The Children (Scotland) Bill – The Justice Committee’s Recommendations At Stage 1

This blog was written by Fiona Morrison (Lecturer at the Centre for Child Wellbeing and Protection, University of Stirling) and Kay Tisdall (Professor in Childhood Policy, Childhood and Youth Studies Research Group, MHSE, University of Edinburgh). You can follow Fiona and the project on twitter @fifimorrison and @CYSRG1 

This blog was originally posted on at 7^th May 2020 on https://childrensparticipationinfamilylaw.wordpress.com/blog/

The Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament have just issued their Stage 1 Report on the Children (Scotland) Bill. The Bill will reform family law in Scotland, and particularly promises to improve the participation rights of children within family law proceedings. While the Committee approved of this promise, it felt substantial changes and additions were needed to achieve this. We agree. 

We have recently completed research on family law proceedings. Our research finds a number of barriers and challenges to children’s participation in family proceedings in Scotland. The issues of ‘capacity’, ‘manipulation’ and ‘distress’ are especially potent in discussions about implementing children’s participation rights. The framing of contested contact cases as ‘adult disputes’ can exclude children’s views out of fear that involvement will lead to undue pressure on children. In practice, adults’ concerns for children’s vulnerability risk marginalising children’s participation rights. 

Stage 1 Report On The Children (Scotland) Bill 

Our findings informed our written and oral evidence to the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament, on the Children (Scotland) Bill. The Committee’s Stage 1 Report signals that substantial improvements should be made to the Bill. It has made recommendations on a wide range of issues including: removing some barriers for children who wish to instruct their own solicitor; providing children with choices about if and how they participate; and seeking clarity on who will fulfil a court’s duty to provide feedback to children about the decisions it makes. All important and welcome recommendations. 

Particularly welcome are the Committee’s recommendations to ensure the infrastructure and resources to facilitate children’s participation rights. These are critical if we are serious about improving children’s participation rights. Without investment in such an infrastructure, the Bill risks making very little difference to children’s experience of participating in family actions. This is one of the strongest messages we have learnt from our research – and one that children and young people repeatedly tell us.

What More Needs To Be Done?

As work continues to improve the legislation, there are other immediate issues that this Bill must address, as well as longer term reform. 

Children must be given opportunity to be heard directly in legal proceedings. 

This requirement is set out in General Comment No. 12 from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. When children’s views are mediated by an adult (whether that be a child welfare reporter or an advocacy worker), safeguards are in place to ensure that children’s views are reported accurately and directly to the court. 

A child friendly system of complaints and redress must be established for children to use when they believe their rights have been breached.  

This requirement is set out in General Comment No. 12 from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. While referred to in Stage 1 Report, it was not addressed as a recommendation.

In the longer term, radical reform is needed. We need to shift the legal conceptualisation of contested child contact from an adult dispute, to one where concerns about contact are squarely about and inclusive of children. Doing this would assist in realising all of children’s human rights, including their participation rights. It would enable children’s participation rights to be recognised in themselves, as well as the intersections they have with children’s welfare.

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge the funding provided by the Justice Analytical Services (Scottish Government) for the project.

We would also like to acknowledge the wider collaborative learning that informed this research, children, young people and adults. This includes partnership research, Improving Justice in Child Contact (funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020)

Bringing girls’ gender identities into children’s rights

Dr Patricio Cuevas-Parra is the Senior Global Policy Adviser for Child Participation and Rights with World Vision International where he leads strategies and programmes to ensure that children and young people's participation are at the centre of the advocacy and policy debate.

Whilst attending the UN Day of General Discussion[1] in Geneva, I was part of a panel discussion of adults and young people sharing the platform equally, which in itself signified much more than dialogue at the UN level; it was a milestone reflecting a substantial change on the way that children and young people can be positioned in public decision-making.

Along with three other young people on the panel was 15 year old Haneen, an outstanding young advocate who is defending and promoting children's rights in her hometown of Palestine.

