Children´s rights to participation is a widely discussed topic within social workers all over the world. The convention on the rights of children was legislated 2020 and since then children´s rights to participation been a requirement. This means that all children should have the right to both information but also the right to express their opinions, which must be considered in all decisions concerning them. The purpose of this study is to examine how family therapist in social services experiences the implementation of children´s participation and what obstacles it may entail for children´s right to participation. This studies method is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews. Six interviews were conducted with family therapist working in the social services. To analyze the results, previous research was used as well as the systems theory and childhood sociological perspectives. The results show that family therapist have a good knowledge of/understanding of what participation can entail and how to apply the right in their practice. The family therapists describes that they always aim to involve the child through one-to-one conversations to elicit the child´s perspective in a safe environment. However, in cases where it is not possible to meet the child alone, they always provide the child with information about the intervention. The result also shows that family therapist experience challenges in how toaccommodate children’s participation in their practice. The challenges expressed by the family therapists included the parents voice often are out shadowing the child´s voice. And not all children can participate in an individual conversation, so family therapists often try to find alternative ways to involve the child. The familytherapists also expressed that they always try to keep the child´s perspective throughout the intervention, with reference to article 12 of the convention on the rights of the child. The result also shows that family therapists are perceived to use a systemic approach in their work with children, but they also try to highlight the child as an individual agency. Based on this, the result can be interpreted in terms of family therapists experiencing children’s participation as important but sometimes challenging. However, despite the challenge they face, they always strive to bring out the children´s perspective and right´s in the light of the convention on the rights of the child. / Barns rätt till delaktighet är ett omtalat ämne inom det sociala arbetet. Barns rätt till delaktighet lagstadgades 2020 i och med att barnkonventionen blev lag. Det innebär att alla barn ska ha rätt till information och en röst som tas i beaktning i alla beslut som rör dem. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur familjebehandlare i den sociala öppenvården upplever appliceringen av barns delaktighet. Samt vilka möjligheter eller begränsningar det kan innebära för barnets rätt till delaktighet. Studiens metod grundar sig på kvalitativa, semistrukturerade intervjuer. Det genomfördes 6 stycken intervjuer med familjebehandlare som arbetar inom socialtjänstens öppenvård. För att kunna analysera resultatet användes dels tidigare forskning men även teorin systemteori och barndomssociologiska perspektiv. Resultatet visar på att familjebehandlarna har en god förståelse kring vad delaktighet kan innebära och hur man applicerar rättigheten i praktiken. Familjebehandlarna beskriver att de alltid har en målsättning att göra barnet delaktigt via enskilda samtal för att kunna få fram barnets perspektiv i en trygg miljö. Men i fall där det inte är möjligt att träffa barnet ensam, ger de alltid barnet information om insatsen.  Men det visar även på att familjebehandlarna upplever utmaningar att tillgodose rättigheten. De uttalade utmaningarna som familjebehandlarna berättade om var att föräldrarnas röst ofta kunde ta över barnets. Samt att det inte är alla barn som har förmågan att delta i ett enskilt samtal, då försöker familjebehandlarna hitta alternativa sätt att göra barnet delaktigt. Familjebehandlarna uttrycker även att de alltid försöker ha barnet perspektiv i främsta rummet med hänvisning till barnkonventionen artikel 12. Resultatet visar även på att familjebehandlarna upplevs använda sig av ett systemiskt förhållningssätt i sitt arbete med barnen, men att de även försöker lyfta fram barnet som en enskild aktör. Baserat på det kan resultatet tolkas i termer av att familjebehandlarna upplever barns delaktighet som viktigt men i vissa fall utmanande. Men trots de utmaningar som de möter alltid försöker få fram barnets perspektiv och barnets rättigheter med hänvisning till artikel 12 barnkonventionen.

When young people are placed in residential care, the staff have a responsibility to ensure that the youth have a safe environment where they can thrive and develop. Residential staff also have responsibilities to ensure the rights of youth during the residential care. This study aims to examine how staff consider themselves to treat the youth in residential care. Furthermore the study aims to examine how the staff consider themselves to ensure youth their right to be heard and have an impact on their own lives, in agreement with Article 12 of the UN convention on the rights of the child (CRC). A qualitative method has been used in order to answer the study's purpose and issues. Five interviews were conducted with residential staff, four of which were environmental therapists and one who was a manager. The results show that the staff consider themselves to respond well to the youth, however, a good treatment is difficult to define and therefore hard to achieve. Furthermore, it appears that the knowledge about children’s rights varies among the staff, which can have negative effects on how they manage to reassure youth their rights to be heard and have an impact on their own lives, in agreement with Article 12 of the CRC.

The aim of this study is to examine how social workers within the child protective services define children’s participation and what the strategies are to achieve it. Our method was to interview six social workers about their experiences of their pursuit to make children participate during a child protection investigation. The theoretical framework we used to analyze our results was Shier’s pathways to participation. This model is based on five levels of participation, which has different degrees of participation for children. The main finding of this study was that the social workers define children participation as that they should be listen to, be informed and have the ability to choose in what way they participate. Furthermore, we can see from the social workers descriptions about their strategies and the structure of the organisation that they live up to parts of Shier’s criterias for level one, two and tree. Our results both confirm and contrast international and national studies in this field of research.

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