This paper explores different orientations to child-centered social work as conveyed in the training materials and guidelines of Looking After Children and Assessment Framework in Australia, Canada and Sweden. ‘Child centered’ is shaped by contextual factors and influences social work practices. We found differences in these approaches as needs based and/or rights based and in relation to how each emphasizes the three P's — Provision, Protection and Participation. Substantial differences were identified both in how references to a child-centered approach appear in theoretical frameworks, values, motives and use of concepts in training materials and guidelines, and in the instructions given as to how to apply these approaches. It appears that Australia balances needs and rights, while Canada is more needs-oriented and Sweden more rights-oriented. Swedish materials show a more explicit emphasis on participation than Australian and Canadian materials. Differences between the three countries indicate the importance of structural, contextual factors shaping orientations to child-centered practice.
By the late 1980s and for the first time in history, the world's children, as citizens, were acknowledged their rights to provision, protection and participation in a UN Convention — the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The convention continues to have an important influence on politics, legislation and attitudes to children worldwide (Verhellen, 2000, John, 2003 and Burr and Montgomery, 2003) with child welfare as one of the fields in which it has begun to influence attitudes to children and their rights. A manifest and evident example is found in the Looking After Children System (LAC), first developed in Great Britain. LAC, together with the Framework for Assessment for Children in Need and their Families (AF), are child-centered approaches which have had significant influence on assessment, planning, intervention and review in more than fifteen different countries on different continents. In keeping with the CRC, LAC, AF and the Integrated Children's Services (ICS), their successor in the UK, call upon child welfare services to be provided in a child-centered manner. This trend toward harmonization in child welfare services has led to the acceptance and implementation of child-centered approaches in many parts of the world, including Australia, Canada, Sweden, Hungary, Denmark and Israel (Cleaver & Walker, 2004).
Although central to the various materials that comprise LAC, AF, and connected approaches, the ‘child centered’ concept is also positioned in relation to other kindred concepts, including children's participation, child perspective, children's needs in focus and partnership. While they all have positive connotations and emphasize an important paradigm shift in views upon children (James, Jonks, & Prout, 1998), their interpretation is complicated (Lansdown, 1995, Andersson, 2000, Rasmusson et al., 2004, Sinclair, 2004 and Rasmusson, 2006), and likely to vary between different cultural contexts. Generally speaking, when ‘child centered’, as a concept, enters into policy and practice in different child welfare contexts, its meaning is heavily influenced by the climate of the times and is thus shaped by the historical, cultural and social contexts in which it is manifest. Further, as an ideological practice, how child centered is conceptualized will channel the helping efforts of organizations and the social workers in them in specific directions. And, ultimately, how it is conceptualized will also subordinate other perspectives.
The implementers of these child-centered approaches have recognized the importance of training as an important means by which the purposes, intents, outcomes and best practices associated with these approaches are transmitted. Therefore, an important issue of investigation is how the ‘child centered’ approaches of LAC and AF are defined and transmitted from research and child welfare authorities to practice. Another important issue, connected to the spread of LAC, AF and the ICS worldwide, is whether there are any differences in how the concepts are used and interpreted in different national, socio-political, and organizational contexts.