I was thrilled and honoured to meet and share a panel discussion with her.

To me, the conversation with this child advocate was an enlightening experience that reaffirmed my view and professional work, which falls within the debate on childhood as a social construction and children as competent social actors and active participants in the construction of their lives. This position explores the way we understand children, but also how gender, ethnicity, race, class and other categories are intertwined inseparably, defining how children construct and deconstruct their individualities. Haneen is not just a child; she is a girl, a Muslim, and a Palestinian across many other identities.

Despite the Convention on the Rights of the Child’s Article 2, the principle of non-discrimination, whereby all rights must be respected without discrimination of any kind, girls continue to be treated differently based on social, cultural and legal norms that define their roles and responsibilities in society.

Making assumptions that all children can enjoy their rights and opportunities to participate equally regardless of their gender or other categories fails to recognise that girls can be disadvantaged due the social and cultural contexts in which gender identities are constructed. The denial of gender as a category that determines the chances of girls to engage in social life reinforces and endures legacies of inequality, which continue to be present in most of the countries of the world.

As I was conducting interviews with girls from Uganda, they told me that many girls are marginalised by gender and denied of rights from birth and this continues through their whole lives as daughters, sisters, students, workers, wives and mothers. They also pointed out that gender exclusion is exacerbated by other categories such as race, ethnicity and social status, which shape and restrict their lives and opportunities. This is often attributed to the power dynamics in patriarchal societies, where males are dominant in structures of subordination reinforces gender stigma and stereotyping that confine girls to their homes and degrade their roles in society resulting in an unequal realisation of their rights. By assuming that all children construct their identities and rights equally and their gender does not play a role with the equal opportunity to thrive, increases unbalanced power relations and has a considerable impact on discrimination and disadvantage concerning the deprivation of their rights.

While conducting research in Bangladesh, girls told me that they are often expected to behave according to their gender, that they are socially penalised if they do not follow those traditional or expected patterns and they feel they are less favoured than the boys. In Brazil, girls told me that they are conditioned from birth to be pretty and sweet, but other characteristics like being smart and strong are discouraged. In conversations with girls in Uganda, they told me that the value of a girl is the equivalent of a cow if they are lucky; many others are exchanged or traded for marriage for less than that. In America, I interviewed a group of girls that told me they feel undermined and patronised by their male peers and teachers at school and they are expecting to be sexually harassed if wearing tight clothes or makeup.  

I personally have a strong commitment to looking at the identities and lived experiences of girls and boys and how I can contribute to closing the gender gap in realising children's rights. This is probably influenced by my own personal experience and standpoints as I am continually constructing and reconstructing how our identities define our lives as children and adults. When I am in the field, I am captivated by the way the relationships between the boys and girls are framed by their particular gender roles and I often relate sympathetically to the girls’ struggle to be recognised as equals in their communities. Once I asked a group of girls in Jordan about their feelings of vulnerability or exclusion in relation to the difference between boys and girls. They said that they do not feel vulnerable at all and do not want to be labelled as such, but agreed that there was an ongoing fight for recognition of their abilities to participate, but this does not undermine their abilities and sense of confidence. They said they found their way to navigate this and to achieve everything they want.

This dialogue was crucial to me in building new understandings by confronting my beliefs and co-constructing shared meaning of what means to be a girl in any given society. Whilst participating in the panel discussion in Geneva, I asked Haneen the same question, and she responded that she feels empowered, confident and valued and, moreover, she does not see differences between boys and girls. One can disagree with her account, but her stand should help us to balance our perspectives to look at different angles and not just focus on the deprived position of the girls as a vulnerable group. Girls are not just defenceless individuals in need of adult protection; while protection is one of their fundamental rights, they also need to be seen as competent social actors who are able to negotiate power relationships, to interact with others and to define and redefine their own lives.

