Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-04-28
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Élodie Faisca, Senior Lecturer in Education Sciences and Training, University of Rouen Normandy
According to texts on child protection, children and adolescents have the right to contribute to decisions that concern them. In practice, their participation is very unequal. And even if their voices are actually heard, they are not necessarily taken into account.
TheConvention on the Rights of the Childrecognizes to children the right to express their opinion on any matter affecting them and to be heard in administrative or judicial proceedings concerning them. However, thepublic reports, thetestimoniesand theresearch workconfirm that decisions in child protection are still too often made for and without the children.
How can this discrepancy between the texts, practices, and experiences of the primary stakeholders be explained? The results of this doctoral research show that theChildren’s participation is a complex process, built over time, through specific interactions, spaces and temporalities sometimes unsuitable.
The same child can thus experience very different degrees of participation during the same intervention, ranging from non-participation to meaningful participation, including symbolic participation.
Feeling heard or having one’s words disqualified
Between 2020 and 2023, we focused on the experiences lived by children aged 8 to 14 years, placed andaccompanied within the child welfare services(ASE). This research combined interviews with the observation of a sequence of professional acts for several children and allows understanding how much theChildren’s participation in child protection evolves through interactions and decisions.
The same child can thus experience, during the same procedure, radically different experiences, oscillating between non-participation, symbolic participation and thesignificant participation.
Nina and Nathalia experienced several instances of non-participation before being able to live what we consider a first experience of meaningful participation. In these situations, it is not the fact of seeing a decision in line with their opinions that is important, but rather feeling listened to, heard, and involved at all stages of the decision-making process.
Conversely, all the children met had experienced non-participation. These experiences are often marked by a lack or deficit of information (about their rights, upcoming decisions, the stakes of their participation…), rare opportunities to meet professionals, frequent changes, or evenoppressive systems and practicestowards children.
Between these two extremes, other children have experienced situations where their voice was heard but disqualified or, on the contrary, made invisible by fragmented and complex decision-making processes. For example, observations of a decision-making process for Laura might indicate a high level of participation: Laura’s point of view is heard, relayed, and her request is carried and supported by the magistrate. Yet, she considers that she did not participate in this decision.
What we understand from this experience, described as minimal, can be explained by a process ofinstitutional recordingof the child’s speech. Laura does not know if, how, or with whom her words were relayed and thinks that her opinion did not matter in the decision made.
Different participation spaces
Certain moments (interviews, hearings, summaries) encourage expression, while others make it more difficult. We identify four professional acts that influence children’s experience.
Individual interviewswith children are often seen as a privileged space to gather their opinions. However, the context, content, and form of these exchanges impact their experiences. Children are often constrained by the setting (place, duration, presence of other people) and are poorly prepared for the questions asked.
The content of the exchanges, often focused on family difficulties and following administrative and judicial timing, leaves little room for the expression of their emotions or wishes. Finally, the forms and tools used to support expression (language, tools used) have not always seemed suitable to facilitate aconnection and communicationwith the child.
Themultiprofessional meetings(team meetings, summaries, reports) are key moments in decision-making processes. These spaces enable bringing together all the professional actors involved in the intervention, who share their observations, actions, and analyses. Children are absent from these instances and, currently, there is no support or process within the services concerned by the research to systematize the collection of their viewpoints upstream and during these exchanges.
However, recentworksshow positive effects of shared decision-making and participation on decision outcomes. These elements resonate withformer researchwhich deserve to be prosecuted regarding the effects and the experience of the presence of children at meetings that concern them. Taking into account the child’s perspective remains random and sometimes superficial: even when they speak out, their opinion is not yet systematically integrated into summaries or decisions.
Professional writings(reports, summaries, projects for the child) are important tools in the decision-making process. Children are rarely directly quoted in the texts and, when this is the case, their statements may be taken out of context or excerpted. Here again, these results rely on and complementother scientific works.
The writings should make it possible to know if and how the child was involved in the process, to convey their opinion on the proposals or decisions and, in accordance with the principles of the convention and the legal framework, to grant theirfrom his point of view, the weight that belongs to himwith regard to his age and degree of maturity. These documents could become tools for participation if they systematically included the observations and expressions of the children, and if they were shared with them for validation.
Finally,the courtroom timeconstitutes the last moment analyzed to understand the experience of the children. The children are often poorly prepared for the conduct and content of the exchanges. They do not always know who will be present, how to speak, and in the absence of a complete feedback of the reports, do not know how their words could be presented before everyone, including their parents.
This is not without consequences on the construction of participation experiences. For example, Angel, aged 9, discovers that what she expressed during an interview was transmitted to the judge. The judge therefore relies on Angel’s statement that one of her parents is kinder than the other. Angel will try to speak, noting the pain caused to her other parent, and will begin to cry while explaining that she never said that. Upon leaving the hearing, Angel will angrily address her mentor, saying, “What you did didn’t help me at all.”
Creating favorable conditions for listening
Children under child protection do not have one, but multiple participation experiences, experiences that are interconnected.Given the seriousness of the decisions to be made, the necessity to find a balance between multiple and sometimes divergent interests (of the organization, the parents, the child, the decision-maker), the emotional cost, decision-making in child protection is a painful and complex exercise.
Children’s participation is an equally demanding process, which cannot be reduced to merely collecting the child’s point of view. It requires safe spaces, appropriate timing, trained professionals, and organizations to rely on.
This research empirically demonstrates that participation is not decreed but built, day by day, through interactions and decisions that shape children’s lives. From then on, the question is no longer “Why don’t children participate?” but “How can organizations create and support the spaces and processes that generate experiences?”.
Élodie Faisca received funding from ANRT as part of a Cifre.
–ref. Child Protection: can young people really participate in the decisions that concern them? –https://theconversation.com/protection-de-lenfance-les-jeunes-peuvent-ils-vraiment-participer-aux-decisions-qui-les-concernent-280387