Children’s participation in the social services’ childcare investigations : A qualitative study about social workers experiences of children’s participation in the social services childcare investigations

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which children participate in the social services childcare investigations but also what impact the incorporation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child had on the investigations according to the social workers. A qualitative method was used, and the study was based on six interviews with social workers from the Swedish social services working with childcare investigations with children in the ages between 0-18 years. The theoretical framework used in this study was Shiers model of pathways to participation. The result of this study shows that the social workers place themselves at least at the third level in Shiers model of pathways to participation while most of the respondents placed themselves at the fourth level of participation before the incorporation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Half of the respondents placed themselves higher on the model of pathways to participation regarding after the convention was incorporated. Although, most of the respondents agreed that the incorporation of the convention has not had any significant impact in practice and expressed that they do not work differently after the incorporation