My call today is to refocus our perspectives beyond a vulnerability lens and to embrace girls’ strengths and empowerment in constructing their lives. This lens can help to promote and improve the opportunities of girls to participate equally in society and contribute to removing the traditional social norms that define their position in society in relation to imposed social identities. It is important to note that, although girls experience different challenges across diverse social contexts, the full realisation of their rights, the desire for inclusion and standing up for equality are almost identical demands from girls regardless of their age, heritage, nationality or origin. Our collective commitment should be to make those demands heard and their hopes a reality.

About the author

Dr Patricio Cuevas-Parra is the Senior Global Policy Adviser for Child Participation and Rights with World Vision International where he leads strategies and programmes to ensure that children and young people's participation are at the centre of the advocacy and policy debate. He has a keen interest in looking at cutting-edge child rights advocacy tools and models to enhance children and young people engagement in public decision-making. Patricio has been based in Social Policy at the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, supported by the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR).

References

De Graeve, K. (2015) Children’s rights from a gender studies perspective: gender, intersectionality and ethic of care, The Routledge international handbook of children's rights studies, pp147-163.

James, A. and Prout, A. (1997) A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Childhood? Provenance, Promise and Problems. In: James, A. and Prout A. (Eds.) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood, London: Falmer Press, pp7–34.

Konstantoni, K. and Emejulu, A. (2017) When intersectionality met childhood studies: the dilemmas of a travelling concept, Children's Geographies, 15(1), pp6-22.

O'Neill, C. and Hopkins, P. (2015) Hopkins (2015) Introduction: young people, gender and intersectionality, Gender, Place & Culture, 22(3), pp383-389.

Tisdall, E.K.M. (2017) Conceptualising children and young people’s participation: Examining vulnerability, social accountability and co-production, The International Journal of Human Rights, 21(1), pp59-75.

---

[1] UN Committee on the Rights of the Child held a Day of General Discussion (DGD) in September 2018 at the UN Palais des Nations in Geneva on the theme of “Protecting and Empowering Children as Human Rights Defenders”.  The DGDs are conducted biannually to develop a deeper understanding of the content and implications of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Children’s Participation in Decision-Making: Questioning Competence and Competencies

Carine Le Borgne asks if we need to be more challenging in recognising children’s competence to contribute to decision-making.

Children’s participation rights remain highly dependent on adults, who in one way or another, hold powerful positions such as legal guardians, administrative or political decision-makers, or front-line professionals. The attitudes of such adults towards children and childhood strongly influence whether or not the adults recognise, facilitate and support children’s participation. One of the most persistent adult concerns is whether children are competent enough to participate in decision-making. Thus, power - and particularly the power of adults - is key to children’s practical achievement of competency.

My research on children’s participation[1] at the community level highlights the challenge of adults’ perceptions of children’s competence and competencies. The research focused on why children are often seen as ‘incompetent’ and how that translates into a lack of participation. Based on the findings, in collaboration with Professor Kay Tisdall, I wrote an article on Children’s Participation: Questioning Competence and Competencies.[2]

Our article recalls the memorable phrase coined by Hinton[3] - ‘the competence bias’. This phrase captures how the use (and misuse) of a child development paradigm leads to perceiving children as starting from a position of limited competence and emphasising their evolving capacities. The ‘competence bias’ then is applied to exclude children from participation. Children’s exclusion is furthered when competence is presumed to be individualised and intrinsic, rather than recognising competency as contextual and relational.

Through my research, we trace evidence from local participation projects, of the continuing power of the competence bias. We consider how staff members can validate and enhance children’s competence and competencies, and thus recognise children’s participation rights. The analysis identifies that perceptions of children’s competence were both facilitators and inhibitors of children’s participation. The research was undertaken in Tamil Nadu (South India) and Scotland (UK), with two non-governmental organisations (NGO) supporting children’s participation.

