Human Rights in Child Protection: Implications for Professional Practice and Policy

This open access book critically explores what child protection policy and professional practice would mean if practice was grounded in human rights standards. This book inspires a new direction in child protection research – one that critically assesses child protection policy and professional practice with regard to human rights in general, and the rights of the child in particular. Each chapter author seeks to approach the rights of the child from their own academic field of interest and through a comparative lens, making the research relevant across nation-state practices. The book is split into five parts to focus on the most important aspects of child protection. The first part explains the origins, aim, and scope of the book; the second part explores aspects of professionalism and organization through law and policy; and the third part discusses several key issues in child protection and professional practice in depth. The fourth part discusses selected areas of importance to child protection practices (low-impact in-house measures, public care in residential care and foster care respectively) and the fifth part provides an analytical summary of the book. Overall, it contributes to the present need for a more comprehensive academic debate regarding the rights of the child, and the supranational perspective this brings to child protection policy and practice across and within nation-states. .

Chapter 1. Child Protection and Human Rights: A Call for Professional Practice and Policy; Asgeir Falch-Eriksen and Elisabeth Backe-Hansen -- Chapter 2. Children´s right to protection under the CRC; Kirsten Sandberg -- Chapter 3. Rights and professional practice. How to understand their interconnection; Asgeir Falch-Eriksen -- Chapter 4. The child’s best interest principle across child protection jurisdictions; Marit Skivenes and Line Marie Sørsdal -- Chapter 5. Re-designing organisations to facilitate rights-based practice in child protection; Eileen Munro and Andrew Turnell -- Chapter 6. Experts by Experience Infusing Professional Practices in Child Protection; Tarja Pösö -- Chapter 7. The Rights of Children Placed in Out-of-home Care; Anne-Dorthe Hestbæk -- Chapter 8. Emergency Placements – human rights limits and lessons; Elisabeth Gording-Stang -- Chapter 9. Rights-based practice and marginalised children in child protection work; Bente Kojan and Graham Clifford -- Chapter 10. In-home services: A rights-based professional practice meets children’s and families’ needs; Øivin Christiansen and Ragnhild Hollekim -- Chapter 11. Embodied care practices and the realisation of the best interests of the child in residential institutions for young children; Cecilie Baasberg Neumann -- Chapter 12. Formal participation rights meeting everyday participation in foster care – a challenge?; Elisabeth Backe-Hansen -- Conclusion. Towards rights-based child protection work; Elisabeth Backe-Hansen and Asgeir Falch-Eriksen.