Child participation in Institutional Treatment for Children with Emotional and Behavioural Problems

The awareness on the importance of child participation in various aspects of child’s life has risen during the last decade among the academics and professionals in Croatia. The child participation became widely recognised... [ view full abstract ]

The awareness on the importance of child participation in various aspects of child’s life has risen during the last decade among the academics and professionals in Croatia. The child participation became widely recognised within many national laws (e.g. Family Law Act, Law on Education in Primary and Secondary Schools, Child Ombudsman Law, Social Welfare Act, Foster Care Law, The Youth Councils Law, etc.) and policies as well. The National Strategy for Child Right in Republic of Croatia 2014 - 2020, specifically recognizes child participation as one of its four strategic goals (Enabling active participation of children), as well as specific measures within all other strategic goals. Since 1999, there have been several researches on the rights of the child, including participatory rights. Data from research conducted in 1999 (Žižak and Koller-Trbović), showed that most of the children believed that adults do not listen to them and that they don't have opportunity to express their views. Later researches showed no improvement in that sense. Child perspective and participation has become prominent in public discourse but not so present in everyday practise, especially when it comes to children in alternative care. Main aim of this research is to gain insight in level and forms of child participation in institutional treatment with special focus on children with emotional and behavioural problems due to increased risk of low level of participation. Research will be conducted in 10 correctional institutions in Croatia, using questionnaires and focus group discussion to investigate children's and professionals' perspective. Research questions focus on context and form of participation in institutional care, specific characteristics of children with emotional and behaviour problems and their potential and willingness to participate and role of professionals in realization of participatory rights.
Preliminary results concerning professional’s perspective show that when it comes to a practical level, adults are sceptical and do not really support child participation. One of the reasons for this lies in a lack of real understanding of child participation. Child participation is still in general perceived as some sort of decoration or formal fulfilment of certain policies and laws or as fulfilment of children’s wishes. Besides that professionals that work with children are most often not properly trained to support child participation.