Young children in Flemish youthcare

Client participation is a central objective in Flemish Youth Care. At the same time, little is known about how children, particularly young children, in youth care experience participation.

In this project, we investigated the perspective of children aged 6 to 12 years old through child-oriented research methods: how do they experience the care? Is it clear to them what is happening on their journey through youth care? Do they know who decides and why? Who can they enquire if there is something they do not understand? Do they know if they can make decisions too? Where and when can they speak up?
In this study we provided space for young children within Flemish Youth Care. We have mapped the experiences, expectations and wishes of young children. We wanted to gain insight into what reduces and what increases the possibility for young children to express themselves.
Through a focus group with professionals in Flemish Youth Care, reflection is given on the results from the interviews with the children. Professionals were asked about their actions, their wishes and their needs according to the participation of younger children.

We noticed that children want to be informed on changes on beforehand. But a lot of them don’t remember how the first meeting with the child service was, except when it was too sudden or a negative experience. What they do remember is who welcomed them. They pointed out that they sometimes received too much information at once. They ask for time to observe and get used to their new environment.

They know their caregivers very well. Some of them have several caregivers, social workers etc. Nevertheless, for them this is okay. But it is important that they are warm and sweet, patient. The child service could pay more attention on creating space for feedback on how children experience the caregivers. Children value the one-to-one individual attention.

Most of the children know that they have a dossier. There is a lot of differences within children in knowledge of the content and level of involvement. But some children don’t want to know what is in their folder: too difficult, too worrisome, …. They trust that adults know better what to write down. Some children worry about who can read their file. All the children who had a file for themselves, measure made, were very proud of it and valued it highly.

Children in semi- and residential care are confronted with a lot of rules. Still, rules are mostly formulated as what they can’t or should not do. Children understand the rules and think that rules are important and necessary. They have a clear opinion on the rules and would like to express what they think about it.

In general, we noticed that the children were well-informed and satisfied with the level of participation. But participation is not the same as involving children as much as possible but rather creating the necessary conditions for children to be informed, speak up and ask questions. And letting the child decide whether and how it wants to be informed and involved.

Boundary conditions are important to be set out, based on the input of children and professionals:

• participation is more than a tool or a method, it is especially about the researcher’s and practicioner’s attitude;
• importance of a meaningful informed consent;
• create openness and trust, give children autonomy;
• keep the introverts in mind! (make sure you also involve children who are less verbal, more silent, who don’t speak up immediately … use triggers);
• concretise, visualise;
• you need space and time.

By this project we wanted to be inspiring to professionals and at the same time encourage the professionals and children to reflect and dialogue: What do children tell us about participation in youth care? What are entrance gates to work with young children on a participatory basis? Which methodologies can be used?