Child protection and child participation

Abstract

The contemporary conjunction of child protection with child participation practices has a significance that extends beyond those children and families whose lives are the focus of child protection policy and practices. In child protection policy and practice the focus on risk of harm to children is framed by an increasing individualization of the child, within a ‘profitable’ or ‘social investment’ orientation that is directed at the child in the future. Advocacy for child participation generally and for child participation in child protection and care systems specifically, typically constructs children as having agency, as having the capacity to make a difference to their worlds and the worlds of others. In the following discussion we implicitly question the concept of practitioners empowering children in the child protection process, by describing the power relations in which children and practitioners are embedded, according to their social positioning in child protection processes that impact child participation.