Cambios en las distancias in teratómicas y efecto sobre la superconductividad.

Based on a limited inventory of international child best interests initiatives from 2004 onwards, a content analysis was performed which uncovered four common tensions in the translation of the best interests principle from theory to practice: the workability of a vague and generalist concept, conflict of interests, hearing children’s voices and child rights impact assessments at the policy level. A number of the initiatives offered valuable ways to address some of the identified difficulties. These approaches were more thoroughly investigated and discussed in this report, based on the premise that ‘good practices’ can be used as an inspiration to further develop and promote a best interests framework that is applicable in children’s daily realities.

It was found that formulating a substantive interpretation of the best interests principle that is applicable to a broad variety of individual situations is difficult, as this principle appears to be inevitably indeterminate, flexible, dynamic, developmentally dependent and context-specific. These characteristics complicate the production of concrete ‘instruments’ to efficiently estimate children’s best interests in different particular situations. Kalverboer & Zijlstra (2006) did portray that the creation of a concrete interpretation, based on a solid scientific methodology, is not impossible, although it is important to clarify the limitations as well as the specific framework the interpretation is based upon. The advantage of their model is the potential it holds to copy the methodology to come to a culturally sensitive interpretation – and/or interpretations for different substantive themes, such as the best interests of children in detention – as a culturally sensitive framework can be used as a starting point.

Apart from Kalverboer & Zijlstra’s (2006) exercise, the content analysis indicated that when working with or about children’s best interests, it might be necessary to simply accept the lack of a generally applicable interpretation and to instead focus on procedural elements to come to an adequate assessment. In line with this observation, based on the findings of the content analysis, it was suggested in this report to address a best interests decision as the end of a learning trajectory – rather than as the final result a concrete instrument – in which adults together with children learn about what is best for the child. To develop such a learning experience, inspiration can be found in mediation mechanisms and practices that are specifically directed towards learning about each other’s perspective. Since mediation practices initially developed in a context of conflict resolution, the suggestion to implement these in a best interests determination moreover concurs with the observation that children’s interests may at times conflict with the interests of other involved parties. Additionally, it was suggested to explicate other parties’ interests – such as parental interests – as well, and to develop mechanisms to safeguard these interests. This way, the use of the children’s best interests principle as a general pretense to defend all involved interests, can be avoided.

Furthermore, even though the importance of education and training may appear to be self-evident, the findings from the content analysis suggest that the background, knowledge and communicative skills of the individual who performs the best interests assessment may be more important than the tool that is used for the assessment. Best interests determinations are not merely a matter of applying a certain instrument or filling out a checklist. The individual knowledge, background and personal characteristics of the professional performing the assessment may play a more decisive role in the process. This reflection does not erase Smeyers’ (2010) criticism about the unattainability of an ‘objective’ interpretation of the best interests principle, but addresses it by putting focus on training and education, this way providing the involved professionals with the necessary competences to perform the assessment as adequate and holistic as possible. Especially in cases in which important

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decisions are taken by individuals whose main experiences or skills are not necessarily child-specific – such as return decisions taken by immigration judges – training directed at understanding child psychology, development and/or a child rights perspective may bring added value. The content analysis uncovered that different educational programs and practical training packages do yet exist for a variety of professional groups. These packages can serve as an inspiration for policy makers or practitioners who wish to start up a child-specific program. Furthermore, bachelors or masters in Childhood Studies, Children’s Studies or Children and Youth studies – which are interdisciplinary programs focusing on child development and children's livelihoods and welfare from sociological, psychological, cultural, economic… perspectives – can get involved in the creation of such a program. Finally, monitoring and feedback were found to be important processes in the education of the decision-maker. Indeed, an ex-post or feedback system allows the decision-maker to learn about the consequences of his decision. This way, more varied knowledge and experience to come to more adapted decisions in the future is built.

Monitoring and feedback are therefore considered important (final) components of decision-making procedures. The development and clarification of a clear decision-making procedure or structure was suggested in this report, based on the premise that explicating how a best interests assessment is to be performed may be more feasible than predefining the substantive elements that should be included in the assessment. Such an exercise decreases chances of arbitrary decision-making by visualizing possible underlying assumptions, avoiding focus on intuition and generally rationalizing the decision- making process. Findings from the content analysis uncovered that a decision-making structure should at least clearly differentiate between (1) the assessment of the maturity of the child, which is necessary to weigh the opinion of the child in the process and (2) the assessment of the child’s best interests, which will be the dominant consideration in the final decision. Traditional decision-making structures generally hold (1) an exploratory phase in which relevant information is gathered, (2) a problem analysis and development of different decision alternatives, (3) an assessment of the consequences of the different alternatives, (4) evaluation and selection of one of the alternatives and (5) follow-up and monitoring. However, other decision-making procedures may also be available.

