Children challenging their detention under the Mental Health Act 1983: the right to receive child-friendly information as a core feature of their participation rights

Increasing numbers of children are detained in hospitals in England and Wales under the Mental Health Act 1983. The managers of the detaining hospitals are under a statutory duty to provide children with information regarding their right to apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Mental Health) for discharge from detention. This article reports on a study undertaken to assess whether this information is being provided in a child-friendly manner. Freedom of Information requests were used to obtain the information provided. The responses were analysed using the Flesch-Kincaid Formula to obtain readability scores and a problem driven content analysis of the materials was undertaken to assess the extent to which they were appropriate to the distinct needs of children. Miranda Fricker’s concept of ‘epistemic (hermeneutical) injustice’ is used as a lens to conceptualise how the provision of information to children can impact negatively upon their participatory rights resulting in hermeneutical epistemic injustice.