This thesis discusses how children's perspectives are implemented in the municipality's physical planning in Sweden in relation to the statutory UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The thesis seeks to answer how the planners express their views on the participation, as well as their views on the child and childhood. The study is based on three research questions. The aim is examined in relation to comprehensive planning and use the Norwegian context as a comparison since the country has progressed further in the implementation of the convention. The theoretical framework consists of a research overview regarding social sustainability, and the concepts of child and childhood. An historical review of children’s geography is also conducted. In addition, previous research regarding children’s participation in planning, as well as participation models lays ground for the theoretical framework. The small-scale case study of three municipalities is carried out by six qualitative interviews with physical and strategical planners, as well as professionals with experience in citizen dialogue. In addition, the empirical analysis includes a small document study of the municipal frameworks for citizen participation. Key findings are that children's perspectives are lacking in municipal planning processes, especially in relation to the comprehensive planning. In the three cases in this study, the efforts to incorporate children’s perspective into the planning process seems to be largely guided by the planners' own knowledge and interests. The implementation work with the Convention on the Right of the Child varies somewhat between the municipalities, where one of them stood out and had come further than the other two in connection with the physical planning. The planners view of the child shaped the opportunities for the children to participate in the planning process. The lack of formal guidelines is also described as a reason for the children's lack of participation. An ambivalent picture of children is found among planners and decision makers. These split images create a difficulty in creating a uniform picture of children's participation in the municipalities, as well as finding suitable methods for participation. However, many of the interviewees expressed a strong interest in involving children in planning to a greater extent, and to gain access to more knowledge in the subject.

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.

Detta är en kvalitativ studie om hur socialsekreterare arbetar med barnperspektivet i mötet med hemlösa barn. Genom fyra semi-strukturerade intervjuer med anställda på socialtjänstens boendeenhet undersöks hur handläggaren beskriver att hen arbetar med barnperspektivet utifrån delvis Barnkonventionen men även hur handläggaren tillgodoser barns rättigheter och medborgarskap. Det insamlade materialet kommer analyseras med hjälp av Theory of citizenship (Lister 2008) men även barndomssociologiska begrepp human being och human becoming samt agency (Qvortrup 1990; Lee 2001). Som ett komplement används Annika Staafs (2011) definition av rättssäkerhet för att utöka förståelsen för barns medborgarskap och rättssäkerhet. Resultatet visar på bristande arbete med barns rättigheter samt att organisationens struktur har betydelse för vilka möjligheter handläggaren har att tillgodose barns rättigheter och säkra barns medborgarskap. I den avslutande diskussionen tas upp att socialsekreterarnas arbetsmiljö leder till att barn inte får komma till tals i den utsträckning som anses vara nödvändigt samt att en väg framåt i arbetet med barns rättigheter vore att Barnkonventionen blir svensk lag. Detta skulle medföra att Konventionen om barns rättigheter får en starkare ställning i Sverige. / This is a qualitative study of how social workers work with the children's perspective in the meeting with homeless children. This will be investigated through four semi-structured interviews with employees at the social housing unit. The purpose of the study is to investigate how the practitioner describes how they work with the child perspective based partly on the Children's Convention, but also investigate how the prosecutor caters for children's rights and citizenship. The collected material will be analysed using Theory of citizenship (Lister 2008), but also childhood sociological concepts human being and human becoming as well as agency (Qvortrup 1990; Lee 2001). As a complement, Annika Staaf's (2011) definition of legal certainty is used to expand the understanding of children's citizenship and legal certainty. The result shows the lack of work with children's rights, and the structure of the organization is important for the ability of the prosecutor to meet children's rights and secure children's citizenship. In the final discussion it is stated that the social security staff's working environment means that children can not be heard in so far as is considered necessary, and that a way forward in the work on children's rights would be that the Children's Convention becomes Swedish law. This would mean that the Convention on the Rights of the Child gained a stronger position in Sweden.

