Children's Consultation and Participation

Participation of children and young people in decisions about their lives is an essential part of growing up and if done well it enhances children's safety and well-being and improves services designed to support and protect them. In the world of social care it is often happening in complex and emotionally charged situations. To be done well it requires a commitment at all levels of an organisation to reflect on and promote:

• Positive attitudes to children;
• Skills at communicating;
• Financial resources;
• Commitment to developing services which support children's participation, such as advocacy and participation services;
• Honest consideration of what expectations are of what can be achieved and what the level of willingness is to change existing services and decisions in response to children's views.

Staffordshire Children's Services is actively seeking to ensure children and young people are consulted about decisions and processes that affect them. The Munro Review made clear that what is important to children and young people is 'reliability, honesty and continuity'. We are committed to ensuring that children and young people are informed about what is happening to them and promote opportunities to contribute to what is happening. The aim is to share and practise positive approaches to effective communication and learning through active listening. The Staffordshire Local Authority is committed to both speaking and listening clearly, purposefully and honestly with children and young people.

Staffordshire Children's Services seeks to consider identity, diversity, culture, sexual orientation, language, disability, delayed speech, low confidence and trust in all its interactions with both children and adults.

Every member of our staff is committed to seeking and recording the views of every child they work with. They will also record the decisions that are made and the influence that the views of the child/young person have had on those decisions. Where decisions are made that are different from or contrary to the views of the child or young person this will be clearly recorded with the reasons for the decision clearly explained.

In addition, we will ensure that systems are in place to support formal consultation with young people's groups and will seek to aggregate individual issues and concerns so that managers may consider the impact that current services have on young people. This information may be used to inform future developments.

Much has been written on the benefits and barriers to participation in matters that affect them. In brief the benefits for children and young people are:

• Having a safe space to reflect on the events that have brought them into contact with Social Care;
• The opportunity to give their version of what has happened to them and to say what they would like to happen in the future;
• The sense of empowerment that comes from being listened to and seeing what one has said making a difference to what happens;
• The possibility of having their concerns and issues dealt with at an early stage, which could have an immediate impact for them in terms of how they identify their 'quality of life';
• The opportunity to have explained to them what is happening in the present moment and what is likely to happen in the future and what will be done to keep them (and their siblings) safe.

For parents/carers the benefits of children's participation can be:

• The opportunity (perhaps for the first time) to hear their children's views about what has happened and what they want to change;
• A model of communicating that may improve their relationship with their child(ren).

For professionals and organisations offering services to children and young people the benefits can be:

• Reinforcement of a focus on the child's safety and wellbeing;
• A self auditing tool;
• The greater likelihood of effective engagement with the plan by the child / young person themselves;
• A focus for all professionals to work from.

There are a number of barriers to participation. Broadly speaking these are:

• Structural - complex procedures and lack of clarity about responsibilities; too many changes of personnel;
• A lack of clarity about what participation is or confusion over how it will be addressed and a lack of clarity about what it can and cannot change and what it should deliver for the child, the family and the organisation;
• Competence - staff lacking in experience or having an inability to effectively communicate with children, or children of a particular age or from a particular culture;
• Capacity - a lack of time (e.g. staff too overwhelmed by other pressures) or other resources required to enable participation, thus 'rushing' or making it a 'box ticking' exercise;
• Inadequate plans that fail to be clear about who will be responsible for ensuring participation;
• Children's behaviour - can be misinterpreted and sometimes causes a barrier for professionals and carers. Those seeking to engage often need a variety of tools / methods and patience/space to deal with this to promote engagement;
• Children themselves can become disinterested and disengaged because of delays;
• Children are far more spontaneous and their timescales are far shorter;
• Professionals need to ensure that children have a variety of times, people, places and approaches to participation available to them (i.e. seeing children on their own, allowing time after traumatic events).

Children and young people of Staffordshire have developed video guides on how to engage with them more successfully and encourage participation. Here are the videos: 

Building Relationships - Children and Young People.

Building Relationships - Children and Young People, Part 2.

The most important means of encouraging and enabling participation by children in care and young people, in decisions that affect them and their lives, remains the relationship with their Social Worker and other significant professionals and adults in their lives.

