Children and young people's opinions on topics in the proposal for a new Children's Act: Protocol for scoping review

Summary

In 2018, the Norwegian government appointed a committee to consider proposals for changes to the Children's Act. The committee's mandate was, amongst other, to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of the Children's Act and develop a proposal for a modern and up-to-date Children's Act. The committee has recommended a number of changes, such as strengthening children's rights, including rights related to participation, care, development and protection against violence, and the right to a family life.

We aim to map existing research on children's opinions about the topics outlined in the proposal for a new Children's Act in Norway and what this research shows.

We will conduct a systematic scoping review. This is a type of systematic review that maps and narratively describes the existing research in certain thematic areas. To identify relevant studies, a librarian will perform systematic searches in literature databases - such as PsycINFO, MEDLINE and the Cochrane Library. We will include qualitative studies from Nordic countries, and systematic reviews of qualitative studies published between 2010-2023 that have explored children's opinions on topics addressed in the proposal for a new Children's Act. Researchers will select relevant studies according to the inclusion criteria. For each of the included studies, we will extract relevant information and assess the studies' internal validity. The findings will be presented thematically with simple descriptions of results and conclusions.

Link to the protocol:  https://www.fhi.no/contentassets/e6f1abf6747b488ba60b3021e9b59df9/prosjektplan_barns-meninger-om-tema-som-berores-i-forslaget-til-ny-barnelov.pdf