N P Thomas
Biographic Data
| ID | 44583 |
|---|---|
| NAME | N P Thomas |
| GIVEN NAMES | N P |
| FAMILY NAME | Thomas |
| SIGNATURE | THOMAS N P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Lancashire |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5310-9144 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 54 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 318 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 54 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
A Handbook of Children and Young People’s Participation
This paper reflects on the transformative potential of a peer research project that was concerned with women’s access to travel in low-income neighbourhoods in three African cities – Abuja, Cape Town and Tunis. For the young unemployed women who partnered in this project from 2019 to 2022, peer research offered an opportunity to grow confidence, generate income, manage emotions and build respect in their communities, which was valuable during Cov…
Child‐safe organizations and the ethics of empowered inclusion
The emergence of the ‘child‐safe’ organization requires close attention to practices that contribute to children's wellbeing and safety. Based on data collected in schools, residential care and disability services, this article argues for a more nuanced understanding of the ethical frameworks informing practice in these settings. Findings suggest both young people and adults predominantly describe ethical practice in terms of intersubjective rela…
Positive links between student participation, recognition and wellbeing at school
Exploring the associations between student participation, wellbeing and recognition at school
Children’s right to participate, at least in rhetoric, is well recognised, but what this means and the associated benefits in schools are less clear. This article synthesises findings of a large mixed-methods Australian study comprising policy analysis, qualitative interviews with students, teachers and policymakers, and the development of a Student Participation Scale, which was then used in a student survey to explore associations between parti…
Children and safety in Australian policy
Child safety is now a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive enquiries and reviews have escalated legislative and policy responses focused on developing, maintaining and monitoring “child safe” organisations. The recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse point to the importance of cultural conditions within organisations in supporting child safety and the need for responsive change in som…
Child-led research, children's rights and childhood studies
Recent articles by Kim and Hammersley have critiqued, respectively: the methodological and normative assumptions that underlie research 'by' children; claims made about the implications of children's rights for the ethics of research with children; and more broadly, some of the central commitments of Childhood Studies. This paper offers a response to these critiques, seeking to distinguish between those that clearly should be accepted, those that…
Child safety in policy
Keeping children safe from harm is a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive inquiries and reviews have highlighted institutions' persistent failures to respond ethically and appropriately to child abuse and its life‐long impacts on survivors. Policy efforts now reflect considerable emphasis on safeguarding children, including through the development of ‘child safe’ organisations. The realisation of these policy aspirations requires clos…
Participating in social exclusion
This paper offers a critical reflexive perspective on a Participatory Action Research project with young people at a site of ‘advanced urban marginality’ ( Wacquant, 2008 ). Its purpose is to explore the ways in which habitus based inequalities in the research field ( Bourdieu, 1977 ) contributed to a parallel process of marginalisation and exclusion in the act of participating. More specifically, we examine how a particular professional academic…
What is the Point of Studying Childhood as a Social Phenomenon
Independent Reviewing Officers’ and social workers’ perceptions of children’s participation in Children in Care Reviews
Purpose The research reported here forms part of a study of children’s participation in children in care reviews and decision making in one local authority in England. The purpose of this paper is to outline the views of 11 social workers and 8 Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) and explores their perceptions of children’s participation in reviews. The paper considers the barriers to young people participating meaningfully in decision making a…
Understanding the Impact of Independent Human Rights Institutions for Children
This article reports a study of the impact of independent human rights institutions for children, using methods drawn from critical realism and appreciative inquiry. A survey of member institutions of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children enquired into the contexts, mechanisms and outcomes of their work. The results showed wide variation in the situation, aims and methods of working of the institutions, along with some strong commona…
Navigating the ambiguous policy landscape of student participation
Student participation at school is receiving heightened attention through international evidence connecting it to a range of benefits including student learning, engagement, citizenship and wellbeing, as well as to overall school improvement. Yet the notion of student participation remains an ambiguous concept, and one that challenges many deeply entrenched norms of traditional schooling.Informed by understandings of ‘participation’ linked to the…
A Pest to Society’
This article examines the work of the Charity Organisation Society ( COS ) in assessing applications for children's admission to care in the late nineteenth‐century. It is based on an archive study of records kept by the ‘Waifs and Strays’ Society in England and Wales between 1882 and 1899, in particular 270 family assessments conducted by the COS . The focus was on parental behaviour rather than children's needs, with a strong narrative of takin…
