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

Abstract

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…