In this blog, our partner organisations, Barnardo’s Scotland and Play Scotland, reflect on their experiences facilitating the participation with babies, children and young people for the Development Phase of our State of Children’s Rights Report 2024.
Together has been working closely with our members and supporters to develop a new approach for this year’s report. While previous reports have focused on evidence submitted by organisations, our 2024 report will present babies’, children and young people’s experiences of their rights – or ‘stories’ – through their own words, artwork and other means of expression.
During our Development Phase we worked with Barnardo’s Scotland, CYCJ, Art at the Start, Play Scotland and Circle who held ‘story-gathering sessions’ with a diverse range of children and young people to include in our report. These sessions helped test our draft resources, providing valuable feedback for creating the final versions. The final resources are available here, including packs for children, young people, parents/carers and anyone who would like to support a child or young person to share their story for our report.
In these story-gathering sessions, organisations took a rights-based approach to participation and have reflected on their methods, challenges and adaptations below.
1.What were some effective methods or techniques used to support participation of children and young people during the sessions?
To support children and young people’s participation during the sessions, facilitators encouraged engagement and understanding through the use of child-friendly explanations, engaging activities and recognised children and young people’s autonomy and right to privacy.
Child-friendly explanations and accessibility tools:
“At the start of the workshop, we delivered a child-friendly explanation of its purpose and activities, ensuring clarity on how children’s contributions would be used. We then circulated a copy of last year’s report among the children, which provided context and helped them understand the workshop’s objectives. We think this is really helpful in enabling the children to visualise the report’s final format.” (Play Scotland)
“For greater accessibility we encouraged the use of symbols both as a way of communicating about the project but also as a way of gathering views. We used Widgit to create timelines for our young people to understand what was going to be happening with their views.” (Barnardo’s Scotland)
Engaging Activities:
“We facilitated active engagement by encouraging the children to take us on tours around their school, enabling them to share their perspectives on various areas and express their likes and dislikes. Engaging them in hands-on activities such as drawing their houses and brainstorming changes they’d like to see encouraged lively discussions about their home lives. They were also able to show us artwork that they had previously done and were proud of. We feel this encouraged trust and relationship building”. (Play Scotland)
“The effective methods we used were very much based on what the young people would find interesting, exciting and fun. Therefore, the activities were either active, creative or practical for the young people to get involved in.” (Barnardo’s Scotland)
Recognising children and young people’s autonomy and right to privacy:
“Despite having obtained permissions from both parents and children beforehand, we offered the children the opportunity to decline participation if they wished, respecting their autonomy and preferences.
We explained anonymity to the children and encouraged them to choose aliases to maintain anonymity, they really enjoyed this and were very happy to use the aliases to share their stories.” (Play Scotland)
2.In what ways did you adapt your facilitation approach to accommodate the diverse needs and preferences of the children and young people involved?
To accommodate the diverse needs and preferences of the children and young people involved, facilitators adapted their approach allowing for various forms of communication and scheduled in time before, during and after for play.
Breaking down communication barriers:
“The children that participated in the workshop were from migrant families so had English as an additional language. We focused a lot of our approach on hands-on activities such as drawing so that the children were able to communicate their stories in a way other than through verbal communication. We ensured we used clear language without jargon so that we were as easy to understand as possible.” (Play Scotland)
Tailoring the session to suit the group of young people’s specific needs:
“We wanted to do a couple of the activities so that the young people had different opportunities to talk about what was important to them, however most of the young people we worked with have autism so it was decided rather than a long session looking at 2/3 different activities in one go, we instead did short sessions focusing on one activity at a time. We also did the activities on separate sessions as well. This was all so that the young people would only have to concentrate on the activity for a short time, but also so that they had plenty of time before and after the activity to have fun.” (Barnardo’s Scotland)
3.Reflecting on the dynamics within the group, how did you promote inclusivity and ensure that all participants felt comfortable sharing their stories? How did you address any power imbalances between the children and young people and Facilitator?
Children and young people can feel intimidated in spaces where they are asked to share about themselves. To promote inclusivity and ensure all participants felt comfortable sharing their stories, both facilitators allowed children to share at their own pace and asked open-ended questions during activities, fostering a supportive environment. They remained flexible, allowing participants to choose their level of involvement, which helped address power imbalances between facilitators and young people.
