In your best interest : A study of how children have experienced being heard in child welfare services and how the Capability Approach could strengthen the understanding of the child’s best interests
Doctoral thesis
Published version
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3126167Utgivelsesdato
2024Metadata
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Originalversjon
Strømland, M. (2024). In your best interest : A study of how children have experienced being heard in child welfare services and how the Capability Approach could strengthen the understanding of the child’s best interests [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Agder.Sammendrag
Over the last couple of years, the Norwegian Child Welfare Services (CWS) has been subject to considerable criticism, both domestic and international. Norway has been accused of “stealing” children from their parents with the intent of forming children’s upbringing in a way the state finds appropriate, with little respect for cultural and/or individual differences related to parental practice. The essential question has been and is how Norway might secure the right and the principle of the child’s best interests, at the same time respecting parents’ rights to respect for private and family life, also understood as the biological principle. Norway has been convicted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in over 20 cases related to CWS from 1996 to February 2024 – all except two cases in the last five years. Norway has received particular criticism for its scarce resort to individual adaptation for contact between child and parents in several cases in which CWS has decided on a care order. Aim: The overall aim of this doctoral work is to explore analyse and discuss if and in what way the capabilities, as developed in the Capabilities Approach (CA) of the philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum, can supplement a best-interest evaluation of the child with the child’s right to be heard held as essential. This includes if and in what way(s) children and young people have experienced being heard and participating in decisions concerning themselves in their encounters with public authorities in a national and international child welfare context…
Beskrivelse
Papers II and III have been extracted from the dissertation due to publication restrictions.
Består av
Paper I: Strømland, M., Bahus, M. K., & Andersen, A. J. W. (2022). Too Vulnerable to Participate? A Systematic Literature Review of the Gap between a Right to Participate and Participation, in Welfare Services. Journal of Human Rights Practice, 14(1), 331-351. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huab061. Published version. Full-text not available in AURA as a separate file.Paper II: Strømland, M., Bahus, M. K. & Andersen, A. J. W. (2023): What’s the purpose of having a say if I cannot participate? A qualitative study of young people’s experiences of being heard and to participate in decisionmaking processes in Norwegian child welfare services. The International Journal of Children’s Rights. 31(3), 729-755. Doi.org/10.1163/15718182-31030007. Full-text not available in AURA as a separate file.
Paper III: Strømland, M., Andersen, A. J. W., Johansen, V. F., Bahus, M. K. (2019): In your best interest. A discussion of how Capability Approach could be used as a guideline to strengthen and supplement the principle of the child’s best interests. The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 27(3), 517–544. Doi.org/10.1163/15718182-02703009. Full-text not available in AURA as a separate file.