The aim of this study was to examine whether children’s rights in deciding on compulsory care (LVU) could be fulfilled by prevailing Swedish legislation, taking into account the principle of the childs best interest. The focus of the study was to explore how the principle of the best interest of the child is considered in decisions on compulsory care. This was done by examining the child’s right to be heard during the court process and if the childs opinions and will is taken into account when deciding on LVU. I used a legal dogmatic method to analyze the U.N. convention of the rights of the child (article 3 and article 12) as well as the Swedish law sections LVU, SoL and FB. This study was based on a case study with eight compulsory care cases settled in the Swedish ”Kammarrätt”. All reviewed cases were in accordance to 2 § LVU and the age criteria for the children was between ten to fourteen years old. The result has given an insight in the different ways a child is heared during court process, some children got to express their opinions themselves and some children ́s opinions were expressed through their representative or the social welfare board ́s investigation. The children ́s opinion and their will was noted to a degree in most cases,while in some cases the children ́s opionions and will (especially siblings) was contradictory, the court had to base their judgments on what was considered to be the best interests of the child.

2020 blev Barnkonventionen lag i Sverige och Sverige hade redan under många år strävat efter att följa de riktlinjer som Barnkonventionen ger. Trots de ambitioner som formulerats ovan så visar uppföljningar att barn generellt inte görs tillräckligt delaktiga i socialtjänstens beslutsprocesser. Studier gällande hur barn med funktionsnedsättningar görs delaktiga i socialtjänstens utredningar visar att socialsekreterare ofta saknar kompetens att tala med dessa barn på deras nivå och träffar barnen för sällan. Utifrån detta kan identifieras ett problemområde gällande hur barn ska göras mer delaktiga i barnavårdsutredningar och de förutsättningar och arbetssätt som behövs för att göra detta möjligt. Syftet med denna studie har varit att öka kunskapen kring förutsättningar och arbetssätt som kan möjliggöra barnets ökade delaktighet i samband med socialtjänstens beslutsprocesser. Frågeställningarna är vilka olika förutsättningar och arbetssätt krävs för att socialsekreterare inom barnavårdsutredningar ska kunna skapa möjligheter för barnets delaktighet i beslutsprocessen samt vilka gynnande respektive hindrande faktorer som påverkar barnets delaktighet. Studien är grundad på en granskning av 14 vetenskapliga artiklar genererade vid sökning i PsycInfo, Universitetsbibliotekets databas samt vid sekundärsökning. Dessa analyserades med en metaanalytisk ansats.  Resultat: Den finns flera olika faktorer på individ-, organisations- och strukturell nivå som kan verka gynnande eller hämmande på barnets delaktighet. På individnivå kan identifieras faktorer som professionellas inställning till delaktighet, socialsekreterarens roll och personliga egenskaper, kunskap om olika samtalstekniker och barnets närvaro på möten. På organisationsnivå kan identifieras förutsättningar för förberedelse och reflektion samt anpassad miljö och tillgängligt material. På den strukturella nivån kan identifieras att större förändringar gällande innehållet i socialsekreterarens utbildning samt lagförändringar kring barnombud skulle kunna haft en gynnsam effekt. Slutsatsen är att för att stärka gynnande faktorer och minska hindrande faktorer gällande barns delaktighet i barnavårdsutredningar krävs dialog och samverkan inom arbetsgruppen. Det finns en vikt i att tillsammans definiera begreppet delaktighet och tydliggöra målsättningen för att sedan genom kollegialt lärande utnyttja varandras kunskaper och erfarenheter för att skapa goga möjlighet för samtal med de barn socialsekreterarna möter. / In 2020, the Convention on the Rights of the Child became law in Sweden, and Sweden had already strived for years to follow the guidelines provided by the Convention of the Rights of the Child. Despite the ambitions formulated above, follow-ups show that children are generally not made sufficiently involved in the social services´ decision-making processes. Studies regarding how children with disabilities are included in the social services´ investigations show that social workers often lack the competence to speak with these children at their level and meet the children too rarely. Based on this, a problem area can be identified regarding how children should be made more involved in child welfare investigations and the conditions and working methods needed to make those possible.  The purpose of this study has been to increase knowledge about the conditions and working methods that can enable the child´s increased participation in connection with the social service´s decision-making processes. The questions are what different conditions and working methods are required for social workers within child welfare investigations to be able to create opportunities for the child´s participation in de decision-making process and witch favourable and hindering factors affect the child´s participation. The study is based om a review of 14 scientific articles generated by searches in PsycInfo, the University Library’s database and secondary searches. These were analysed using a meta-analytic approach.  Results: There are several different factors at the individual, organizational and structural level that can have a beneficial or inhibiting effect on the child´s participation. At the individual level, factors such as the professional´s attitude to participation, the social worker´s role and personal characteristics, knowledge of different conversation techniques and the child´s presence at meetings can be identified. At organizational level, prerequisites for preparation and refection, as well as an adapted environment and available material, can be identified. At the structural level, it can be identified that major changes regarding the content of the social secretary´s training as well as changes in the law regarding children´s representatives could have a beneficial effect.  The conclusion is that in order to strengthen favourable factors and reduce hindering factors regarding children´s participation in childcare investigations, dialogue and collaboration within the working group is required. There is an importance in jointly defining the concept of participation and clarifying the objective in order to then use each other´s knowledge and experience through collegial learning to create good opportunities for conversations with the children the social workers meet.