The ‘insider perspective’, which can be obtained through participation of the rights holders themselves (the children) is considered important in the best interests procedure. In the inventoried projects, the concept of ‘participation’ is predominantly interpreted as ‘hearing children’s voices’. Participation is used in an instrumental way, as a means to acquire understanding of what the child feels, thinks and believes is in his best interests. To do so, it is important to adequately inform children (in their own language and adapted to their own level of understanding). The weight to be allotted to a child’s opinion strongly relates to the maturity of the child. As age cannot be considered an adequate criterion to evaluate the child’s decision-making capacities, this should be judged on a case-by-case basis. Especially the way in which children express their opinion, their reasoning and their understanding of the consequences of the different decision alternatives can be used as a guideline in this case. Based on this maturity test, performed by an individual who is up-to-date with recent child developmental knowledge, the child should either be invited to partake in the decision-making process himself – as an equal next to the other involved stakeholders – or be represented by a close family member or a trained professional who expresses the child’s wishes and needs based on close communications with the child.

Hearing children’s voices is not only considered important in individual decisions; in group decisions (for example, policy decisions that impact the lives of more than one child) children’s voices are crucial as well. In this case, an important challenge arising from the content analysis is the assurance of an

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equal representation. Especially socially vulnerable children and youth have a higher risk of being excluded from participatory trajectories, due to various structural barriers. A non-exhaustive number of strategies to address this challenge, such as cooperation with target group specific organizations, the development of adjusted methodologies and representative sampling methods, was suggested based on existing participation and social research practices. As well, in light of a meaningful participation, different authors and practitioners are cautious for tokenism, negative participation and ‘overquerying’ of children.

Finally, a variety of child (rights) impact assessments were included in the analysis, as examples of best interests assessments at the macro or policy level. This consideration was based on two premises, (1) CRIA are brought forward by General Comment 14 as crucial instruments to shape an optimal frame of reference for individual best interests assessments and (2) CRIA procedurally relate to best interests assessments as they both hold an ex-ante reflective process regarding the impact of important decisions on children’s lives. Therefore, it was argued that CRIA and best interests assessments can add to each other by providing original solutions to existing shortcomings. As the focus of this report was on the practice of best interests assessments, this part of the analysis was directed on ways in which best interests assessments can be invigorated by CRIA. Based on a comparison with an extensive evaluation of the Flemish CRIA, a number of interesting recommendations emerged. First of all, it was recommended to centralize knowledge and expertise regarding best interests assessments and make it accessible through online modalities and through the support of a network of informed focal points. Secondly, the facilitation of control over, and appeal to, decisions that directly or indirectly affect children. Third, this comparison referred again to the importance of the social context of the child. Especially in decisions that only indirectly affect children, balancing the different interests involved may be a precarious exercise. Finally, it was advised to emphasize the process character in determining children’s best interests: not the eventual outcome, but the underlying reflections of the assessment are paramount.

To close this report, it should be underlined one more time that the current study was limited by a number of important shortcomings, as was explained in the methodology section of this report. Due to these limitations, the current report is based on only a ‘tip of the iceberg’ of existing best interests initiatives and therefore only discusses the most common and visible tensions regarding the translation of the best interests principle from theory to practice. However, the fact that even such a narrow analytic strategy could bring up a number of useful recommendations and discussion topics, portrays the value of bringing together different insights and expertise that developed ‘bottom-up’ from (local) policy and practice. This analysis shows that practitioners worldwide have not been discouraged by theoretical difficulties in the best interests principle and developed creative ways to effectively use this concept in their own professional reality. The best interests principle is inherently an indeterminate and a dynamic concept, but in its vagueness lies as well its strenght: it prevents standardisation, uniformity and depreciation. Indeed, the margin of appreciation that remains in this concept encourages practioners and policy makers to continuously reflect about what is in children’s best interests and to look for innovative and more adapted approaches to grasp this concept. Consequently, this finding underlines once again that moving forward in the children’s rights field is not merely a matter of creating new theory or legislation. On the contrary, it is the dialogue between theoretical inspiration and practical creativity that can create pathways for actual progress and proficiency.

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