The research highlights the key role of NGO staff members in contributing to children’s social competence. The NGO activities in this research increased children’s knowledge, which they not only used in their communities but were able to transfer to school and family contexts. The NGO staff members were key to providing the link between children and adult decision-makers in their communities, though this was done less successfully in Scotland than in Tamil Nadu.

The findings also indicate that, without NGO support, children were limited in expressing their social competence. This leads to two conclusions. First, strengthening the role of the staff members in children’s participation is worthwhile because they can play key roles in developing and validating children’s competence and enhancing children’s competencies. Staff members’ own perceptions of children’s competences and competencies influence how well they support children and children’s influence on decision-making.

Second, the competence bias remains pernicious and often unhelpful to children’s participation. The bias can mean that participation workers, as key intermediaries, may be necessary to facilitate children’s participation rights. It may also mean that children’s competencies are under-recognised, as children only achieve participation through ‘borrowing’ NGO power and not power or influence in their own right.

All this leads us to conclude - do we need to be more challenging yet in recognising children’s competence to contribute to decision-making?

Carine Le Borgne was an affiliated PhD Student with the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) and is now Senior Policy Adviser at World Vision UK. Kay Tisdall is Programme of the MSc in Childhood Studies[4] at The University of Edinburgh and Co-Director of CRFR.


References

1 https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/21025/CRFR%20Briefing%2087.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

2 https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/986

3 http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/157181808x311141

4 http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/gradschool/prospective/taught_masters/a_g/msc_childhood_studies

 

Monitoring compliance with Article 12: Council of Europe Assessment Tool

This post by Gerison Lansdown was originally published on the Together blog and is reproduced here with their permission. Gerison Lansdown is an international expert on children and young people’s participation. She is the founder director 1992-2000 of the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, and has also worked with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on several general comments including on Article 12. 

Following her presentation at ‘UNCRC in Practice’, the second seminar of the ‘UNCRC in Scotland’ series¹, we are delighted to welcome Gerison Lansdown to CRFR to lead the workshop ‘Children and Young People’s Participation: how do we know if it is making a difference?’ In this workshop, she will be covering toolkits for monitoring and evaluating children’s participation and introducing a Child Participation Assessment Tool, developed by the Council of Europe.

---

Prior to the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989, children’s rights were primarily defined in terms of protection. The inclusion of Article 12 in the CRC transformed the status of children from passive recipients of adult protection and care, to active agents entitled to engage in decisions and actions affecting their lives. The Committee on the Rights of the Child developed a General Comment on Article 12 in 2009, which identified it as not only a human right but also ‘one of the fundamental values of the Convention’, and a general principle to be considered in the interpretation and implementation of all other rights. The Committee recognises Article 12, together with the other civil and political rights addressing respect for evolving capacities, freedom of expression, thought, conscience and religion, association, and to privacy and information (arts. 5, 13, 14, 5, 16, 17), as a package of rights that can be conceptualised as ‘participation’, although the term itself does not appear in the text of any of these articles.

However, although significant investment has been made over the past 26 years in exploring how to translate Article 12 into practice, surprisingly little progress has been made, until recently, in the development of concrete indicators against which to hold States to account in fulfilling their obligations to children under Article 12. The Council of Europe has now stepped into this breach with the introduction of its Child Participation Assessment Tool, which has been fully endorsed by member States of the Council. This Tool elaborates 10 indicators which identify the measures States need to undertake in order to make Article 12 a reality, and against which they can be held to account. It is accompanied by comprehensive guidance on how to undertake the assessment and who needs to be involved.

The indicators fall into three broad clusters:

1) Measures to protect the right to participate

• Legal protection for children’s right to participate is reflected in the national Constitution and legislation.
• Explicit inclusion of child participation in a cross-sectoral national strategy to implement children’s rights.
• An independent children’s rights institution is in place and protected by law.
• Existence of mechanisms to enable children to exercise their right to participate safely in judicial and administrative proceedings.
• Child friendly complaints procedures are in place.

