The Child’s Guardian – Listening and Giving Weight to Children’s Views

Abstract

Both the child protection and public child law systems assume a child-centred approach is at the heart of their work with children. That assumption is based on what are considered child-centred principles, which are enshrined in legislation in England and Wales in the Children Act 1989, mainly the principle of paramountcy of the child’s welfare in Section 1(1) and the principle of no delay in Section 1(2), in relation to the completion of proceedings ( HM Government, 1989). However, comprehensive reviews of both the child protection system (Munro, 2011) and the family justice system (Family Justice Review Panel, 2011), along with research findings (Cappleman et al ., 2013) present a picture that challenges this assumption. Increasingly, the focus on the child’s life and welfare is hampered by a lack of time and resources available to professionals such as Guardians to enable them establish a meaningful and trusting relationship with the child in order to gain insight into and an understanding of the child’s world from the child’s perspective. The child appears to be very much on the periphery of a system that lacks real connectedness with the child and their view of their situation and circumstances. Such a level of connectedness can only be achieved by providing children with space and time to develop trust in and meaningful relationships with those whose duty it is to represent their true wishes and feelings and give due weight to the child’s perspective.