Just another person in the room’
This article discusses a key meeting for children in care – the Child in Care Review – and examines the extent to which children and young people are able to participate and exert a level of control over their lives. The research, conducted in England, formed part of a wider exploration of the views and experiences of all those involved in such reviews, namely Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs), social workers, senior managers and – the focus …
Exploring student participation across different arenas of school life
Much has now been written on student participation at school. Yet a lack of conceptual clarity, contestation over purpose and benefits, and uncertainty about how to culturally embed and effectively facilitate participation in school contexts continue to pose considerable challenges. This article reports the qualitative findings from a large‐scale, mixed‐method study that sought to explore how participation is perceived and practised in schools. T…
Independent Advocacy for Children and Young People
This article draws on a study of the outcomes and impact of independent advocacy for children and young people to explore how the value of advocacy is understood by them and by professionals, and what differences advocacy can make to the lives of children and young people. Findings indicate that outcomes of advocacy can be significant and wide‐ranging, including both direct effects on the child or young person and wider impact on services. This h…
The transition to adulthood from care as a struggle for recognition
This article explores young people's experiences in the transition to adulthood from child welfare services and how Honneth's theory of recognition can be useful as an analytical tool to help us understand these experiences. The underpinning empirical research consisted of interviews and focus groups with 43 adolescents who had been in contact with Norwegian child welfare services. Three themes emerged as particularly important: having good relat…
Conceptualisations of children's wellbeing at school
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 i…
Support for Children’s Protagonism
With notable exceptions, there is a lack of critique in existing approaches to children’s rights based research. Where children’s rights research is also co-research with children, a critical approach requires that children are enabled to challenge assumptions about, and definitions of, rights, as well as to lead the process and to try to bring about change. This paper argues that creative methods and structured intergenerational dialogue can sup…
Children's participation in LAC reviews
Although the law in E ngland and W ales requires a child's wishes and feelings to be heard in LAC (Looked After Children) reviews, there remains limited research into how far this is achieved. This study interviewed 25 children and 16 foster carers to explore how well children understand and take part in reviews, and what factors impede this. The study found that levels of participation, as experienced by children and foster carers, were very low…
A qualitative study of parents' experiences using family support services
United Kingdom policy and practice endorses family support for child well-being. Achieving such support requires multi-agency approaches that consider all aspects of parents' and children's lives and which offer practical, social and emotional help. The potential for services to make a positive impact on parents and their families will depend in part on the level and nature of engagement. In this paper, a case is made for the application of the t…
Obstacles for child participation in care and protection cases—why Norwegian social workers find it difficult
Although some attempts are being made to increase children's participation in Norwegian child protection cases, much needs to be done in order to comply with the participation principle in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This paper reports on a study of factors that are likely to predict if social workers will attempt to give children an effective voice in decision making processes. 53 child protection case managers and …
The Child in International Political Economy
The Child in International Political Economy: A Place At The Table By M. Watson Alison Abingdon : Routledge , 2009 ISBN 9780415357371 , 152 pp, £80.00 (hb ) In 1995, George Kent published Children in the International Political Economy, part of the Macmillan International Political Economy Series. The focus was on the conditions in which children lived, in particular ‘children’s problems’ of mortality, child labour, prostitution, armed conflict a…
Love, rights and solidarity
Recent attempts to theorize children's participation have drawn on a wide range of ideas, concepts and models from political and social theory. The aim of this article is to explore the specific usefulness of Honneth's theory of a 'struggle for recognition' in thinking about this area of practice. The article identifies what is distinctive about Honneth's theory of recognition, and how it differs from other theories of recognition. It then consid…
Participation and health - a research review of child participation in planning and decision-making
Effective child participation in child protection proceedings has proved difficult to achieve in Norway. Although participation is in principle accepted as a human right and something of benefit to children, when children's health is at stake there is a tendency to view participation in decision-making processes by children as potentially disruptive to their well-being. The purpose of this study is to review the research evidence for effects, pos…
Towards a Theory of Children's Participation
framework for understanding what we mean when we talk about 'children's participation'. It does this by mapping some of the territory denoted by 'children's participation', reviewing some of the criticisms that have made of participatory practice, and looking at some ways of conceptualising the field using a combination of existing models and new concepts from political and social theory, in particular from the work of Young and Bourdieu
Love, rights and solidarity