Title: “The will of the child isn't always what's best for the child” A qualitative study on how family law caseworkers involve children in custody-, residence-, and visitation investigations in cases involving risk factors.  Our study aims to examine how family law caseworkers involve children in custody-, residence-, and visitation investigations in cases involving risk factors. The study also aims to investigate how family law caseworkers perceive the child's own wishes and to what extent the risk factors influence assessments regarding what is in the child's best interest.In this study, a qualitative methodological approach employing qualitative interviews has been utilized, employing a vignette method in combination with semi-structured interviews. The sample consists of eight active family law caseworkers located in southwestern Sweden. A thematic analysis has been conducted to interpret the empirical data.The results have been categorized into four main themes: Child Participation, family lawcaseworkers handling of risk factors, family law caseworkers assessment of the child's best interests, and family law caseworkers' room for action.The study's findings indicate that children are involved to the extent possible, considering their age and maturity. However, family law caseworkers argue that it is their responsibility to protect children from harm, and therefore, the adult perspective sometimes needs to take precedence over the children's own will in decision-making.In summary, the study's results reveal that the child's wishes are not always aligned with what is considered to be in the child's best interest. Additionally, while the child's involvement is highly valued, the presence of risk factors plays a crucial role in family law investigations regarding custody, residence, and visitation.

The purpose of the study is to explore how children are made involved in the administrative court's judgments in cases relating to coercive interventions with the support of § 3 LVU. Fifteen LVU-judgments have been analyzed through a qualitative content analysis to find relevant thematic areas. The material has been analyzed using previous research, Gallagher's theory of children's participation and power and Hart's theory of participation. The result shows that children are made involved to varying extents in the administrative court's judgments by being allowed to express their opinion and attitude. However, the children's opinions and attitude have not had any influence in the administrative court's decision. Furthermore, it appears that it is not entirely clear what is meant by applying children's participation in practice and that it thus becomes a question of interpretation. In the judgements, the children state that they consent to care and that the care can thus take place through voluntary efforts. However, the administrative court considers that the consents are not reliable, whereupon they approve the social welfare board's application for compulsory care. The conclusion is that an adult perspective is decisive for the outcome of the judgments.

The aim of this study was to increase understanding of the extent to which the child's will is given in Swedish courts' overall assessments of the best interests of the child in disputes on custody, resident and visitation (VBU). 18 District Court judgments have been collected from the database Zeteo via court judgments from Sweden's six Courts of Appeal. Based on a qualitative research effort, a content analysis was conducted on the judgments. The content analysis resulted in the following three categories being identified: The court judges according to the expressed will of the child, The court judges against the expressed will of the child, and The will of the child was omitted in the district court's assessment. The results were mainly analyzed based on childhood sociological perspectives, Hart’s ladder of participation and family law regulations. The theoretical framework was used to illustrate how the child was presented and socially constructed, and what impact this had on the space the child's will was given in the court's assessments of the best interests of the child. This was then reflected in the prevailing laws. The results of the study showed that the child's will appeared in about half of the cases, and that the court judged according to the will of the child in less than one third of them. The study also showed that the court tended to question the authenticity of the will of the children whose wishes did not comply with what the court considered to be the best interests of the child. In the majority of the cases where the children’s will were not given any room in the judgment, the court generally gave no reasons why the will was not reported.

