Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 2023, 45(2): 104-118

Children’s and young people’s opinions and experiences are important to listen to, as they offer perspectives that adults might not be aware of otherwise. Yet children are often viewed as a vulnerable group in need of protection, with adults talking for them instead of letting them speak for themselves. Sometimes this might be the correct decision. However, it is also important to let children and young people participate in research on their own terms, to identify, for example, what kind of support they might need in relation to problems they have experienced. Based on previous research, we revisit this topic and discuss it’s relevance today, once again asking the question of how best to involve children in research in order to hear their views and opinions on matters that concern them. We base our experiences on a research project examining what sheltered housing means for children living there. (Authors' abstract).

This is a paper from a Swedish project called Article 19: What sheltered housing means for abused children. The project consists of two substudies focusing on children's experiences of: (1) living at a DVS with their mother and, potentially, siblings and (2) being denied a place at a DVS for any reason. The data consists of interviews with children aged 7–17 years and mothers of children aged 0–6 years. Record #8678