Adult Involvement in the Exercise of Agency in Child Protection: Children's Desires and Perceptions

The agency of children in child protection services (CPS) facing rules and restrictions due to their protection status is not well known. Agency is defined as conscious and purposeful thoughts and actions by an agent that have an effect in social relationships and institutions. To our knowledge, the literature on children's agency in CPS gives considerable attention to children's relationships with social workers, while other relationships have been overlooked. Studies also tend to focus on young people aged 17 and over, some of whom have had a long placement history, while the agency of younger children experiencing their first removal from their family of origin is unknown. The current study aims to provide an understanding of children's agency with an emphasis on the involvement of adults and children's desires about their involvement. To do so, a secondary qualitative analysis was used for interviews with 37 children aged from 10 to 17 years who have experienced their first removal from the family of origin under child protection in the province of Quebec, Canada. Themes regarding the involvement of adults in CPS were identified in the present results as support desired and perceived by children, discrepancy between children's desires and perceptions, and variations in children's desires according to relationships and situations. These findings should be considered when designing and reviewing interventions oriented toward children. They should be explicitly asked about their desire for adult involvement, which would enable a personalization of services around the need for support or for the autonomous exercise of agency, or both.