Pålsson David, Leviner Pernilla, Wiklund Stefan
Department of Social Work, Stockholm University, Sweden.
Faculty of Law, Stockholm University, Sweden.
Child Abuse Negl. 2025 Apr;162(Pt 1):107000. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.107000. Epub 2024 Aug 31.
Children's right to participation in child welfare decision-making is highlighted in law and research. However, there is a lack of comprehensive empirical research on how such participation is actually fulfilled.
This article aims to describe and analyse the extent, nature and determinants of children's participation in child welfare investigations in Sweden as well as to discuss barriers to participation.
The dataset comprises a cohort of 2123 children investigated during 2022 across eight municipalities in Stockholm County, Sweden.
The study is based on cross-sectional data where the responsible child welfare workers served as informant in a survey focusing child and case factors concerning 2123 children subject to child welfare investigations. The data is analysed by using descriptive and binary logistic regression analyses.
In approximately 75 % of the child welfare investigations, child welfare workers held interviews with the child (with or without parental presence) while individual child interviews were carried out in about 50 % of the cases. Multiple interviews (≥3) occurred in 14 % of the cases. Reasons for not interviewing children included finding interviews to be unnecessary, perceiving the child as too young, and reluctance by the child as to participation. Investigations involving older children and referrals related to abuse increased the odds for participation.
The study suggests that more children are interviewed by child welfare authorities than found in previous studies, but that there still is a gap between the legislative intention to facilitate child participation and the actual state of child welfare practice.
儿童参与儿童福利决策的权利在法律和研究中得到了强调。然而，对于这种参与实际上是如何实现的，缺乏全面的实证研究。
本文旨在描述和分析瑞典儿童在儿童福利调查中的参与程度、性质和决定因素，并讨论参与的障碍。
数据集包括2022年期间在瑞典斯德哥尔摩县八个市接受调查的2123名儿童。
该研究基于横断面数据，负责儿童福利的工作人员在一项调查中作为信息提供者，该调查聚焦于2123名接受儿童福利调查的儿童的儿童和案件因素。通过描述性和二元逻辑回归分析对数据进行分析。
在大约75%的儿童福利调查中，儿童福利工作人员与儿童进行了面谈（有或没有父母在场），而约50%的案件进行了儿童单独面谈。14%的案件进行了多次面谈（≥3次）。不与儿童面谈的原因包括认为面谈不必要、认为儿童太小以及儿童不愿参与。涉及年龄较大儿童的调查和与虐待相关的转介增加了参与的几率。
该研究表明，儿童福利当局面谈的儿童比以往研究中的更多，但在促进儿童参与的立法意图与儿童福利实践的实际状况之间仍存在差距。