Recent attempts to theorize children's participation have drawn on a wide range of ideas, concepts and models from political and social theory. The aim of this article is to explore the specific usefulness of Honneth's theory of a 'struggle for recognition' in thinking about this area of practice. The article identifies what is distinctive about Honneth's theory of recognition, and how it differs from other theories of recognition. It then consid…
Your friends don’t understand’
This paper is based on a study of the experiences of people identified as ‘young carers’, commissioned by the National Assembly for Wales as part of a wider review of carers’ needs and services. Following a brief review of some of the previous research in this area, the paper reports key findings of the research, using the words of children and young people as much as possible. It then goes on to explore some of the wider implications of this and…
Beyond talking – children's participation in Norwegian care and protection cases
The attempt to give children an effective voice in social work processes which can have substantial impact on their lives takes different forms in countries with varying professional cultures and legal frameworks. This paper reports on a study of children's participation in decision-making in care and protection services in Norway, which was carried out in conjunction with a project to support social work teams in enabling children to participate…
The ‘inclusion’ of elite athletes with disabilities in the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games
The XVII 2002 Commonwealth Games held in Manchester, England, was the first major international multi-sport event to include elite athletes with disabilities (EADs) in its main sports programme and medal table. In this exploratory article we seek to examine some of the complex issues surrounding the inclusion of EADs in the Manchester Games by analysing the coverage afforded those athletes by six national British newspapers. The results suggest t…
Just another person in the room’
This article discusses a key meeting for children in care – the Child in Care Review – and examines the extent to which children and young people are able to participate and exert a level of control over their lives. The research, conducted in England, formed part of a wider exploration of the views and experiences of all those involved in such reviews, namely Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs), social workers, senior managers and – the focus …
The transition to adulthood from care as a struggle for recognition
This article explores young people's experiences in the transition to adulthood from child welfare services and how Honneth's theory of recognition can be useful as an analytical tool to help us understand these experiences. The underpinning empirical research consisted of interviews and focus groups with 43 adolescents who had been in contact with Norwegian child welfare services. Three themes emerged as particularly important: having good relat…
Conceptualisations of children's wellbeing at school
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 i…
Child-led research, children's rights and childhood studies
Recent articles by Kim and Hammersley have critiqued, respectively: the methodological and normative assumptions that underlie research 'by' children; claims made about the implications of children's rights for the ethics of research with children; and more broadly, some of the central commitments of Childhood Studies. This paper offers a response to these critiques, seeking to distinguish between those that clearly should be accepted, those that…
Children's participation in LAC reviews
Although the law in E ngland and W ales requires a child's wishes and feelings to be heard in LAC (Looked After Children) reviews, there remains limited research into how far this is achieved. This study interviewed 25 children and 16 foster carers to explore how well children understand and take part in reviews, and what factors impede this. The study found that levels of participation, as experienced by children and foster carers, were very low…
Exploring student participation across different arenas of school life
Much has now been written on student participation at school. Yet a lack of conceptual clarity, contestation over purpose and benefits, and uncertainty about how to culturally embed and effectively facilitate participation in school contexts continue to pose considerable challenges. This article reports the qualitative findings from a large‐scale, mixed‐method study that sought to explore how participation is perceived and practised in schools. T…
Support for Children’s Protagonism
With notable exceptions, there is a lack of critique in existing approaches to children’s rights based research. Where children’s rights research is also co-research with children, a critical approach requires that children are enabled to challenge assumptions about, and definitions of, rights, as well as to lead the process and to try to bring about change. This paper argues that creative methods and structured intergenerational dialogue can sup…
It's about changing services and building relationships’
The introduction of Children in Care Councils under the Care Matters reforms in England set a challenge for local authorities to find effective ways by which children in care could contribute their views to the planning and provision of services. This paper discusses a review of progress across London which combined a survey of boroughs with focus group discussions with young people, local authority staff and elected members. The research found t…
Child safety in policy
Keeping children safe from harm is a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive inquiries and reviews have highlighted institutions' persistent failures to respond ethically and appropriately to child abuse and its life‐long impacts on survivors. Policy efforts now reflect considerable emphasis on safeguarding children, including through the development of ‘child safe’ organisations. The realisation of these policy aspirations requires clos…
Has Anything Really Changed? Managers' Views of Looked after Children's Participation in 1997 and 2004
