This study aims to investigate how social workers describe children’s participation and how children with disabilities are involved in decision-making processes in social work. Focus lies on how social workers encourage participation for children with disabilities, which possibilities and barriers for such participation they describe, and which methods they use to encourage children’s participation. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with seven social workers who work with children with disabilities. The data was analyzed with thematic analysis, using Shier’s (2001) Pathways to Participation as a theoretical raster. The results show that no distinct definition for participation could be identified among the social workers and that children rarely are involved in decision-making even though their opinions can be given importance. Social workers pursue to involve children in decision-making by meeting them face-to-face, and by providing them with information about the decision-making process. The results show multiple possibilities and barriers for participation. Overall, it is evident that the extent to which working methods pursuing children’s participation are used varies, and that the use of specific methods is undeveloped. There is also a lack of knowledge according to specific methods for children who don’t use spoken language.

The aim of this study is to through six interviews, with six experienced, social workers’, in three cities, understand how the child’s position in the Swedish child protective services’ enquiries has change, and the factors behind it. The aim is also to compare if the social workers’ view of the child’s position in the enquire has change accordingly to Socialstyrelsens intentions of BBIC. The theoretical approaches that was used is the new institutionalism, the Shier’s pathways to participation and the term discretion. The results of the study shows that through the perspective of social workers, the factors that helped the child’s position to improve are the new organization of working patterns and the new documentation system, the new mindset of the social workers’ and the way the social workers’ talk to the children. The study also shows that through the child’s position in child protective enquiries has improved accordingly to Socialstyrelsens intentions of BBIC.

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.

The study examines the perception of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children's participation and the accessibility for children, within public archival institutions. The notion of participation is linked to the Convention’s Article 12: respect for the views of the child, whilst accessibility is associated with Article 31: the right to leisure, play and culture. Furthermore, the study explores the preconditions for children’s participation in accordance with Harry Shier's model Pathways to participation.  The method used are web-based surveys. A total of 318 Swedish public archival institutions were invited to participate in two online questionnaires which generated 187 and 153 responses respectively. The study shows that 78 percent of the respondents know that the Convention on the Rights of the Child is Swedish law and 90 percent are aware of the obligation to impose it. Nevertheless, only 43 percent believe that their own institution takes the Convention into account. The respondents report a lack of resources and competence as the main obstacles.  About 65 percent of the respondents state that their institution welcome children and young people as visitors. 85 percent believe that it is important that Swedish archive institutions and archives are accessible, but only 27 percent feel that their own institution is in fact accessible to children and young people. Many respondents cite a lack of resources as the main reason. The part of the survey that is based on Harry Shier's participation model shows that the preconditions for children's participation in the activities of the public archives are low. But it is also clear that the respondents' personal inclinations for children's participation exceeds the preconditions and requirements of the institution. The major obstacles to children's participation thus seem to exist at a structural level. / Uppsatsen syftar till att kartlägga inställningen till barnkonventionen, barns delaktighet och arkivens tillgänglighet för barn inom svenska offentliga arkivinstitutioner. Tillgänglighet och delaktighet kopplas till barnkonventionens artikel 12 – respekt för barns åsikter och artikel 31 – rätt till fritid, lek och kultur. Studien undersöker också förutsättningar för delaktighet utifrån Harry Shiers delaktighetsmodell Pathways to participation.  Svaren har inhämtats genom två webbaserade enkätundersökningar. Studien visar att 78 procent av respondenterna känner till att barnkonventionen är svensk lag och 90 procent att det ingår i deras uppdrag att följa den. Men bara 43 procent anser att den egna arbetsplatsen tar hänsyn till barnkonventionen och det största hindret uppges vara bristande resurser och kompetens. 65 procent uppger att de tar emot besök av barn och ungdomar. 85 procent anser att det är viktigt att svenska arkivinstitutioner och arkiv är tillgängliga för barn, men bara 27 procent upplever att det egna arkivet är tillgängligt för barn. Även här uppger många bristande resurser som främsta orsak.   Den del av undersökningen som är baserad på Harry Shiers delaktighetsmodell visar att förutsättningarna för barns delaktighet i de offentliga arkivens verksamhet är låg. Men det är också tydligt att respondenternas personliga vilja och intresse överstiger arbetsplatsens organisatoriska förutsättningar och krav för barns delaktighet. De främsta hindren för barns delaktighet verkar således finnas på en strukturell nivå.