Child-centered approach in the context of the assessment of children in need: Reflections of child protection workers in Estonia

•Child protection workers have adopted the adult's perspective of the child.•The greater focus is on parents' needs rather than the children's needs.•The child is not deemed competent enough to voice his/her opinions and views.•Acting “on” the child could be caused by the traditional approach in social work.•Child protection workers lack skills for engaging with the child.

ObjectiveThis article describes empirical results on how practitioners understand the concept of child-centered approach and how it is applied in practice, extending knowledge of the unresearched phenomena in Estonian child protection practice.MethodA small-scale study included twenty child protection workers from different regions in Estonia, exploring the child-centered approach in assessment practices through in-depth semi-structured interviews.ResultsResults indicate that child-centered approach in the child protection workers' practice is characterized, firstly, by doing work for the child, and less by working with the child, including the fact that some practitioners are somewhat unclear about the meaning of child-centered principle. Majority of the participants underscored the importance of child involvement and partnership in the decision-making process, nevertheless, their case reflections showed that most of them did not include the child in the assessment.Conclusions and implication for practiceFindings highlight several challenges in Estonian child protection system and suggest a need to find ways to support child protection workers' competence and confidence to conduct comprehensive assessments based on the child-centered approach, including the child in the assessment process.