Abstract
This article scrutinizes children’s participation concerning the assessment process of respite care in Sweden. It is qualitative study based on 82 documents of application of respite care and a group interview with social workers. We use the participation model of Shier, which describes extent of participation as well as the mandate of the organization. Social workers try to inform the children and meet them. They also seek approval of respite care. However, children who don’t use spoken language and children who are seen as immature are not given adequate support to enable them to speak their voices. Besides, the participation is often restricted to say yes to respite care. There are hardly any traces of children’s reasons for being at respite care. This means an absence of knowledge concerning children’s views upon their own needs and problems.
Highlights
Competent children? Children with disabilities experience asymmetries of power in several ways
We study children with disabilities’ opportunities to participate in the assessment processes of respite care
This article studies the prerequisites and opportunities to participate that are available to children with disabilities in the assessment process of respite care
Summary
Competent children? Children with disabilities experience asymmetries of power in several ways. They have often been compared with models of ‘normal development’, where they fail to achieve ‘normal’ standards (Brownlow, Bertilsdotter Rosqvist & O’dell 2015) Due to their difficulties adapting to ‘normal development’, children with disabilities are expected to practise, train and prepare in order to develop (Mietola & Vehmas 2019). Children with disabilities’ status as ‘becomings’ has had a great impact on their opportunities of agency They face challenges in being perceived as ‘competent children’, not least when it comes to being assessed for and obtaining welfare support (Franklin & Sloper 2009). We study children with disabilities’ opportunities to participate in the assessment processes of respite care. This article studies the prerequisites and opportunities to participate that are available to children with disabilities in the assessment process of respite care. From the perspective of childhood studies and disability studies, current emphasis is on the child as subject and actor and disability is regarded not as an individual and biomedical anomaly, but as a consequence of society’s failure to adapt to the impairment (Prout 2005; Oliver 1996)
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