2) Measures to promote awareness of the right to participate

• Children’s right to participate in decision-making is embedded in training programmes for professionals working with and for children.
• Children are provided with information about their right to participate in decision-making.

3) Measures to create spaces for participation

• Children are represented in forums, including through their own organisations, at school, local, regional and national governance level.
• Child-targeted feedback mechanisms on public services are in place.
• Children are supported to participate in the monitoring of the UNCRC and CRC shadow reporting, and relevant CoE instruments and conventions.

The Child Participation Assessment Tool, with its accompanying guidance, provides a rigorous framework through which to review and strengthen the existing environment in respect of children and young people’s participation rights. It can be used to enhance advocacy for greater compliance, and hold the Scottish Government to account on its commitments to the right of children and young people in Scotland to have their voices heard and taken seriously in all arenas of their lives. This represents a significant opportunity. If fully implemented, Article 12 would represent one of the most profound transformations in moving towards a culture of respect for adolescents’ rights, for their dignity and citizenship and for their capacities to contribute significantly towards their own well-being.

---

¹The ‘UNCRC in Scotland’ series consists of four seminars held in partnership between Together, the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships and the Centre for Child Wellbeing and Protection at the University of Stirling. It seeks to improve — and address gaps — in the implementation and monitoring of the UNCRC in Scotland.

Find out more about ‘the UNCRC in Scotland’ seminar series and access materials here.

Expanding our ideas of childhood and children’s participation in decision making

CRFR co-director Professor Kay Tisdall asks, why do so many children and young people find it difficult to have their views given due consideration, in matters that affect them?

Children and young people’s participation is key principle embedded within the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child. The Convention was ratified in 1989 –twenty-seven years ago – and it is the most ratified of any international human right treaty (only the USA has not yet ratified it). We know of notable initiatives, at national and local levels. But children and young people’s participation rights are still not consistently respected.

I had the chance to publish two journal articles in the past month, on children and young people’s participation. In some ways they are very different. One deals with children’s participation in family law proceedings in Scotland. The second considers children’s participation in child protection, including international child protection in humanitarian settings. But both have similar conclusions: that we need to expand our ideas of childhood and children’s participation, beyond concerns about their vulnerability and requirements for autonomous agency, to change how we both perceive and organise decision-making that impacts on children and young people.

In the first article, Subjects with agency? Children’s participation in family law proceedings, I investigate current and recent trends in family law proceedings in Scotland. Children’s participation has been institutionalised in Scottish primary and secondary legislation, as well as procedures. But it is limited because children’s views tend to be accepted only if they are judged to be rational, autonomous and consistent. If their views are considered irrational, manipulated or distressed, their views are given less weight. This misses that children are likely to be emotional at times of parental separation and divorce, and that over lengthy court proceedings, their views may well change. Concerns about children’s vulnerability increasingly results in them being excluded from courts themselves. I conclude that courts and their decisions may be child-focused in Scotland, centring on children’s welfare, but they tend not to be child-inclusive, involving children in decision-making.

Are there alternative ways of perceiving children and young people’s participation, which could assist? My second article, Conceptualising children and young people’s participation, considered three popular concepts. These are:

• ‘vulnerability’ (i.e. what would the world look like, if we recognised that all people were vulnerable?),
• ‘social accountability’ (i.e. civic engagement to hold duty-bearers to account), and
• ‘co-production’ (i.e. involving lay people in designing and delivering services or research).

All three seek transformative relationships between the State and service users, that are more emancipatory and address power. Would one of these provide a very promising alternative?

By the end of my exploration, I find that vulnerability and social accountability have their contribution but still place children and childhood as especially vulnerable and then fail to adequately question adult power. Co-production, both on paper and when looking at recent local and international practices, has potential. It is co-production’s (re)claiming of children and young people’s expertise and knowledge that distinguishes itself from vulnerability and social accountability and makes it promising as a way to perceive and promote participation.

