explain the meaning of a piece of text. However, one lawyer reflected on the challenge of tailoring written communications to children: ‘A court judgment is a judicial document that has to adhere to certain demands – that may be difficult to understand for children and others. I think legal counsels and social workers have the responsibility to explain this in a way that children will understand’.

When it came to interest in learning to write in a more child-friendly way, almost all the responding social workers said that they were interested in doing so, as did more than 1 in 3 lawyers. This definitely represents a strong call for social work education and practice with children and families to learn from research and practice to develop the competencies to do so.

Discussion

This article has tried to answer two research questions. The first is ‘How do actors in child protection processes in Sweden perceive their knowledge and educational demands with regard to questions over children’s right to participate?’ The study shows that according to their self-ratings, perceived knowledge of the legal framework for child protection and administrative rules amongst the three examined groups of actors: lawyers, laypersons and social workers judged their knowledge to be adequate. On the other hand, knowledge about human rights in general, children’s rights and more specifically rulings over occasions in which Sweden has failed to adhere to these regulations is much less extensive. This highlights an obvious knowledge gap among all the actors in child protection processes where educational efforts should be intensified. To emphasize what was noted earlier in the article, although the CRC will be implemented in Swedish law by 2020 these facts are calling for immediate action. There is an educational need that has to be supported specifically directed at the actors in child protection proceedings. The situations for each group vary. For social workers, most municipalities now have specialized social services, which means that some only work with children and families (Perlinski, Blom, and Morén 2012). Social work in Sweden does not have a licencing system (as in for example the US or among Swedish nurses) although hospital social workers will be licenced from 2020, but then with demands to prove specialized competence. There have been suggestions that there should be additional educational demands on child protection social workers on top of a social work degree (SOU, 2009, 68), but so far nothing has been decided. When it comes to the lawyers and laypersons in social administrative courts, they are not specialized in working on child protection cases. The administrative court also deals with economic law, tax decisions, social insurance, etc. Laypersons on social welfare boards, although not specifically educated on this, will in time develop expertise through experience since they mostly deal with child protection cases. Consequently, educational needs could quite easily be addressed for this group.

The second research question was ‘How do actors perceive their ability to communicate with children and, in relation to their position, protect children’s rights?’ Of the respondents, 8 in 10 think it is important to communicate with children in child protection cases and more than 7 in 10 feel confident of how to do so. However, previous research shows that communication does not always take place as it should, and when it does not children feel ill-informed and a lack of participation (Vis, Holtan, and Thomas 2012). The list of challenges accounted for by the actors in the study emphasizes some difficulties of the practice. One of these is a lack of trust between the children and the actors in the system. Others include factors noted in previous research such as the language used in child protection proceedings (Cederborg 2010; Näsman 2012) and the unfriendly environments in courts and social services (van Bijleveld, Dedding, and Bunders-Aelen 2015). In this study the more comprehensive question how come for instance social workers seem to fail to communicate with children despite the positive attitude to do so, cannot be fully answered. The role of structural and personal factors are likely to coincide (see Ferguson 2016; Handley and Doyle 2014). In the study, there were social workers and lawyers who provided child-friendly ways of presenting judgements and investigations, even if only a minority of the respondents did so.

For the final discussion, the authors raise two more questions in relation to the study. The first relates to the Swedish system of using laypersons in decision-making in child protection cases. This dynamic has been analysed in relation to social welfare boards in other studies (Forkby, Höjer, and Liljegren 2016; Liljegren, Höjer, and Forkby 2018), however there has been much less focus on the social administrative courts (Leviner 2012). A relevant question arising from this study is what significance the layperson system has for children’s participation in decision-making. Is it higher or lower in a layperson environment? According to the findings of the study, the authors’ tentative answer is lower. Laypersons meet separately with children less than other actors, have less education and training in the field, and feel less confident talking to young children and teenagers. According to Forkby, Höjer, and Liljegren (2016), they are more likely to identify with a parent perspective than a child perspective. It would be interesting to conduct a comparative study on child participation with other Nordic countries such as Norway and Finland, which both had a similar system to that of Sweden some 25 years ago but have now left it behind. Norway still incorporates laypersons in its decision-making system but only as one actor among others. In Finland, only professionals are involved in decision-making in child protection cases (Hultman, Forkby, and Höjer 2020). Still research including other parts of the world (US, UK besides Norway and Finland) where lay persons are not involved in the decision making also report child involvement in child protection court proceedings to be low (Berrick et al. 2015).

The other question to mention relates to people’s perceptions of their knowledge and how they report on it. The study has noted that laypersons, normally with no professional education in child protection proceedings, in some cases reported a greater degree of knowledge about the systems in the study than educated lawyers and social workers, who by virtue of their education and practice could be expected to know more about them. One question that the authors have struggled with is whether this has an influence on the actual decisions made. If laypersons think they have more expertise than they do, can it lead to wrong decisions? It is true that laypersons very rarely go against social workers’ proposals in investigations presented to social welfare boards and rarely use their mandate to vote against judges in social administrative courts (Liljegren, Höjer, and Forkby 2018) – but it does happen.

Acknowledgments

The study has been carried out within the IDEA project (Improving decision through empowerment and advocacy. Building children’s rights capacity in child protection; European Commission, Directorate General Justice and Consumers. Just/2015/RCHI/AG/PROF9582). The IDEA project is a collaboration between five partner countries: Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Hungary. The aim of the project is to improve decisions for children by building the capacity of professionals who represent children’s interests in the child protection system to empower children and advocate for the advancement of children’s rights (see further https://ideachildrights.ucc.ie/). This publication has been produced with the financial support of the Rights, Equality and Citizenship (REC) Programme of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of S. Höjer, E. Hultman and M. Larsson and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Commission.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Commission, Directorate General Justice and Consumers. [Just/2015/RCHI/AG/PROF9582].

Notes

1. Australia, Canada, England, Wales, Ireland, New Zeeland, Scotland, South Africa, the United States, France, Norway and Sweden.