Objectives: In Sweden children with disabilities get intervention from interprofessional team in pediatric clinics. Children with disabilities are less frequently engaged in activities compared to children without disabilities. Team members working with making children involved in the habilitation process increases the likelihood of increasing involvement in everyday life for the child. Making children with disabilities more involved is crucial as these children risk reduced engagement in activity in daily life.

The aim of the study was to explore how team members perceive the engagement of children with disabilities in the intervention process and what barriers and facilitator they identify when making children participate, from the perspective of the team member or specific profession.       

Design and Method: Data was collected through focus group interviews with team members from pediatric clinics in four Swedish regions. The transcriptions were analysed using a deductive approach.

Results and conclusion: Team members experience that children can comprehend intervention process, experience trust and the context for meeting and children´s social environment affect the children´s engagement. Facilitators could be that team members have prepared before meetings, if necessary used technical device, and allow the children time to comprehend the purpose of the meeting or intervention. Team members experiences of time constraints and low team competence emerged as barriers. A facilitator is to create trust within the organization and between the child and the team member.

The contextual situation, both physically such as the specific meeting, as well as the social context can create a situation facilitating child participation. However, if the context is not taken into consideration, it can become a barriers.

Practical implications: Experiences from different perspectives on encounters and future research about factors at organizational level can lead to concrete working methods that increase children’s participation in pediatric clinics.