Participation Network - Supporting the Public Sector to engage children & young people

What we wanted

The 10 Year Strategy for Children and Young People in Northern Ireland aims to improve children’s lives in 6 key areas:

• Healthy;
• Enjoying, learning and achieving;
• Living in safety and with stability;
• Experiencing economic and environmental well-being;
• Contributing positively to community and society;
• Living in a society which respects their rights.

Action plans are developed to deliver on the strategy. The current children and young people’s strategy action plan is for the period 2008 – 2011 and it was agreed that it would be a living document which would be reviewed and amended.

In line with article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the supporting theme of the 10 Year Strategy for Children and Young People; ‘developing a culture where the views of our children and young people are routinely sought in matters which impact on their lives’, a series of workshops to seek the views of children and young people were held between August and October 2009.

The aim of this was to hear directly from children and young people about what they thought government should be doing to meet their priority needs in each of the 6 areas to help inform the development of new or revised actions, particularly in light of the UNCRC concluding observations.

How we did it

Almost 40 workshops/events took place between August and October 2009, involving 600 children and young people from a wide range of backgrounds.  The workshop/events were organised and facilitated by organisations from Participation Network’s Directory and mainly took place in their own environment.  Some external events were organised such as a visit to W5. Children as young as 3 years were involved.  A range of creative methods were used by facilitators to encourage the children and young people to express their views and experiences.

The aim of the workshops/events was to identify what children and young people felt were the key issues facing them, which were not already addressed by the existing strategy action plan.    A young people’s version of the action plan and the UNCRC concluding observations were provided to assist the discussions.   

A conference was held to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the UNCRC, end the consultation process and bring representatives from each of the workshops/events together to feed back directly to policy makers. The views put forward by the children and young people at the previous events were analysed in advance of the conference and given to the facilitators and the children and young people taking part to help them prepare for the day. The aim of the conference was to enable the children and young people to tell policy makers what they think Government should do to tackle the key issues identified. Representatives who are involved in making policy from most government departments and the OFMDFM Junior Ministers, who are responsible for driving forward the 10 Year Strategy, were there on the day to engage directly with the young participants.

What they said

The children and young people had a great deal to say... among a comprehensive range of responses they called for increased mental health provision, more apprenticeships, more trees and lower speed limits.  They felt that the police shouldn't have such a negative perception of young people and said they wanted to see the promotion of more positive images of children and young people - especially those from ethnic minority and traveller communities.  They wanted more safe places for young people, with increased street lighting and security cameras.  (Refer to Be Seen, Be Heard)
All of the issues raised by the young people will help inform our future work and will be given careful consideration by the N.I. Executive. We are committed to making children’s lives better and the information gathered will help us identify how we can best do this. The workshops and the conference were a very welcome opportunity to hear directly from young people and get a real insight to their lives and the key issues affecting them.

We are currently sharing the information gathered with government departments to help in their consideration of additional actions to strengthen the current children and young people’s strategy action plan, taking account of the UNCRC concluding observations. When published, the revised plan will ultimately show where the Executive has been able to take action to help address some of the issues the young people have put forward.

Based on young people’s assessment of the conference, it provided a real opportunity for young people to have their say and put forward their views on what government should do to tackle the priority issues facing them. The young people who took part mainly viewed it as a good opportunity to have their say, feel valued and really input to government which is important as participation and having their say is something which was continuously raised throughout the process as an issue for the young people.  For further engagement with young people we will take on board the comments made about this event to ensure future events are appealing to young people, ultimately resulting in meaningful engagement.

Whilst careful consideration must be given to all of the issues and government may not be able to do everything suggested by the young people, this exercise, alongside the UN Committees concluding observations, will help inform the development of the revised and future action plans to improve children’s lives.

Extracted from the full report: Be Seen, Be Heard, CYPU, OFMDFM, 2010.