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.

This essay is a scientific essay that centers around a story based on a self-experienced dilemma about a shy and silent child who does not communicate with the pedagogues at the preschool nor the majority of the other children. The child chooses to only communicate through her best friend and is then able to use both body- and verbal language, and it is only through this friend that others learn what the child wants.   The purpose of the essay is to examine how preschools satisfy the needs of silent and shy children, by studying my own actions in the described story. The questions at issue which are studied in this essay include how I as a future preschool teacher can support the silent and withdrawn children. Which tools and strategies pedagogues can use to uplift them. How I as a pedagogue can include these children and make them participate in the preschool’s activities. As well as how pedagogues relate to the need of interaction among silent children. These questions are answered through the writing of the essay where my practical knowledge, which constitutes of 17 years of working as a caretaker of children, and theoretical perspectives such as the theory of connection and a sociocultural perspective are applied. An interview with a certified speech therapist has also been conducted. The conclusions that can be made are that there are several possible tools and strategies that can be used to include and facilitate for the silent and shy children in the preschool, for example picture-support, smaller groups of children or that you as an pedagogue participate yourself and give the child roles within the plays that it is able to manage. Furthermore, an important lesson is that the theoretical perspectives constitute a crucial support for pedagogues in their approach towards shy children, that it is important to do a mapping of the shy children in terms of what causes the difficulties and when they arise, and also to always proceed from the individual child’s needs so that every child at the preschool gets the best possibilities for education. / Denna uppsats är en vetenskaplig essä som utgår ifrån en berättelse som utgörs av ett egenupplevt dilemma om ett blygt och tystlåtet barn som inte kommunicerar med pedagogerna på förskolan eller majoriteten av de andra barnen. Barnet väljer att endast att kommunicera via sin bästa kompis och kan då använda både kroppsspråk och verbalt språk, och det är endast genom kompisen som andra får veta vad barnet vill. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur förskolan tillgodoser tystlåtna och blyga barns behov, genom att studera mitt eget handlade i den beskrivna berättelsen. De frågeställningar som studeras i uppsatsen inkluderar hur jag som framtida förskolelärare kan stödja de tystlåtna och tillbakadragna barnen. Vilka verktyg och strategier pedagoger kan använda för att lyfta fram dem. Hur jag som pedagog kan inkludera dessa barn och få dem delaktiga i aktiviteterna på förskolan. Samt hur pedagoger förhåller sig till behovet av samspel hos tystlåtna barn. Dessa frågeställningar besvaras genom essäskrivande där min praktiska kunskap, som består av 17 års arbete som barnskötare, samt teoretiska perspektiv som anknytningsteorin och ett sociokulturellt perspektiv tillämpas. En intervju med en legitimerad logoped har också genomförts. Slutsatser som kan dras är att det finns flera möjliga verktyg och strategier som kan användas för att inkludera och underlätta för de tystlåtna och blyga barnen i förskolan, bland annat bild-stöd, mindre barngrupper eller att man som pedagog själv deltar och ger barnet roller i leken som den klarar av. En viktig lärdom är vidare att de teoretiska perspektiven utgör ett väsentligt stöd för pedagoger i sitt bemötande av blyga barn, att det är viktigt att göra en kartläggning av de blyga barnen kring vad som orsakar svårigheterna och när de uppstår, samt att alltid utgå från det enskilda barnets behov så att alla barn på förskolan får de bästa förutsättningarna för lärande.