A postal survey of local authority child care managers was conducted in 1997–98 as part of a study of children's participation in decision-making in care. The same survey was repeated, with minor variations, in 2004. Nigel Thomas compares what managers said about policy and practice in their local authorities in the two studies. The results suggest that there have been significant perceived changes in the way in which local authorities seek to en…
Experiences of Decision-Making in Middle Childhood
This article is based on a study of children's participation in decisions when they are looked after by local authorities in England and Wales, which included individual and group interviews with 47 children. In the course of the research, children and their carers talked about their very varied experiences of involvement in decision-making, not just in the care system but in everyday life. The article recounts some of these experiences using chi…
Independent Reviewing Officers’ and social workers’ perceptions of children’s participation in Children in Care Reviews
Purpose The research reported here forms part of a study of children’s participation in children in care reviews and decision making in one local authority in England. The purpose of this paper is to outline the views of 11 social workers and 8 Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) and explores their perceptions of children’s participation in reviews. The paper considers the barriers to young people participating meaningfully in decision making a…
A qualitative study of parents' experiences using family support services
United Kingdom policy and practice endorses family support for child well-being. Achieving such support requires multi-agency approaches that consider all aspects of parents' and children's lives and which offer practical, social and emotional help. The potential for services to make a positive impact on parents and their families will depend in part on the level and nature of engagement. In this paper, a case is made for the application of the t…
Evaluating the Children's Commissioner for Wales
This article reports the results of an evaluation of the Children's Commissioner for Wales, which was planned and conducted with the active participation of children and young people. This article begins by giving the background to the evaluation and explaining the methods used. The findings are reported in relation to five key questions: (i) how well the Commissioner's office engages with children and young people; (ii) how much children and you…
Children and safety in Australian policy
Child safety is now a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive enquiries and reviews have escalated legislative and policy responses focused on developing, maintaining and monitoring “child safe” organisations. The recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse point to the importance of cultural conditions within organisations in supporting child safety and the need for responsive change in som…
Participating in social exclusion
This paper offers a critical reflexive perspective on a Participatory Action Research project with young people at a site of ‘advanced urban marginality’ ( Wacquant, 2008 ). Its purpose is to explore the ways in which habitus based inequalities in the research field ( Bourdieu, 1977 ) contributed to a parallel process of marginalisation and exclusion in the act of participating. More specifically, we examine how a particular professional academic…
Understanding the Impact of Independent Human Rights Institutions for Children
This article reports a study of the impact of independent human rights institutions for children, using methods drawn from critical realism and appreciative inquiry. A survey of member institutions of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children enquired into the contexts, mechanisms and outcomes of their work. The results showed wide variation in the situation, aims and methods of working of the institutions, along with some strong commona…
Navigating the ambiguous policy landscape of student participation
Student participation at school is receiving heightened attention through international evidence connecting it to a range of benefits including student learning, engagement, citizenship and wellbeing, as well as to overall school improvement. Yet the notion of student participation remains an ambiguous concept, and one that challenges many deeply entrenched norms of traditional schooling.Informed by understandings of ‘participation’ linked to the…
Ways Forward
The police role in the management of child protection services
The involvement of police in child protection services has undergone substantial changes since the mid 1970s when there was a dramatic increase in emphasis placed on interagency coordination and cooperation. However, the literature on child protection, whilst addressing issues of how agencies work together in individual cases of abuse, says very little about how the services available for abused children and their families are jointly managed. Th…
Death of a Murderess
Child Welfare Services in Russia
This is an account of a visit to Moscow in May 1994 to assess the possibilities for collaboration in developing child welfare services in Russia. The authors argue that the present situation is a critical one for millions of children, and that there is an urgent need for practical and theoretical assistance from Britain
Good Practice
Are Children Still Waiting? Recent Developments and the Impact of the Children Act 1989
The survey and consolidation of industrial remains in Cornwall — a progress report
The survey and consolidation of industrial remains in Cornwall — a progress report
(1995). The survey and consolidation of industrial remains in Cornwall — a progress report. Industrial Archaeology Review: Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 29-38
Allegations of child abuse in local authority care
This article reviews research about child abuse, and allegations of abuse, in local authority foster care. It goes on to discuss government and local authority responses in terms of procedures and guidance, with particular reference to experience in one local authority. It concludes by questioning the applicability of child protection procedures to many of the situations which arise in foster care
