Elaine Sharland and Caitlin Shaughnessy presented a paper on Enhancing Voice About the Use of Children’s Administrative Information, at the European Conference for Social Work Research, Vilnius, Lithuania, on 19th April 2024. The paper fitted well with the central focus of the conference on ‘Envisioning Future: Social Work Research and Discourse in the Age of Industry 4.0’.
Our paper took as its starting point the principle that core to improving the quality and ethical use of children’s information is that children’s and families’ voices must be heard not just within their recorded information, but about whether and how their information is gathered, shared and used. The Children’s Information project is among a growing number of initiatives that have begun to explore how children’s and families’ voices can meaningfully be consulted in the governance and use of their information (Leslie et al., 2020; MacKay and Shirazi, 2022; Thomson & Berriman 2022). This paper sought to open up further the space for dialogue, by looking at these questions through the ethical lenses of: democracy, equality and justice; trustworthiness, transparency and accountability; and professional skills, virtues and culture. Drawing on early findings from two of the Children’s Information project sites, the presentation invited participants to envisage what publicly accountable, ethical and voice-respecting use of children’s administrative information might look like, and what might be the opportunities and challenges for achieving it.