The aim of this study was to gain a greater knowledge and understanding of how staff in non-profit women shelters meet children's needs and rights in safe houses for women, and how staff in safe houses for women relate to children's participation. The study was based on a qualitative method where seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff in non-profit women shelters across Sweden. The empirical data has been analyzed based on previous research and the theoretical framework: sociology of childhood and the ladder of participation. The results show that the staff try to maintain the children's everyday life by creating routines for the children with school and activities. At the same time, it appears that there are difficulties to maintain children's everyday life because of the safety strategies that the safe houses for women have. The staff describe that they try to involve the children in the safe house for women, we have however discovered that the participation does not exceed the fifth step of the ladder of participation. In conclusion the children receive support in the safe house for women, in form of support talk. But because the children are accompanying their mother, it creates an inequality between the different women shelters. Where everyday life and support for the children differs around different women shelters in Sweden.

No description available.

Denna studie har undersökt hur barn pratar om och beskriver begreppet delaktighet inom idrottsrörelsen, i syfte att klargöra barns perspektiv inom detta kunskapsområde. Studien genomfördes med hjälp av en kvalitativ ansats och baserades på tre gruppintervjuer med tolv unga idrottare i åldrarna 10–15 år. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för studien var delaktighetsteorier, dels utifrån ett statsvetenskapligt samt ett sociologiskt perspektiv, men också specifikt, teorier som rör barns delaktighet (children’s participation) där framförallt delaktighet utifrån Roger Harts (1992) "ladder of participation" har använts. Resultatet för studien visar att idrottande barns beskrivningar av begreppet delaktighet är omfångsrik och innefattar å ena sidan en varierad bild av beslutsprocessen, där beskrivningar av att våga och inte få välja utgör exempel på icke delaktighet medan komma överens, kompromissa, rösta, vara med och bestämma, få välja, bli tillfrågad, få förklaringar, ge feedback, ge förslag och önskemål samt säga vad man tycker utgör barns beskrivningar av delaktighet. Å andra sidan visar även resultatet att idrottande barns beskrivningar av delaktighet går utöver beskrivningar av själva beslutsprocessen och innefattar även ett socialt perspektiv, där känna sig utanför, vara utesluten, och som att man inte finns utgjorde beskrivningar av att inte vara delaktig, medans beskrivningar av att man är med i ett gäng, alla får vara med och att man upplever att man finns till samt blir sedd, lyftes fram som viktiga komponenter för att beskriva delaktighet. Resultatet ligger i linje med tidigare forskning som har indikerat att barn uppfattar begreppet delaktighet som något mer än bara vara en del av en beslutsprocess. Studiens forskningsbidrag är därmed dels en bekräftelse av tidigare antydningar av idrottande barns breda syn på delaktighet men framförallt vad denna breda syn består av, vilket till min kännedom inte har utforskats tidigare. Resultatet ska emellertid beaktas med försiktighet givet det begränsade urvalet för studien. / The aim of this study has been to investigate how children talk about and describe the concept of participation in the sports movement, thus illuminating a child’s perspective of this area, and providing a basis for future quantitative work. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach and was based on three group interviews with twelve young athletes aged 10–15 years. The theoretical starting point for the study was participatory theories, partly from a political science and a sociological perspective, but also specifically, theories concerning children's participation. The results of the study show that athletes’ descriptions of the concept of participation are comprehensive and include, on the one hand, a broad picture of the decision-making process, where descriptions of daring and not being able to choose are examples of non-participation, while agreeing, compromising, voting, participating and deciding, getting to choose, being asked, getting explanations, giving feedback, giving suggestions and wishes and saying what you think, constitute children’s descriptions of participation. On the other hand, the results also show that young athletes’ descriptions of participation go beyond the decision-making process itself and also include a social perspective, where feeling outside, excluded, or that you don’t exist, are descriptions of non-participation, whilst descriptions such as being a part of a group, everyone is included, that you feel that you exist and are seen, were highlighted as important components to describe participation. The results are in line with previous research which has indicated that children perceive the concept of participation as something more than just being part of a decision-making process. The study’s main contribution is therefore firstly a reinforcement of the indications of previous research of children’s broad view of participation and secondly, illuminating what this comprehensive view consists of, which to my knowledge hasn’t been explored before. Further research is however needed given the small sample in this study, in order to strengthen these findings.