We know children and young people can influence decisions that affect them. There are many examples where practice and structures have improved, and initiatives have been developed. But we need to break through the familiar list of challenges, to find meaningful, effective and sustainable ways to recognise children and young people’s rights to participate.



Articles

Tisdall, E.K.M. (2016) ‘Conceptualising children and young people’s participation: examining vulnerability, social accountability and co-production’ International Journal of Human Rights 10.1080/13642987.2016.1248125

Tisdall, E.K.M. (2016) ‘Subjects with agency? Children’s participation in family law proceedings’, Journal of Social Welfare and Family Lawn, 38(4): 362-379. 10.1080/09649069.2016.1239345

Further information

For further information about CRFR’s programme of work on children and young people’s participation, see our partnership with Young Edinburgh Action and our support for the IMPACT project.

Professor Kay Tisdall and Dr Susan Elsley deliver a two-day continuing professional development course Developing innovative research with children and young people. The course is an opportunity for researchers and others working with children and young people to explore the latest methods and debates in childhood and youth research. Further information can be found on the CRFR website

Action! Young people as researchers and decision-makers

Research Fellow and City of Edinburgh Council youth worker Christina McMellon reports on exploring the Young Edinburgh Action approach to effective participation.

Young Edinburgh Action (YEA) is an innovative approach to implementing the City of Edinburgh Council’s Young People’s Participation Strategy, the aim of which is to facilitate young people’s meaningful participation in partnership working and decision-making. YEA supports young people to identify and research issues that matter to them in Edinburgh. The findings from action research carried out by young people are shared with senior decision makers at ‘conversations for action’ where plans are developed based on the young people’s recommendations for improving services.

The YEA approach is informed by the views of young people and professionals, academic theory and the need for local government to evidence the work that they do. YEA has developed a partnership with the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships to share the learning from this approach. This partnership, headed up by Professor Kay Tisdall from University of Edinburgh, was awarded a Knowledge Exchange and Impact Grant by The University of Edinburgh’s College of Humanities and Social Science to create a short film about young people’s experiences of being a young researcher. The film will be used to stimulate discussion among academics and practitioners about the role of young people as researchers and about young people’s participation more broadly.

“YEA: It’s a Film” takes viewers through the YEA action research process, including a focus upon impact, and gives a range of practical examples. One such example is of a group currently working on gender inequality: They held a research event for 60 young people who agreed that it is important to challenge gender stereotypes at an early age. The group decided to write a storybook for children aged 4-6 and worked with an illustrator to develop a story called ‘Alex and Charlie’ that looks at a day in the life of two young friends. After a conversation for action where the group members presented their work, City of Edinburgh Council agreed to underwrite the costs of publishing the book and gifting two copies to every nursery and primary school in Edinburgh. The process is not, however, always straightforward and the film does not shy away from stating the challenges (and benefits) for young people of being involved with the project.

The film is accompanied by a CRFR briefing paper written by Council staff that outlines the YEA approach: Young Edinburgh Action: Reinvigorating young people's participation in Edinburgh.

Young people are currently working on their own briefing paper which will complete a trio of resources exploring the YEA approach and stimulating meaningful discussion about young people being researchers.

===================

Links:
Watch 'YEA:It's a Film' online here
Download the CRFR Briefing 'Young Edinburgh Action: Reinvigorating young people's participation in Edinburgh' here

Involving children and young people in research and consultation: lessons learned from Scotland

Sara Lembrechts, of the Children’s Rights Knowledge Centre (KeKi) in Ghent, Belgium, attended our series of continuing professional development (CPD) courses exploring research with children and young people last year. In this post, Sara reflects on her time with us in Edinburgh and what she took away from the course and implemented in her day-to-day work back home.

