Children’s Rights to Participate in out-of-Home Care: International Social Work Contexts, Claudia Equit and Jade Purtell (eds.)

Children’s Rights to Participate in Out-of-Home Care, edited by Claudia Equit and Jade Purtell, contains a range of thought-provoking articles from scholars in Australia, North America and Europe about the rights of looked-after children and adolescents to participate in the decisions that affect them. The book weaves across the globe considering young people’s participation in the informal and formal decision-making processes available to them within the child welfare system. The complex issue of participation is considered from both a theoretical and practical standpoint, and a common theme that quickly emerges is the universality of the barriers that exist to ensuring meaningful participation for young people growing up outside of their biological family. The book is largely framed in the context of Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which sets out children’s rights to participate in decisions that affect them. Case studies and other qualitative methodologies are used to discuss various countries’ commitment to young people’s participation. It quickly becomes clear that different countries approach their responsibilities to young people who are unable to live with their biological families in a myriad of different ways, and operate within different child welfare policies and practices. However, it just as quickly becomes painfully apparent that each country could be doing better with regard to the practical implementation of their commitment to Article 12.