Over the past decades, child involvement has come to play an increasingly prominent role in the public and political discourse surrounding at-risk children. In accordance with the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, national Danish legislation obliges case workers to consider the perspective of the child as part of any case. Current political trends tend toward an increasingly individualized perception of the child, and further emphasizes child involvement as a pillar of social services pertaining to at-risk children. Research shows that most of these children do feel included, which is to say well-informed and having appropriate influence. There is however a tendency for younger at-risk children, as well as those most vulnerable, to feel less involved than others. Furthermore, there is no generally accepted definition of child involvement, which calls into question what more involvement entails. In current public and political discourse, child involvement is perceived almost entirely positively. This study takes the position that such conviction may serve to obscure weaknesses and unintended consequences of current practices pertaining to child involvement and seeks to produce novel insights into these practices.The study is based on interviews with four practicing case workers currently employed in departments specializing in cases where foster care is either implemented or considered. Analysis of the data took an inductive approach, taking inspiration from the school of philosophical hermeneutics in particular. The data was divided into abstract considerations and relayed practical examples, after which both categories were submitted to thematic coding. The analysis was built around the themes which were deemed sufficiently illuminated and supported by both categories. The study concludes that case worker practice pertaining to the involvement of severely at-risk children is distinctly relational. Considerable emphasis is placed on establishing a safe, entrusted relationship with the child, and several strategies employed to facilitate such relationships are identified, including meeting the child in a safe location, frequent meetings and demonstrating that the case worker acts on the information given. A confidential relationship makes the task of documenting the child’s perspective easier. However, it may be challenging to maintain over time, and can create expectations that exceed the intended role of the case worker, thus creating a risk of later disappointment. Sufficient communication of the boundaries of the relationship is deemed important to protect the child against such experiences and maintain the relationship. Several informants place emphasis on the child having direct telephonic access to the case worker – possibly as a stopgap measure to compensate for heavy caseloads, which impact the ability of the case worker to arrange frequent personal meetings. If true, this may contribute to marginalization of vocally inferior children.The study further concludes that relations between the authorities and the parents of a child can influence the practices surrounding involvement of the child. Oppositional parents may ‘prep’ children to relay demands through the mouth of the child or seek to influence or restrict their utterances on sensitive topics. However, elements of the data also point to the possibility of case workers seeking to persuade children to accept the point of view of the professionals and argue this to oppositional parents. Adversarial relations between case workers and parents may thus contribute to the child being relegated to the role of messenger. One additional reason given for wanting to avoid parental opposition is their capacity to formally challenge professional decisions made in connection to a case through appeals. The analysis points to a number of avoidance tactics related to avoiding such challenges, including making efforts to validate perspectives that are thought irrelevant and, in one case, seemingly using the promise of a conversation with the child as a bargaining chip to convince an oppositional parent to rescind an unwanted repeal of consent. The analysis indicates that the expectation of appeals results in particular care being taken in a given case, which is described as entailing an additional workload compared to an average case. This may be interpreted as an indication of a worryingly low standard of casework, possibly attributable to a lack of resources.