Connected Children. Partnership for a knowledge-based and innovative prevention.

Connected Children is a practice–research partnership aimed to develop knowledge-based promotion of wellbeing and prevention of development problems among children and adolescents.

The programme engages with relevant national and international policies with a view to developing early and coordinated interventions for those in difficult living situations, and to strengthen facilitative initiatives for children and adolescents in general.

Connected Children involves research-supported development work at four sites in Sweden, all of which draw inspiration from the Scottish GIRFEC (Getting It Right For Every Child) model.

The model is perceived to foster and to contribute to holistic thinking about children and adolescents, early identification and the coordination of interventions among different supporting actors.

The idea is to take advantage of and enhance children’s or adolescents’ ordinary living context and better accommodate their own perspectives and participation in issues important to them.

The knowledge processes within the programme are organised under three main themes, all of which have proven to pose major challenges in the practical work: (1) system optimization: systemic and management changes within organisations that allow them to achieve their goals; (2) alliance building: collaboration and interplay among the various actors; and (3) holistic life-course perspective: targeting practices through which children and adolescents in need of supplementary developmental support are identified, offered interventions, and followed up.

These three themes are connected through the overarching question of how the developmental work relates to children’s rights, including how their voices and agency are accommodated.

The programme will include interdisciplinary studies and comparative analyses of the change processes, how their intentions are translated locally, and what consequences they have for children, adolescents, and parents.