Children’s Capacities and Role in Matters of Great Significance for Them

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Children’s Capacities and Role in Matters of Great Significance for Them:

Recorded in 2020

Children’s Capacities and Role in Matters of Great Significance for Them

Contributors

Author: Amy McEwan-Strand, Marit Skivenes

Publisher: The International Journal of Children’s Rights

Date: 2020

Geographic Coverage: Europe

Type of Resource: Report

Sector/setting: Academic

Vulnerable groups: Children, Young People

Developed with children and young people? Not specified

Type of participation: Report

Availability: Open Access

Keywords: Adoption from Care, Article 5,  Child’s Participation, Children’s Agency, CRC, Evolving Capacity, Judiciary Decision-making, Norway

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Introduction

Children in public care who cannot be reunified with their birth parents may be adopted, but are children given agency in these cases that are highly important to the involved children? We examine all judgments on adoptions from care made in Norway in a six-year period (2011-2016) involving children aged 4-17 years old, a total of 169 judgments.

Young children do not have their capacity assessed, and older children’s capacity undergoes a shallow assessment at best, and typically only their opinion is mentioned. Age is commonly used as a proxy for competency and maturity, and the role children’s opinion plays in the cases as well as in the decision-making is unclear overall.

Possible explanations for this situation may be lack of guidelines for how to give children agency, that decision-makers do not have sufficient competency in assessing children’s capabilities, and/or that decision-makers are not aware of their obligations or are not willing to give children agency.