Barns delaktighet i sin egen välfärd : En jämförande kvalitativ studie av synen på barns delaktighet inom socialtjänsten och BUP

Having ratified the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child), the Swedish government and its authorities are responsible towards their young citizens to guarantee them care, protection and to be put first. In addition, children have a right to participation in processes and decisions which affect them. Especially in situations where the child is in need of protection. In research, children´s protection and children´s participation has been investigated as two separate, and often opposing rights, and the perception of children has in many regards been an ambivalent one. This study is focusing on the perception of the child and their participation in their welfare using two perspectives that splits the perception of the child: Children as subjects of rights and children as objects of care. The study investigates the perceptions of children and their participation in family therapy at Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (BUP) and family treatment at the municipal Social Services. Family therapy/treatment is a treatment aimed to gather the family to solve their common problems based on the system theory that perceive the family as a system. Through eight qualitative interviews with therapists and social workers, the study investigates the respondents own perceptions. The study finds that both the perception of the child as subjects of rights and as objects of care is found both at BUP and at the Social Service, although the perception of children as subjects of rights is more clear at the BUP and the perception of children as objects of care more clear at the Social Services. A discovery is that the Social services is more clearly using concepts linked to the system theory at the same time as being treating the parents as the main actors in the treatment with slightly less focus on the child´s participation. BUP, on the other hand is more clearly using concepts linked to the child as the patient with more individual and clear focus on the child´s participation, suggesting that where there is a perception of the family as a system, there is less focus on the child´s participation and where there is more of an individual focus, there is more focus on the child´s participation