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Learning for Well-being: 7
A Policy Priority for Children and Young People in Europe
Chapter 7: Creating a Movement
CONSULTATON QUESTIONS
Do we cover the main issues concerning children’s and young people’s participation?
What other aspects would you include?
What other examples would you include?
Chapter 7: CREATING A MOVEMENT
Envisioning a learning for well-being movement: children and young people as leaders in the policy process - the role of global civil society
The goal: A culture of engaging children and young people as change agents in making all environments more conducive to Learning for Well-being
Participation and engagement for learning for well-being
“In most countries throughout the world, there is a continued perception of young children as passive recipients of care and protection. Their capacities for participation are underestimated, their agency in their own lives is denied and the value of involving them is unrecognised. Yet there is a growing and persuasive body of evidence to challenge these barriers. This evidence needs to be promoted and shared. Understanding of participation needs to be re-constructed to incorporate and respect the forms of expression and communication used by young children.“ (Gerison, 2005)
All proposals in this policy glossary must be further developed through child and youth engagement. Over the last decade a number of mechanisms have developed that can take the Learning for Well-being of children and young people further by children and young people themselves. Only then will the central premise of this glossary be taken seriously – that we need to think differently about children and young people. To enable children’s and young people’s voices to be heard in a way that reinforces their agency must be founded on supporting them in learning for well-being, i.e. supporting and nurturing an awareness of one’s particular gifts and contributions; awareness of one’s own unique potential; and assessing their ability to make decisions that support one’s unique developmental path.
This core is embedded in the “Ladder of Children’s participation“ developed by Roger Hart, (http://freechild.org/ladder.htm)
Increasingly organisations committed to the genuine participation of children and youth are developing guidelines and principles. Save the Children, as an international organisation, has produced a set of Practice Standards to help understand what “meaningful participation” looks like:
Standard 1: An ethical approach: transparency, honesty and accountability
Standard 2: Children’s participation is relevant and voluntary
Standard 3: A child-friendly, enabling environment
Standard 4: Equality of opportunity
Standard 5: Staff are effective and confident
Standard 6: Participation promotes the safety and protection of children
Standard 7 : Ensuring follow-up and evaluation Save the Children
At country level, Funky Dragon has produced a set of principles for Wales that say:
IF YOU WANT CONSULTATION WITH CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE TO BE EFFECTIVE YOU WILL NEED TO CONSIDER AND BE COMMITTED TO THESE PRINCIPLES OF PARTICIPATION
- Showing Respect
- Involving us in deciding/ organising what/ when/ where
- Making sure adults don’t take over the consultation
- Having Fun - making the consultation more interesting – making things fun
- Not making it too intense – making activities user friendly –facilitating change
- Paying attention and taking notes – don’t talk: listen
- Liaising with decision makers
- Finding ways to make us heard in public
- Letting us know what is going on
- Talking afterwards and explaining things
- Evaluating and learning from your experience
Funky Dragon
This shows an evolving commitment to including young people’s voices in matters of policy that concern their lives. They are not yet sufficiently widespread or systemic,, nor are they founded on a commitment to learning that emphasises inner diversity; relationships and communication; engagement and participation; and self-organisation. This observation reinforces the need for all sectors of society to work together in this endeavour.
a) Agency through youth-led organisations
The European Youth Forum is the largest youth-led organization in Europe with over a 100 member organizations, some of which are national or international coordinating bodies. It is an independent, democratic, youth-led platform that works to empower young people to participate actively in society to improve their own lives, by representing and advocating their needs and interests and those of their organisations towards the European Institutions, the Council of Europe and the United Nations. (http://www.forumjeunesse.org/en/). Their strategy on education considers that:
Education is of prime importance to young people as it gives them the possibility to ensure their personal and professional development and their active participation in all spheres of society, thus increasing their job opportunities and contributing to the prevention of social exclusion ... People learn throughout their life in very different environments such as family, media, youth organisations, etc. ... The European Youth Forum believes that education policy should look at education in a holistic way, by recognising and supporting quality formal education, non-formal education (education taking place outside formal institutions, in alternative structures such as youth organisations) and informal learning (day-to-day learning from friends, media, work, etc).
