Path toward a Child-Centered Approach in the Czech Social and Legal Protection of Children
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is an interesting account of the development of child protection in the Czech Republic over the last two decades. There is a lot more about where things are at the moment than where they were in the past, which is not a big problem. However it would be interesting to add a few short reflections about what (if anything) was drawn from other EU nations, who went through the journey towards more child centred policies approximately a decade earlier.
The other possible addition would be a consideration of the sociology of the 'motherhood mystique' and the difficulty of working with this as a social worker, balancing the child's needs and interests to remain in the family if at all possible. You do give good worked examples of this in your reference to Roma children, and to socio-economic hardship however.
There's a muddled sentence on line 28-29 where the meaning seems to be reversed- you mention 'underestimating or overlooking the children's own potential... may actually lead to the fulfilment of his or her best interests.' Need to revisit that one, I think.
Author Response
Thank you for reading and your suggestions. A short reflection of international influence was added to Section 6 – Conslusion. We mentioned the sociology of the motherhood mystique and its consequences in Section 4.1. We agree that it is a useful concept. The sentence on line 28-29 has been corrected.
Reviewer 2 Report
Sustainability Journal
Path toward child-centred approach in the Czech social and legal protection of children
Dear Authors
Thank you for the opportunity of reading this interesting report of your research. Your paper was clear and logically sequenced. Your research has yielded some findings that are worth reporting by providing an insight to the child-centred approach of the Czech Republic’s child protection in the professional discourse. See additional comments below:
Comments:
- Originality:
This paper does make a case for contribution. However I felt that it would have been helpful for the reader to have the overarching research questions used in order to provide a clearer link between these, the method of analysis, and the presentation of the findings. - Literature Used:
The literature review was very well described, bringing together a range of literature relevant to the topic, providing a logical justification for the direction of the research. - Methodology:
The methodology used in the paper was well described and designed. There was however no discussion of the overarching research questions that guided the qualitative thematic analysis. - Results:
The results section gives a clear discussion of the findings and the figures and tables were used well to present the data. These results were used clearly in the conclusion. - Implications for research, practice and/or society:
The paper did address the broader implications of their study taking into consideration the international audience of the journal. - Quality of Communication:
This paper was written in a highly readable manner, with a consistent format. Similarly, the mechanics of referencing and citations are mostly well handed. I did note some style errors and these are listed below for consideration.
Page 1, line 12 – in this line I wondered if the word text referred to the paper or professional text. It would be helpful to clarify this.
Page 1, line 17 – suggest that you insert ‘out’ after points
Page 3, line 113 – change Czech Republic to CZE [as per Page 2, line 40]
Page 3, lines 119-121 – As this is a direct quote needs to be written in italics [see Page 3, lines 83-85] and a page number provided
Page 4, line 160 – change children rights to children’s rights
Page 5, lines 203 - change Czech Republic to CZE
Page 10, line 347 – suggest you delete or after Macela [83], and insert ‘and’
Page 12, lines 452 – delete ‘on the Rights of the Child’ after Convention [see Page 3, lines 113-114]
Page 13 line 464 – at the end of this line suggest that you delete ‘or’ and insert and
Page 13, line 493 - change Czech Republic to CZE
Page 14, line 509 - change Czech Republic to CZE
Page 14, line 510 - delete ‘on the Rights of the Child’ after Convention
Page 16, line 594 - change Czech Republic to CZE
Page 16, line 611 - change Czech Republic to CZE
Page 16, line 616 - change Czech Republic to CZE
Page 17 – 22 – need to go through the references and ensure that they adhere to the referencing protocol. For example, page 17, line 631 2014 needs to be in bold; line 641 European Journal of Social Work needs to be in italics; line 643 findings needs to have a capital as the colon.
Author Response
Thank you for your punctual reading. The research questions were supplemented to Section 3. The style errors have been corrected. Thank you for your punctual reading. Exception is page 3 line 119-121. It is a quotation from the Convention, and so we do not use page number, but we have written that it is content of Article 3 of the Convention.
