Childrens Right to Participation

I prosjektperiode 1.10.2024 til 30.9.2025 har prosjektet publisert flere artikler basert på surveymaterialet som ble utformet i forrige periode, i tillegg til øvrige publikasjoner. Det har vært flere faglige formidlinger (7). Prosjektmedarbeidere har presentert forskning på IPSA World Congress of Political Science 2025 i Seoul, Sør Korea; på EUSARF 2025 i Zagreb, Kroatia; Barnevernkonferansen 2024, Bergen; The International Conference on Adoption Policy in the 20th Century in Magdeburg, Germany; og Bergen Exchanges on Law & Social Transformation 2025, Bergen.

Recent decades have brought children on to the societal agenda in new ways, and we observe that children in many societies are increasingly regarded as individuals with separate interests and rights as laid out in the worldwide ratified Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC). Children’s right to participate in matters affecting them is a fundamental right in the CRC. It is an unequivocal principle that at the outset should be fairly straightforward for governments, the judiciary and public authorities to implement and realize, and especially in the child protection system in which the reason for state interventions is the best interests of the child. Still, reports from children themselves and research shows that children are not involved and do not participate as the Convention and the laws prescribe. The question that must be answered is why this is the case, and how to fulfill the legal requirement and political ambition of children's participation in the child protection system. PARTICIPATION is a collaborative knowledge project with ambitions to make groundbreaking steps in the understanding and implementation of children’s participatory rights. It is a partnership between researchers at the University of Bergen, DIPA-Centre, and four partners from the child protection system: 1) The County Social Welfare Boards, 2) The Norwegian Courts and their Administration, 3) Bergen municipality and 4) The Change Factory (Expert by Experience). By bringing together different perspectives, knowledge, and experiences - and studying organizational practices, PARTICIPATION will generate new knowledge, develop new measures and build research expertise that enables society to address the challenge of children's participation. The Child Equality Perspective (CEP) forms the theoretical foundation of the project, and The Child Participatory Action Research (CPAR) secures children’s active involvement throughout the project.