Young People’s Social Attitudes
The Voice of the Child
The Voice of the Child
A comparison of child protection local procedures handbooks
Doctors treat patients, not populations. 'Evidence-based' practice is essential but extrapolation to the individual patient is always necessary and this fact is well illustrated by data from trials of ACE inhibitors post-myocardial infarction. In the AIRE (Acute Infarction Ramipril Efficacy) study, 2,006 patients with some evidence of heart failure, even if transient, after a myocardial infarction, were randomised to receive oral ramipril or plac…
The police role in the management of child protection services
The involvement of police in child protection services has undergone substantial changes since the mid 1970s when there was a dramatic increase in emphasis placed on interagency coordination and cooperation. However, the literature on child protection, whilst addressing issues of how agencies work together in individual cases of abuse, says very little about how the services available for abused children and their families are jointly managed. Th…
Safeguarding Children under the Children Act 1989
Policy priorities in child protection
A growing consensus among researchers and practitioners that the current emphasis on identification and investigation of child abuse may be counter‐productive has been slow to produce changes at the policy level. Using the operation of interagency Area Child Protection Committees as an example, this paper suggests that professional and managerial perception of risk of public criticism or media exposure play a significant part in determining polic…
The ethics of participatory research with children
This paper argues that ethical problems in research involving direct contact with children can be overcome by using a participatory approach. A study of children's participation in decisions when they are looked after is described in terms of how a view of the ‘social child’ (James, 1995) shaped the approach to establishing contact with children, the choice of topics and methods of communication which were used, and the way in which children were…
The ethics of participatory research with children
This paper argues that ethical problems in research involving direct contact with children can be overcome by using a participatory approach. A study of children's participation in decisions when they are looked after is described in terms of how a view of the ‘social child’ (James, 1995) shaped the approach to establishing contact with children, the choice of topics and methods of communication which were used, and the way in which children were…
Experiences of Decision-Making in Middle Childhood
This article is based on a study of children's participation in decisions when they are looked after by local authorities in England and Wales, which included individual and group interviews with 47 children. In the course of the research, children and their carers talked about their very varied experiences of involvement in decision-making, not just in the care system but in everyday life. The article recounts some of these experiences using chi…
Your friends don’t understand’
This paper is based on a study of the experiences of people identified as ‘young carers’, commissioned by the National Assembly for Wales as part of a wider review of carers’ needs and services. Following a brief review of some of the previous research in this area, the paper reports key findings of the research, using the words of children and young people as much as possible. It then goes on to explore some of the wider implications of this and…
The ‘inclusion’ of elite athletes with disabilities in the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games
The XVII 2002 Commonwealth Games held in Manchester, England, was the first major international multi-sport event to include elite athletes with disabilities (EADs) in its main sports programme and medal table. In this exploratory article we seek to examine some of the complex issues surrounding the inclusion of EADs in the Manchester Games by analysing the coverage afforded those athletes by six national British newspapers. The results suggest t…
Remaking social work with children and families
Parenting and parenting support
Has Anything Really Changed? Managers' Views of Looked after Children's Participation in 1997 and 2004
A postal survey of local authority child care managers was conducted in 1997–98 as part of a study of children's participation in decision-making in care. The same survey was repeated, with minor variations, in 2004. Nigel Thomas compares what managers said about policy and practice in their local authorities in the two studies. The results suggest that there have been significant perceived changes in the way in which local authorities seek to en…
Ways Forward
Towards a Theory of Children's Participation
framework for understanding what we mean when we talk about 'children's participation'. It does this by mapping some of the territory denoted by 'children's participation', reviewing some of the criticisms that have made of participatory practice, and looking at some ways of conceptualising the field using a combination of existing models and new concepts from political and social theory, in particular from the work of Young and Bourdieu
Beyond talking – children's participation in Norwegian care and protection cases
The attempt to give children an effective voice in social work processes which can have substantial impact on their lives takes different forms in countries with varying professional cultures and legal frameworks. This paper reports on a study of children's participation in decision-making in care and protection services in Norway, which was carried out in conjunction with a project to support social work teams in enabling children to participate…
Sociology (38 works) · Political science (37 works) · Psychology (35 works) · Children's Rights and Participation (28 works) · Law (25 works) · Medicine (23 works) · Law (21 works) · Public relations (19 works) · Child Welfare and Adoption (14 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (14 works)