... The main focus of the YF’s work is building a real life-long and life-wide learning society, in which all learning is valued, where young people can take ownership over their own educational paths and where youth organisations are recognised as the most important providers of quality non-formal education for young people.
Smaller youth-led organisations pursue specific objectives. EPTO, the European Peer Trainer Organisation (http://www.epto.org ) educates youth leaders to discuss issues related to prejudice and discrimination; to lead workshops that challenge stereotypes; and to become activists against exclusion within their youth organisations and schools. EPTO coordinates a network of peer trainers from a dozen European countries working in the belief that young people deliver a message to their peers that is often more credible and efficient than when it is delivered by authority figures. They see youth as “ready-made experts” who have a “unique perspective on the issues that affect youth” and can often "make things happen", which is an important message for policy makers. Other initiatives support youth empowerment through providing the infrastructure for youth in specific towns or localities to address social challenges and improve the lives of children and young people at risk, such as the Youth Empowerment Partnership Programme (YEPP) that aims “to enable disadvantaged children and youth to take control of their lives and to contribute to their local communities as equals alongside community leaders so that they become active citizens of Europe and their national societies”.
YEPP
“In the YEPP leadership training I learned how to get people to listen to me.”, Muamer, aged 15 from Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Youth-led organisations, usually for young people between the age of 15 and 25 (or up to 30) years-old, bring that invaluable direct expertise of children and youth into the conversation at all levels and over a range of crucial societal issues. The challenge is for mainstream institutions and their staff to accept these organisations as full partners in the policy process, going beyond tokenism and establishing mutually respectful and co-creative relationships that allow the young people to be genuinely engaged on the basis of their special expertise in their own lives.
b) Involve children and young people as recruiters and researchers
Over recent years there have been some experiences of children and young people being included in recruitment processes for staff who will be working with them, e.g. teachers or social services staff. This may be through children sitting on the selection panel or having a separate interview panel parallel to the adult one but methods and tools are always adapted to the age, ability and interest of the children and young people involved who must know what is required of them, what their role is and what influence they will have on the outcomes. While quite often it is reported that both the adult and youth panels share the same ideas about applicants, one young person stated that “We can dig deeper and get to know sides of the candidates the adults don’t see. Adults don’t truly know what children and young people think unless they ask and involve us. They don’t see what we see and they can learn from us”. (Eurochild 2010)
In recognising the expertise of children and youth in their own lives, researchers are exploring how they can be supported to take a leadership role in deciding what they want researched, how it should be conducted and disseminated (Mason and Danby, 2011)
In February 2006 Funky Dragon (see presentation below) started discussing the next round of U.K reporting to the Committee on the Right’s of the Child. There was a clear commitment from all the young people involved that Funky Dragon should do its best to gain the views of as many young people in Wales as it possibly could.
In November 2007, Funky Dragon launched 'Our Rights, Our Story'. Funky Dragon consulted, over period of 18 months, with over 12,000 young people aged 11-18 and over 2,000 children aged 7-10 in Wales to make sure that the reports were full of correct information, reflecting how children and young people are claiming their rights in Wales. In line with the ethos of Funky Dragon, from the outset the project was run by young people. The steering group, made up of members of the Grand Council, recruited the staff for the project, wrote the questions for the survey, designed the activities for the workshops, analyzed the findings and decided on the content of the report. The role of the staff within this project was to support, inform and give the young people on the steering group the necessary skills to carry out their work. Adapted from the Funky Dragon website and the Introduction to Our Rights, Our Story.
