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Why Listening to Children and Young People is Important in Family Justice
Author(s) -
Walker Janet,
Misca Gabriela
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
family court review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.171
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 1744-1617
pISSN - 1531-2445
DOI - 10.1111/fcre.12417
Subject(s) - active listening , economic justice , psychology , government (linguistics) , developmental psychology , focus (optics) , social psychology , sociology , political science , law , linguistics , philosophy , physics , communication , optics
During the last 30 years, there has been a growing body of evidence indicating that children and young people often feel marginalized when their parents are making critical decisions that will shape their young lives, and they are calling for family justice professionals to hear their voices. This article explores the research evidence, examines the relevant theories about child development, and demonstrates how a focus on age‐related competency fails to take account of children's subjective meanings about their lives. The authors consider a model of participation first designed to understand adult participation in government and show how this can be usefully applied to understanding children's participation in family justice.