ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the diverse perspectives of child protection service users, focuses on the general exclusion of the voices of children and parents from practice-related decision-making processes and policy forums. The impacts of new stakeholder organisations, particularly those representing past service users and advocacy groups. The experiences of service users and other stakeholders are vitally important to include in ethical practice and policy development. Yet reports from across the globe suggest that all these important stakeholders often feel excluded. The dominant discourses of child protection, with the attendant emphasis on risk and the immediate protection of children, have left them feeling voiceless and impotent to contribute to improving practice and policies. They consistently say that there are serious impediments to their participation in practice-related processes and decision making in ethically important matters. Perhaps more importantly, service-delivery outcomes poorly meet their needs, and it is to a closer examination.