Allowing children and young people to take their time:
“We ensured that everyone had the opportunity to share their story at their own pace. We respected individuals who chose not to engage and refrained from pressuring them into discussing their experiences.” (Play Scotland)
Getting curious and asking open ended questions:
“While the children were engaged in drawing activities, we engaged them in conversation, asking thoughtful and open questions about their drawings. We encouraged them to elaborate on their artwork and share more about their personal narratives if they wished to.” (Play Scotland)
Remaining flexible:
“In particular for the Documentary that the young people made the young people got to choose how involved they wanted to be in sharing the story of youth group. We had to work flexibly with this knowing at the beginning some young people might have not been keen to participate until they saw the activity in progress. This happened, one young person didn’t want to film anything or speak, but half way through the activity we checked in with her again and she then took the camera and did an amazing job at filming some artwork that was on the wall.” (Barnardo’s Scotland)
4.Did you or the children and young people face any challenges during the story-gathering sessions and how did you overcome them?
Building trust between facilitator and children and young people, especially with those who felt more shy to participate:
“Some children were very keen to talk and add to the conversation that we were having; others were a little shy. We gave the children time to get to know us and feel comfortable in our company, by chatting to them as they were engaged in drawing activities, asking open questions about what they were drawing and their lives. We developed a rapport with them which made them more confident in speaking out later on when taking part in other activities.” (Play Scotland)
Using accessibility tools to explain concepts or terms that are difficult to understand:
“In our first session I explained verbally about the project, the aims of the State of Children’s Rights Report, consent and how the young people’s information was going to be used and I came away thinking that I had not received feedback from the young people that they had understood what I was saying. So the next time we had a session I had created a timeline on Widgit, that used easy to understand symbols to explain more visually the concepts. This worked better and it gave the young people and their families something to refer back to if they wanted to ask questions.” (Barnardos)
5.How did you navigate any sensitive topics or situations that arose during the story gathering process while ensuring the continued participation and well-being of the children and young people involved?
Navigating sensitive topics during the story-gathering process required a careful and compassionate approach by the facilitators to ensure children’s rights were upheld and their well-being supported.
Taking the role of observer and listener
“During our workshop, we had a few sensitive subjects come up, such as concerns about rats in their home and another involving a visit to their home by the police. Rather than pressuring the children for details we took on a supportive stance, allowing them space to talk about the subjects at their own pace. We took on the role of an observer and attentive listener, ensuring that they felt heard and respected.” (Play Scotland)
Considering the environment of the workshop
“By providing an environment of openness and acceptance, we noticed that the children gradually opened up, and became more comfortable to chat away until they had exhausted the topic and moved onto something else. We were sure not to judge what they were saying, which I think fostered a sense of trust and safety.” (Play Scotland)
Acknowledging children and young people’s potential concerns for their privacy and consequences of sharing
“To capture their stories, we took notes on their discussions, ensuring to respect their privacy by using aliases. This information was later included in the feedback that we sent to the children following the workshop, they were happy for us to include the information and felt comfortable that it was under their alias, which may allow them to identify it if published.” (Play Scotland)
Allowing for feedback and continuous support
“For one of the groups, we worked with we had a sensitive topic of the youth group coming to an end that was difficult to navigate for the young people. Part of our strategy to navigate this was to return a few times to the group, so that they could process the information that they had been given about the closure and give them time to be able to form their own responses to how they felt. Being patient and reflecting on the processing times for our young people was important recognising that this would be different for each child. Our relationship-based practice and our trauma informed approach also means we have a good grounding to be able to tackle some of the more sensitive topics.” (Barnardo’s Scotland)
After a period of extensive engagement with our members and supporters, we are now very excited to launch a range of resources to support babies, children and young people to get involved – either through a supportive organisation or independently.
The call for stories is open to all babies, children and young people (under 18), as well as the adults and organisations who support them. We are also working closely with 12 partner organisations to gather stories from the babies’, children and young people they support.
The deadline for submissions is the 19th of July.
Our 2024 report will act as a baseline for our #RightsOnTrack campaign, to get a clear picture of what life is really like for children as Scotland moves to incorporate the UNCRC into law. This will help us measure impact and progress until the UK and Scotland are next reviewed by the UN (in approximately 2032).
- You can find out more about our State of Children’s Rights Report here.
- Find out more about our #RightsOnTrack campaign here
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