In Spring 2015, my colleague and I attended the CPD “Involving children and young people in research and consultation” with the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships. In three times two days, dr. Susan Elsley and prof. Kay Tisdall guided us through the do’s and don’ts of meaningful and ethical participation of children and young people in research and policy making. The programme was a success – it stimulated our critical perspective on innovative creative and digital methods, made us become aware and question the assumptions that implicitly guide our work, and encouraged us to return to Belgium with a whole set of new ideas to implement.

The course conveners managed superbly well in creating a welcoming and comfortable environment in which interaction with the small group of participants was only natural. We have benefited greatly from the knowledge and experience of fellow researchers, practitioners, youth workers, artists, TED-speakers, poets, academic writers, resource persons and – last but not least – the children who joined us with their views and tips & tricks throughout the programme. The invitation to be creative and go digital ourselves was refreshing, as it opened our mind to new resources we were previously unfamiliar with. What is our own image of childhood, and how does it influence our work? How do you make sure participation is not tokenistic? How can we use the arts or digital media as a “way in” to get in touch with young people? How do you translate creative output into data?

The debate about such questions has indeed proven its great use in our day-to-day work at the Flemish Children’s Rights Knowledge Centre (in Dutch Kenniscentrum Kinderrechten vzw, abbreviated as KeKi). Operational since 2010, KeKi aims to gather, make available, disseminate, stimulate and increase knowledge on children’s rights. As such, KeKi operates as a bridge between (1) researchers from a wide range of academic disciplines, (2) policy makers in local, regional and federal government, and (3) practitioners working on matters concerning youth and children’s rights. In this role, KeKi develops tools, trainings and content that encourage critical reflection and can, at the same time, help in translating knowledge on children’s rights to these diverse domains (see www.keki.be/en).

One example in which we were able to implement what we had learned in Edinburgh, is a policy advice we recently wrote for the Flemish Government Administration on child participation in (local) policy making. We were asked to collect good practices, in particular on how to involve vulnerable youth (including children in poverty, children with disabilities and children in institutional care) in local and regional (i.e. Flemish) policymaking. Using the resources Susan and Kay had generously made available, we were able to show Flemish policy makers what they could learn from their colleagues abroad and hint at the tips and tricks we learned from everyone we met in Scotland.

Thanks to all who contributed in making our stay in Edinburgh so relevant and inspirational!

CRFR’s next CPD course Involving children and young people in research and consultation takes place in March and there are a limited number of spaces available. For further information and booking details, please visit: www.crfr.ac.uk/eventsandtraining/training/cpd-training/involving-children-young-people/

What does transformative participation mean for children and young people?

CRFR Co-Director, Kay Tisdall has recently co-edited a book on the theme of children's participation in public action. As Scottish 16 and 17 year olds prepare to vote in tomorrow's referendum vote, this blog sets outs the key questions the book seeks to address:

Children and young people’s participation in decision-making is increasingly promoted in countries across the world and internationally. Yet such participation continues to face remarkably similar challenges across contexts and countries: challenges such as tokenistic involvement, lack of impact, short-term and unsustainable activities, and concerns about who is included and excluded in such activities. How can we move beyond these?

Through the Leverhulme Trust’s International Academic Network, we had the chance to learn from children and young people, practitioners and academics in Brazil, India, South Africa and the UK. We became intrigued by the phrase ‘transformative participation’ and whether such participation could transcend the common list of challenges. But what was ‘transformative participation’ and for whom was it transformative? What is it transformative of and transformative to? How would one know participation was transformative?

We have just published an edited book that seeks to address such questions. Titled Children and Young People’s Participation and Its Transformative Potential, the book wrestles with conceptual debates and has overview analytical chapters for each of the 4 countries with an accompanying case study. We found the writing together challenging and inspiring – and not always consensual – as we sought to bring together different academic, theoretical and disciplinary backgrounds.

World-wide attention is now focused on Scotland, as we go towards the referendum on Thursday. With 16 and 17 year olds voting for the first time at this national level here, the publication date of the book is timely. How do we ensure that children and young people’s participation is meaningful, effective – and sustainable?