Robyn Margaret Fitzgerald

Progressing children’s participation: exploring the potential of a dialogical turn

Children’s participation is increasingly ambiguous and contested. Such complexity emerges in response to its emancipatory possibilities as well as unresolved tensions and power practices. The authors argue that closer attention must now be given to the interpretative milieu of children’s participation, that is, to the act of dialogue that has emerged as central to the participatory process. They point to the need for a critical examination of dialogue in facilitating and resisting the recognition of children. The article concludes with a number of questions to be addressed, if a dialogic approach to participation is to be more fully realized.

Supporting children’s mental health in schools: teacher views

Schools have increasingly been targeted as appropriate sites for mental health promotion and teachers are considered well placed to identify issues concerning students’ social and emotional well-being. Whilst teachers are now expected to be responsive to a wide range of student needs and circumstances, they receive little in their pre-service and subsequent teacher education to adequately prepare them for such realities. This paper reports the findings of a study that investigated teacher perspectives on student mental health and mental health education, including their sense of self-efficacy in relation to promoting and supporting children’s mental well-being in schools. These findings highlight a complex interplay between teachers’ constructions of ‘mental health’, the importance they place on mental health promotion in schools, issues of teacher confidence, role identity conflict and school culture, as well as teachers’ own sense of mental well-being. The discussion signals a need to pay close attention to the assumptions, values, beliefs and attitudes of teachers in relation to children’s mental health since these are integral to their confidence and skill in supporting children’s social and emotional well-being.

Children's participation in research: Some possibilities and constraints in the current Australian research environment

This article draws attention to a number of critical issues that exist in the current Australian research context which simultaneously enable and constrain children’s participation in research. These include prevailing understandings of children and childhood, the emerging research assessment environment and the ethical frameworks that regulate children’s involvement in qualitative research. The discussion is framed by a number of questions that remain unsettled for the authors as they attempt to pursue research with and for children and young people that is unselfconsciously focused on ‘improving’ rather than ‘proving’ the social conditions that shape their lives.

Taking account of the 'to and fro' of children's experiences in family law

This paper outlines the possibilities and tensions that emerge in legal and social discourse when popular images and narratives of children as ‘at risk’ are juxtaposed with more revised constructions of the child as capable and autonomous. The paper explores this shift in representation of children against a background of extensive family law reform currently under way in Australia. It then reports insights from a pilot study which found that children ‘to and fro’ between accounts of hurt and powerlessness associated with divorce, and their desire to participate in the processes and decisions taking place around them. The paper posits that discourses of participation taken up in research, practice and policy need to acknowledge a dialectic relationship between agency and vulnerability if we are to respond to children in ways that include rather than marginalise. The paper concludes by highlighting some of the challenges that exist for researchers and practitioners seeking to be open to new ways of thinking about children’s lives – ways based on an ethic that refuses the kind of normalisation and neat analyses conventionally pursued through research endeavours.

Something amazing I guess: children's views on having a say about supervised contact

Abstract This paper reports on a small-scale, qualitative study on childrens perspectives about their participation in decision-making processes regarding supervised contact. The paper begins with an overview of the study and a summary of findings in relation to four key research questions framed around the idea of children having a say, that is, childrens views and perspectives of their participation in family law decision-making processes. These key questions include: What are childrens experiences of having a say? What are childrens understandings of having a say? Did children want a say in the decision for them to have supervised contact? How did having (or not having) a say feel? Discussion focuses on what importance children place on having a say in family law matters, a finding that is contrasted with childrens experiences of marginalisation and exclusion from decision-making processes and of ambivalence and reluctance sometimes expressed around having a say. Childrens idea of having a say as taking place in and through particular forms of dialogue and conversation, thus enabling the recognition of children and respect for what they have to say, are also explored. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of the study for professionals working in family law

Conceptualisations of children's wellbeing at school: the contribution of recognition theory

A large study in Australian schools aimed to elucidate understandings of ‘wellbeing’ and of factors in school life that contribute to it. Students and teachers understood wellbeing primarily, and holistically, in terms of interpersonal relationships, in contrast to policy documents which mainly focused on ‘problem areas’ such as mental health. The study also drew on recognition theory as developed by the social philosopher Axel Honneth. Results indicate that recognition theory may be useful in understanding wellbeing in schools, and that empirical research in schools may give rise to further questions regarding theory.

International models of child participation in family law proceedings following parental separation/divorce

This article reports on the findings of a 2009 survey conducted under the auspices of the Childwatch International Research Network about how children’s participation rights, as set out in Articles 12 and 13 of the UNCRC, are respected in private family law proceedings internationally. Court-based and alternative dispute resolution processes and the roles of relevant professionals engaged in child-inclusive practices are considered, as well as religious, indigenous and customary law methods of engaging with children. The findings from the 13 participating countries confirm an increasing international commitment to enhancing children’s participation in family law decision-making, but depict a wide variety of approaches being used to achieve this. Case studies from Australia, India, Israel and New Zealand are included to illustrate differing models of children’s participation currently in use in decision-making processes following parental separation.

The changing status of children within family law from vision to reality

It is almost five years since the previous Coalition government embarked on an agenda for the radical reform of the family law system, with parents the target of the reform agenda and children the espoused beneficiaries. In this article, we argue that little is known about the experience of children in relation to their participation in such decision-making, or about how the amendments are working from their perspective. We look critically at what we mean by children’s ‘participation’ in the context of family law and examine recent, if still limited, research evidence that draws on children’s perspectives. We focus particularly on the tension between children’s need and desire to participate in decision-making processes and the limited opportunity for most to do so, positing a number of reasons why such a gap might exist when children have been foregrounded within the reform agenda. We conclude with some issues that beg further attention if we are to realise a family law system that ‘works better’ for children and young people.