Children's Consultation and Participation

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

The Local Authority 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'. The Local Authority is committed to ensuring that children and young people are informed about what is happening to them and promotes opportunities to contribute to what is happening. The aim is to share and practice positive approaches to effective communication and learning through active listening, hearing and acting upon what is said. The Local Authority is committed to both speaking and listening clearly, purposefully and honestly with children and young people.

The Local Authority seeks to consider identity, diversity, culture, sexual orientation, language, disability, delayed speech, low confidence and trust in all its interactions with both children, young people and adults.

Every member of our staff is committed to seeking and recording the views of every child and young person 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, the Local Authority 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. Groups of care-experienced young people meet every month in different parts of the county, to be consulted on and have opportunities to say what changes to the service they would like to see made. The groups are split into ages 10 - 16 and for young people aged 17 - 25. Senior decision makers regularly attend these meetings to hear directly what the young people want. In addition to attending the Countywide group, the young people have access to being part of the Youth Cabinet, where their issues and those from other specialised groups are heard and acted upon.

Mind Of My Own is the trusted app for children’s services. We believe that every child is able to have a say, so we use Mind Of My Own’s fully accessible apps that provide a digital solution to advancing universal children’s rights. The apps are a smart way to receive authentic feedback from a wide range of children and young people using services. This should complement the direct work the worker will undertake with the young person and the information from the questionnaire will be used to influence their plan. All children and young people using our services are made aware of the Mind Of My Own app and browser. They are helped to download the One app to use independently and create their own personal account if they are able to. Alternatively, they can complete their statements with their practitioner or use an app designed for younger children and/or children and young people with additional needs.

Independent Reviewing Officer are also talking with children and young people about Mind Of My Own and advocating their voice being heard in this way, layered on top of all the other methods  of communication.

The Youth Voice and Creative Engagement Team regularly consult with care experienced young people who attend activity days, and this information is fed to decision makers.

The Youth Justice service promotes consultation with children and young people receiving their services through a Mind Of My Own app called Xchange.

The Leaving Care service promotes consultation with care leavers by:

• Promoting the use of Mind Of My Own;
• Care leavers completing the consultation document as part of their pathway plan review;
• Providing a Postcard feedback - asking three simple questions giving young people the opportunity to feedback about the service on a regular basis;
• Exit interview. Once a young person is closed to the leaving care service they are contacted and asked a number of questions regarding the service they have received.

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 Children and Families Service;
• 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;
• Influencing practice which will not only benefit themselves, but also for children, young people, their families and naturally connected network in the future.

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

• The opportunity (perhaps for the first time) to hear their children's and young person'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) and young person(people).

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

• Reinforcement of a focus on the child's or young person's safety and wellbeing;
• A self auditing tool;
• The greater likelihood of effective engagement with the Plan by the child / young person themselves;
• An opportunity to hear what is going well in their life, celebrate and build on the good life experiences;
• Children and young people’s views give professionals the understanding of the child’s and young person’s lived experiences, ensuring that their authentic voice is heard.

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 young person, the family and the organisation;
• Competence - staff lacking in experience or having an inability to effectively communicate with children, young people, or children or young people 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 and young people'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 and young people themselves can become disinterested and disengaged because of delays;
• Children and young people 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 and young people on their own, allowing time after traumatic events);
• Professionals need to understand that participation is everyone’s responsibility and not just down to one service to gain the views of the child or young person.

The Local Authority has a number of formal processes for seeking the Participation and consultation of children and young people. Staff, carers, managers and others who come into contact with children and young people are encouraged and enabled to see each and every interaction as a potential opportunity to develop trust and confidence such that children and young people feel able to confide and state their views and preferences in matters that affect them. Promotion of Mind Of My Own is mandatory for all colleagues who work with children, young people and young adults in North Yorkshire and is now illustrated as part of the Strength in Relationships Practice Model as a 7th Objective.

The most important means of encouraging and enabling participation by children and young people in our care in decisions that affect them and their lives remains the relationship with their practitioner 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 to in order 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 are in possession of information and have experiences that enable them to make informed choices.

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). Every child or young person is able to access NYAS (National Youth Advocacy Service).

Sometimes children and young people express their preferences through their behaviour rather than through words. It is important that the trauma informed practitioner attempts 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. Children should also be encouraged to complete a Mind Of My Own ‘missing from home’ statement.

Finally, children and young people should be made aware of the systems and processes available to them if they wish to make commendations or 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 practitioners have the time and resources available to them to gain the wishes, feelings and opinions of children and young people.

Managers should:

• Use supervision to consider issues relating to the wishes, feelings and opinions of the child or young person;
• 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. Mind Of My Own statements are the authentic voice straight from the child or young person;
• Review, on a regular basis, the various methodologies whereby children's and young people's views are sought;
• Have an appreciation of what a child or young person says has gone well and why;
• 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 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.

1. Children and young people can be involved in the development of services through the Care Champions group. The Youth Voice and Creative Engagement team supports this group and promotes membership by encouraging looked after young people to:
   1. Attend either Junior or Senior Care Champions group;
   2. Attend the Looked after children members meeting;
   3. Be a representative on the Youth Cabinet group;
   4. Attend activity and consultation days;
   5. Attend other events – Regional and National.
2. Children and young people can also be involved in:
   1. Recruitment;
   2. Present at Conferences;
   3. Attend fostering preparation groups;
   4. Training.
   Looked After Reviews and other Meetings (see Looked After (Child in Care) Reviews Procedure).
   
   Every Review and/or meeting relating to a child's or young person's planning is an opportunity for children and young people to set out their views in Mind Of My Own statements and participate in their plan and arrangements;
3. Advocacy and Independent Visitors (see Advocacy and Independent Visitors Procedure).
   
   Advocates and Independent Visitors support and assist children and young people to participate in the services offered;
4. Support to children who have communication difficulties see also Children and Young People Aged 0-25 with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Procedure.
   
   Support and specialist services to children who have communication difficulties will always be offered. For children for whom English is not their first language a translator should be considered to enable the child to contribute. Mind Of My Own offers translations for children whose first language is not English. For children with communication difficulties as a result of physical or learning disabilities people who can use whatever medium of communication is most helpful to the child will be used, including the Mind Of My Own app for younger children and children and young people with additional needs;
5. Social media.
   
   Increasingly children and young people are becoming confident users of social media such as facebook, texting, Mind Of My Own, X (formerly known as twitter) and other apps. We see this as an opportunity for enabling children and young people to participate in decisions about their life whether by sending Mind Of My Own statements, texting their IRO or by using social media applications;
6. The Youth Voice and Creative Engagement team have their own Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, as well as group specific WhatsApp groups that involve young people.

The Leaving Care service has Facebook pages, the ability to promote Mind Of My Own, posting news and will message young adults directly.