A new panorama of child voice in the child protection context

This chapter uses reflexivity, the ability to reflect and recognise how individuals and their contexts connect with social and cultural understandings (Fook, 2004, p 18), to encourage a different view of child voice. It proposes that child voice within child protection processes is the product of a dynamic interplay of relationships that occurs within and outside of the child protection system. These relationships include those between children1 subject to child protection interventions and child protection practitioners; child protection practitioners and the organisations who employ them, thus providing the institutional settings for child protection practice; and children and the state, both the state as guardian and in the state's role in providing resources to children and families (the welfare state). Both structural and cultural dimensions of relationships need to be analysed to recognise under which conditions children can express voice.