NEW ARTICLE: Post Doc Audun Løvlie has recently examined Norwegian judicial decision-makers in child welfare cases using a semi-structured expert interview method, culminating in a research article titled “Dilemmas of children’s participation and the role of practice guidelines: the views of judicial decision-makers in Norway”. The study, which is published in the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, analyses how judicial decision-makers in Norway confront the challenges of incorporating children’s participation in child welfare cases, highlighting four key dilemmas that emerged and how ambivalent guidelines can be.
Key Questions and Findings
The research addresses two key questions: What dilemmas do judicial decision-makers identify when considering children’s inclusion during judicial proceedings, and are the current guidelines adequate for addressing the dilemmas? The study conducted in-depth interviews with two judicial decision-making bodies in Norway, the Child Welfare Tribunal (CWT) and the District Courts (DC), to answer these questions.
The findings categorised four dilemma categories of including children in deliberative proceedings: assessing maturity, vulnerabilities, actualising participation, and decision-makers’ role. The results show ambivalent views on the guidelines. On the positive views, guidelines help ensure coordination for equal or similar treatment and practices while also playing an essential role in training and teaching. On the other hand, the critical views of guidelines emerge due to not meeting the needs of a decision-maker and being seen as potentially redundant compared to existing practices. This critical perspective showcases the guidelines’ limitations in helping with individual cases’ requirements and challenges. At the same time, there is also a need for practical advice and training elements with the help of examples and possible solutions to common dilemmas, as well as a need for facilitating children’s participation.
Future Research and Practical Implications
Prior research in the children’s participation has answered pivotal questions, with a common theme of understanding the challenge of participation in identifying the threshold between practices against the children’s right to participate. Meanwhile, this study focuses on guidelines as tools to keep up with best practices, which is a scarce topic. Therefore, the study’s findings contribute to further increasing the discourse on decision-making guidelines while highlighting the necessity for more straightforward and practical guidance to connect policy with practice, so that the children’s rights are protected when navigating the complex challenges present in child welfare cases.
This article is part of the Children’s Right to Participation project. The study is open access and available here.
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