Funky Dragon
c) Establish Children and Youth Parliaments
At the national level in some European countries children’s parliaments (e.g. the Finnish Children’s Parliament, Cyprus Children’s Parliament, Funky Dragon in Wales) have been established with a consultative and advocacy role to represent the interests of children and young people in all the areas that affect their lives and to make known their views, opinions and proposals towards national and local government as well as towards all the different bodies and agencies whose work affects their lives (e.g. social services). In most cases the delegates to these parliaments are over the age of 14/15 years (Gordon et al, 2010). Two examples follow of Children’s and Young people’s Parliaments:
Funky Dragon is the Children and Young People’s Assembly for Wales. This young people led organisation was established as a charity in 2004 with the main aim of providing an opportunity for 0 – 25 year olds to have their voices heard on issues that affect them. Funky Dragon is a way for young people in Wales to speak directly to the Welsh Assembly Government and other policymakers. The “Grand Council” is made up of 100 young people from across Wales, representing the views of a wide range of both voluntary and statutory organizations. In order to stand the young people have to be aged between 11 and 25 and only young people are able to vote. The election must be a fair and democratic process. The management committee (trustees), who are elected at the AGM by the Grand Council Members, is composed of members of the Grand Council: four young people aged 18 or over and four under the age of 18. They are elected at the AGM by the Grand Council Members. Including young people under 18 on the management committee was ground breaking for charities in the UK.
Every year the Grand Council representatives meet with Welsh Assembly Ministers to question them on issues that are affecting young people across Wales. The questions are decided by the Grand Council, youth forums, specific interest groups and any other groups of young people wishing to ask a question and obtain an answer from Assembly Members. For Funky Dragon, making participation effective is very important. They consider that consultation is most effective when children and young people are empowered, have fun and feel valued - that is when they really participate. This needs to be backed by effective communication, real influence, feedback and evaluation. Enabling young people to make decisions on how to conduct every stage of the consultation also ensures that they are empowered by your consultation. http://www.funkydragon.org
Finnish Children’s Parliament:
“To me, involvement means that I am one of everybody” -Aleksi, 12 years old.
The Finnish Children's Parliament was founded in 2007 in and aims to develop a sustainable, national children’s organ, thereby having a positive impact on the establishment of local parliamentary activities for children. 372 representatives and deputy representatives from municipalities throughout Finland took part in the first session in 2007. The activities are intended to promote interaction between children and adults, in a way that encourages children to value themselves and their parents, and adults to value themselves and the children. The activities serve as a tool for the meeting of minds between children and decision-makers. The Finnish Children’s Parliament is comprised of children, and operates as a community for mutual interaction between the children themselves. The main aim is to help to create a culture of democracy for the comprehensive schools.
How does it work? A virtual parliament building has been constructed online for the use of the Finnish Children's Parliament providing representatives with a place, independent of time and location, to interact and further their activities. The Board and Committees meet weekly online in chat rooms, and discuss issues and prepare for future plenary sessions. The members discuss issues online in their own discussion forums, respond to surveys submitted by decision-makers, and hold a two-week long online plenary session. The Board and all the children also meet in person, and the next physical plenary sessions for all the children involved will be held in five cities.
Every child:
- should be heard, get information about the matters which concern him/her
- should be able to participate and influence decision making
- should learn the principles of how to influence in a democratic society
- should experience how to be important and respected in his/her own community.
“By enabling children's voices to be heard and supporting children's growth, we aim to support the development of independent and independently-thinking citizens who believe that they can affect the society around them.
Lasten Parliament
”The Finnish Children’s Parliament can take initiatives all the way the European Parliament, with the help of Finnish MEPs.” -Tapio, 13.
The challenge remains, as Cathrine Skarr (KREM, Norway) states: “Increasingly children and young people are being heard, but this does not necessarily mean that services and policies are adapted to what they say”. (Eurochild, 2010)
Gerison Lansdown 2009 Child Rights Information Networks
Final page or insert:
CALL TO ACTION
CONSULTATON QUESTIONS
Do we cover the main issues concerning children’s and young people’s participation?
What other aspects would you include?
What other examples would you include?
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