Children's perceptions of their participation rights context when living in residential care and its relationship with their subjective well-being

Abstract

Background: Participation rights of children in residential care have not been frequently explored despite the positive effects of participation on their subjective well-being (SWB). Objective: To explore the relationship of six rights-related perceptions with the SWB of children and adolescents in residential care. Participants and setting: N = 268, 9–19-year-olds living in residential care. Methods: Five rights-related perceptions were analysed according to scores in two cognitive and two affective SWB scales, through descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. Results: The more children feel adults at home and at school listen to them and take their say into account, the more they feel they are treated fairly by these adults, and the more they perceive adults in general in their country respect children's rights, the higher are their observed SWB scores. The majority rights-related perceptions showed significant effects on positive SWB indicators. However, only they believe that adults in general in their country respect children's rights displayed effects on Negative Affect. Girls' SWB showed lower scores than boys', and girls' rights-related perceptions displayed more effects on their SWB than boys'. Conclusions: There are important percentages of children in residential care who do not feel they are able to participate in aspects of their own lives that directly affect them and their SWB. Children in residential care display lower scores in all the positive measures, especially girls and exceptionally higher scores in the negative affect than the overall Chilean children's population