Enabling children and young people who have not previously had opportunities to express their views is demanding and can be challenging work that requires creativity, empathy and resilience on the part of the worker. Consultations need to be planned for, reflected on and, if necessary, returned so that children and young people are given every opportunity to express their views.

In order for them to express views about matters that affect them it is also vital that children and young people have  information and experiences that enable them to make informed choices.

If participation is not possible or is restricted for whatever reason, steps should be taken to ensure those affected are informed of decisions as soon as practicable after they are made, and an explanation for the decision given, together with the opportunity to make a comment and express their views.

If it is then felt that a different decision may have been appropriate, steps should be taken to reconsider the decision.

If decisions are made against people's wishes, they should be informed of the decision and the reasons for the decision should be explained. In these circumstances, the person should be informed of any rights they have to formally challenge the decision, and of the availability of the Complaints or Grievance Procedure (see Complaints and Representations Procedure).

Sometimes children and young people express their preferences through their behaviour rather than through words i.e. by running away or by having tantrums. It is important to attempt to see beyond the behaviour and to try to see what the child or young person is trying to express. (Note: that where children have returned home from having run away, the 'return' interviews should be conducted by an independent person who has been trained to undertake this.

Finally, children and young people should be made aware of the systems and processes available to them if they wish to raise concerns or complain and what, if any, other forms of redress may be available to them if things go wrong.

Managers must ensure that social workers and/or staff have the time and resources available to them to ensure the effective participation of children and young people.

Managers should:

• Actively promote the importance of participation and co-production to all staff members;
• Use supervision to consider issues relating to the Voice of the Child in ongoing cases;
• Check that records show where and how the Voice of the Child has been sought, what was said and how the child's wishes have been responded to and, if not, why not;
• Review, on a regular basis, the various methodologies whereby children's views are sought;
• Review complaints or concerns raised by children and young people and what actions have been taken to address these;
• Review compliments to build on this;
• Consider how representative issues that are raised by children and young people are in relation to such issues as gender, culture, sexuality and disability;
• Ensure processes designed to aggregate issues raised by children and young people are in place and are routinely being used;
• Ensure processes are in place whereby it can be fed back to both individual children and the wider group what changes have been made as a result of issues raised.

Children and young people can be involved in the development of services through the Children in Care Council (CiCC).

The Children in Care Council (CICC) is a group of young people who are all cared for by Staffordshire County Council who are aged 9 and over. The CICC provides children and young people the chance to shape and influence the services that they receive at every level. It gives young people a chance to have a say about the things that really matter in their lives, helping to shape policies, procedures, service developments and strategies for cared for children and young people in Staffordshire. The council is supported by the Voice and Participation Team. The CICC gives young people the chance to have their voice heard about the services that affect them.

The CICC's activities include:

• Working with those who provide their services, such as Senior Leaders and the Corporate Parenting Panel;
• Sharing their experiences and giving their views through interactive and engaging activities; 
• Helping support the development and improvement of services for children and young people;
• Developing young people's skills through interviewing of staff, public speaking at conferences, video production and activity days.

Children and young people have many opportunities to be involved in participation and engagement through activities arranged through The Voice Project, these include: 

• Young People's Forums for Children and Young People aged 8 to 16 and over who have or are receiving support from Children's Services; 
• Care Leavers Forum for young people who are aged 16 and over who are or have left Staffordshire's Care;
• Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Young People's Group held at The Amity Hub in Newcastle for young people aged 16 and over;
• SEND For Our Voices Special School Engagement Group for children and young people;
• Care Leavers Hives, these are drop-in centres aimed at care leavers aged 16 plus.

Children and young people can also be involved in:

1. Recruitment;
2. Conferences and Events;
3. Training;
4. Young people's engagement groups (Forums);
5. Online Surveys;
6. Group and Individual discussions relating to sharing lived experiences.

Children and young people who are interested in being involved can contact The Voice Project via the website.

Legislation, Statutory Guidance and Government Non-Statutory Guidance

SEND complaints: Guide for Young People Aged 16 to 25 in Education - A guide for young people on how to resolve special education needs and disability (SEND) disagreements.

Useful Websites

IRISS: Frameworks for child participation in social care - An article which provides some interesting evidence based on research completed into children's participation.

Council for Disabled Children - Provides useful resources for disabled children and young people.

NDTi - Works with children/young people and communities to influence change in the community in terms of inclusion. Particularly relevant to transitions.