Föreliggande arbete kommer att behandla problemet barnfattigdom, vi kommer att belysa problemet genom att se på hur barnkonventionen format beslutsfattandet av ekonomiskt bistånd. Syftet med uppsatsen är titta på hur socialsekreterares handlingsutrymme har formats sedan barnkonventionen blivit svensk lag 1 januari 2020. De centrala frågeställningarna vi vill besvara är för det första hur använder socialsekreterare det relativt nyförvärvade handlingsutrymmet, för det andra har socialsekreterarnas handlingsutrymme formats för att möjliggöra bedömningar utifrån tillämpningen av barnperspektivet? För det tredje har barnkonventionen nått en handlingsmässig tyngd i det arbete som en socialsekreterare på ekonomiskt bistånd utför i ärenden som rör barn? Resultatet visar att socialsekreterarnas handlingsutrymme har förändrats genom att de kan bevilja ekonomiskt bistånd utifrån barnkonventionen men också att handlingsutrymmet är begränsat utifrån organisationens riktlinjer och att professionens ansvar läggs över på föräldrarna. Handlingsutrymmets förändring ligger också på den yrkeserfarenhet och kunskapen en socialsekreterare har. Resultatet visar också att barnkonventionen inte har nått en riktigt handlingsmässig tyngd för att den inte tillämpats tillräckligt i handlingsutrymmets olika delar. Arbetets resultat visar på en önskan om tydligare riktlinjer och en konkretisering av barnkonventionen som verktyg för att beslut om ekonomiskt bistånd ska vara kunna tas som den kräver. / The present work will address the problem of child poverty. We will discuss the problem by looking at how the Convention on the Rights of the Child is shaped by the decisions on financial assistance. The purpose of the essay is to look at how the discretion of social workers has been shaped since the Convention on the Rights of the Child became Swedish law on the 1st of January 2020. The key questions we want to answer are firstly how social workers use the relatively newly acquired discretion found in the convention, in the practice of using a child perspective? Thirdly, has the Convention on the Rights of the Child reached a weight of action in the work carried out by a social worker in financial assistance in matters concerning children? The results show that the social worker’s use of discretion has changed in a way in which they can grant financial assistance based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. But also, that the discretion is limited based on the guidelines of the organization and that the responsibility is transferred to parents rather than onto the responsibility of the professional. The change in the discretion is also based on the professional experience and the knowledge a social worker has. The results also show that the Convention on the Rights of the Child has not reached a real weight of action because it is not yet applied sufficiently in the various parts that make up the discretion of a social worker. The results of the paper show a desire for clearer guidelines and a concretization of the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a tool for decisions on financial assistance. This is required if we are to use the convention to the extent it needs.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how children are affected by eviction and structural homelessness in Sweden, and also to investigate what rights children have towards the Swedish state and Swedish municipalities under the Convention on the Right of the Child. To achieve the purpose, the author has used rapports of evicted and homeless children in Sweden, and analyzed the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The author did this to see what obligations the Swedish state and the Swedish municipalities have towards the children. Documents from Malmo and Gothenburg municipality are also used to see how the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child looks like at the local level. A comparison between the municipalities was made to see if there are similarities or differences between the municipalities implementation of the convention. An investigation was also done to see whether the municipalities comply the claims of the convention.

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 purpose of this study is to examine how social workers work in order to enable children and young people's participation during a child protection investigation and how they experience the Convention on the Rights of the Child have changed the conditions of their work. To address the aim of the study, we have interviewed five social workers who work with children and young people at the social services office in four different municipalities in Stockholm county. To analyze the empirical data, we have used two theoretical frameworks; Shier’s Pathways to Participation and New Institutional Theory of Organizations. The results of this study indicate that social workers find it hard to define children and young people's participation, which leads to different ways of working. There are obstacles such as a parental focus and organizational conditions, such as time constraints, workload and budget cuts, which complicate social workers' work with children and young people's participation. Furthermore, we find that the Convention on the Right of the Child as a law has not had a major impact on social workers' practical work with children and young people's participation in child protection investigations.