Author (#15)June 2008 Archives

Ellie Monro writes:

“The key to understanding the Children's Rights Convention is to know, accept and internalise that a child is an independent human being, with subjective rights, and with the same entitlement to dignity and respect to personal integrity.” This is a quote from Professor Lucy Smith, one of the people responsible for looking at how well we are doing in terms of children's rights.

So do we accept children as independent human beings? Do we afford them the dignity they are entitled to? According to many, the answer is a definite no.

We live in a country where young people are criminalised for meeting in groups and hanging around, that uses dispersal orders and Mosquito devices to chase them away. Where 71% of media stories about young people are negative. Where it is legal to hit a child, but not a dog.

The government are to be inspected this autumn, and these issues will surely be commented upon. The Children's Rights Alliance for England  has already made 152 recommendations, at least 100 of which are urgent, to avoid severe criticism from the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Many of these recommendations are things that could be done now by the government, and would send out a clear message that we are a country that respects its children and young people. Why not use Youth Week Week to raise the issues of children and young people’s rights, both with young people and the wider community?  What would your priorities be? Are you already taking a rights-based approach in your own work? What can or do you do to make sure children's rights are respected?

Ellie Munro

Participation Programme Consultant

NYA 

Harry Wade writes:

Just because I’ve got an artificial leg signed by Glenn Hoddle doesn’t mean that I’m inevitably going to champion disabled children and young people’s closer involvement in using Hear by Right… but it helps.

The other week I was sent the poster called Top tips for participation – what disabled young people want.  Two key things they told the Council for Disabled Children they wanted were: “Prove you’re listening to us” and “Give us time”.

For proof of listening, one disabled young person said: “Tell us what’s changed”.  Yes I know that you can’t always get what you want – even The Rolling Stones can’t – but the quickest way to shrivel participation is for nothing ever seeming to change.  What a waste of time!   Ah, but participation leading to change in the way that the organisation delivers its services?  Fantastic!  Participation leading to change in children and young people feeling healthier or safer?  Even better!

Proving What's Changed in terms of the Every Child Matters outcomes is simple and effective using the What's Changed tool that The NYA developed with young people from Durham’s Investing in Children.  There’s lots of examples at www.nya.org.uk/whatschanged but we want more (yes, from you!)

Not so simple, but just as effective, is the Hear by Right standards framework.  This will help to prove that an organisation is (or isn’t) building in children and young people’s participation and planning to make it better.  A key principle of Hear by Right is that children and young people give their parallel views on how well the project or organisations is doing.  The Building Standards kit, written by young people for young people, has lots of exercises and tools to help children and young people to speak or write their views.

But what if the children and young people can’t speak or write?  Some disabilities give them a double barrier to participation as the majority practise it.  The clue may well simply lie in the last thing that the disabled young people told the CDC above: “Give us time”,   meaning give us time to get our message ready and give us your time to help.  The principles of participation are exactly the same for disabled children and young people.  They just may take a bit longer and they may need additional skills and tools.

I have been privileged to work recently with the KIDS Young People’s Inclusion Network (YP-in) and Out & About based in East Anglia.  Staff from both projects have powerfully begun to use Hear by Right to demonstrate the considerable successes they have had in children and young people’s participation.  They are now knuckling down to give the time needed to include their service users in the mapping and planning process too.  It will be done, it just takes more time.

On my rock and roll Hear by Right tour of England for Participation Works (funded by the Big Lottery) I’ve met a number of other organisations working with disabled children and young people who are trying to do the same.  We need to get together to take this forward and to prove how do-able it is.  In the end it will save us time.  Time we can then give to disabled children and young people like they asked for.  And not to Glenn Hoddle.

Harry Wade
Development Officer (Participation Works),
The NYA Participation Team
(and long-term Chelsea fan).

I got a call from Canada on Friday at 6.30pm. I should have had my phone off, but I was intrigued by the question I was asked: how are we involving young people in influencing policy at a national level? This international research funded by the Canadian Ministry of Justice is gathering best practice to improve policy-making. I think I asked more questions than I answered. What difference does it make? Who gets a say? Who listens? Then I thought of two examples that helped suggest answers. The Children’s Society’s Ask Us programme involved over 340 young disabled people across 10 projects. The young activists used multi media to research experiences of social exclusion. Locally in Solihull the “Parks Man” as he was affectionately known, championed changes toward inclusive play and leisure provision. Nationally in government it was an official acting outside his social and health care box whose advocacy led to the national Guidance on inclusive parks.

Then there was Cutting the Cake – young people feeding into the Comprehensive Spending Review their funding priorities for facilities, access and youth worker support. Don’t be surprised, but they consistently prioritised high quality youth work to help them gain the knowledge and skills needed to make the most of local opportunities. Only then, they said, would they have the ability and confidence to make wider links, including influencing national policies that in turn can bring funding and resources to help them get a better deal where they live. The stuff of youth work! There is much to be proud of and I hope Youth Work Week can bring more of it out in to the open. What are you planning to celebrate?

Bill Badham

National Programme Manager, Participation

The National Youth Agency