Views of the Child Reports: Hearing Directly from Children Involved in Post-Separation Disputes

Rachel Birnbaum
Additional contact information
Rachel Birnbaum: King’s University College, Western University, Canada

Social Inclusion, 2017, vol. 5, issue 3, 148-154

Abstract: Views of the Child reports are being increasingly used in Canada and other countries as a means of directly obtaining the child’s perspective on disputes between their parents and/or guardians. The reports provide information about the child’s perspective based on one or more interviews with a social worker. Yet, little research exists about their use and impact, the benefits and limitations of the approach, and less about what factors need to be considered in establishing practices and protocols to safely advance children’s views before the court. This article draws on the direct experiences of 24 children between the ages of 6–17 years about their views and preferences during family breakdown. The children describe how they wanted to speak to someone about their views and preferences, raised questions about the accuracy of the reporting of their views, the need for protecting their confidentiality by having a say of what is included in the report, and their support for children’s participation in decision-making post-separation. Practice, research and policy considerations are also highlighted in order for children’s participation to be truly meaningful to them, their parents and the courts.

Keywords: child custody; children; dispute; divorce; family; participation; rights; separation; Views of the Child (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/922 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:socinc:v5:y:2017:i:3:p:148-154

DOI: 10.17645/si.v5i3.922

Access Statistics for this article

Social Inclusion is currently edited by Mariana Pires

More articles in Social Inclusion from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().