1st Edition
Children's Rights to Participate in Out-of-Home Care International Social Work Contexts
For centuries, residential child and youth care systems worldwide have provided homes for vulnerable children and adolescents. The implementation of children's rights, especially the right of participation, is assessed as an important base for promoting the best interests of the child in an out-of-home care environment.
Featuring contributions from distinguished international authors, this volume offers an in-depth understanding of crucial participation processes and underlying power structures when involving young people in decision-making about their care and everyday life in different out-of-home care institutions. Contributions cover a broad spectrum of current research findings concerning the participation of young people in foster families and residential living groups in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland as well as cross-nationals perspective on children and young people’s participation in foster and residential care placements in Great Britain and France.
The volume fills major gaps concerning the participation of young people in different out-of-home care and policy settings and will be required reading for policymakers, researchers, practitioners, scholars, and students interested in increasing opportunities for young people’s participation and creating better out-of-home care settings for vulnerable young people.
Introduction: Participation of Children and Young People in Alternative care – Introduction
Claudia Equit and Jade Purtell
Chapter One: Beyond Youth-centeredness in the Residential Care Participation Discourse: Moving from Aesthetics to Everyday Life where Young People Matter
Kiaras Gharabaghi
Chapter Two: Increasing Opportunities for Care Experienced Young People’s Participation in Decision-Making about State Care: Embedding Ethical Approaches in an Australian Context
Jade Purtell, Jenna Bollinger and Beverley Scott
Chapter Three: Professional Practice in Rights-Based Foster Care, and The Child's Right to Participate
Asgeir Falch-Eriksen and Karmen Toros
Chapter Four: Space and Agency in Everyday Lives of Young People in Care in France and England
Hélène Join-Lambert
Chapter Five: Can Children’s Participation be Promoted from the Outside? Insights from Sweden on Public Monitoring of Foster and Residential Care
David Pålsson
Chapter Six: A Reflection on the Collective Participation of Youth in Foster Care in Context: Limits, Barriers, and Opportunities
Rebecca Jackson, Bernadine Brady, Cormac Forkan and Edel Tierney
Chapter Seven: Participation of Young People in Residential Care: Professionals’ Perceptions about Barriers and Facilitators in Portugal
Eunice Magalhães, Micaela Pinheiro and Maria Manuela Calheiros
Chapter Eight: "How we see this": Young People’s View on Participation in Switzerland: Results and Reflections on Preventing Victimization in Residential Care
Stefan Eberitzsch, Samuel Keller and Julia Rohrbach
Chapter Nine: Different Subcultures in Residential Groups in Germany– Implications for Participation and the Victimization of Children and Young People
Claudia Equit
In collaboration with Antonia Finckh and Julia Ganterer
Chapter Ten: Independent Professional Advocacy in Daycare Centres Promoting Young People’s Participation in Italy
Valentina Calcaterra and Maria Luisa Raineri
Conclusion: Challenges and Progress for Participating Young People in Residential Groups and Foster Families
Claudia Equit and Jade Purtell
Biography
Claudia Equit, PhD, is a professor of social pedagogy at the Leuphana university Lueneburg, Germany. She is involved in several research projects in the field of alternative care and children´s rights. She is the founder of the International Network „Participation of looked after children and adolescents in child welfare" associated with EUSARF. She can be reached at [email protected]
Jade Purtell is a multidisciplinary researcher and practitioner focused on out-of-home care and transitions from care experiences and youth participation in policy-making processes. Jade is currently managing the Peer Worker models for transitions from care project at Monash University and undertaking her PhD in care leaver early parenting. She can be reached at [email protected]
