Chapter 1: Engagement Activities and Tips for Practitioners
Chapter 2: Management Approaches to Support Participation in your Team
Chapter 3: Strategic Planning and Service Improvement
The Herefordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership (HSCP) Voice of the Child Participation Toolkit is a set of guidance and tools to improve participation and engagement with children and young people at all levels. The aim is to ensure that participation is meaningful and informs the work of safeguarding partners.
In October 2021, the HSCP and local Hereford charity No Wrong Door began consulting with young people…
300 young people took part in an online survey
9 schools and youth groups engaged in a takeover challenge to offer ideas on safeguarding
Mapping current practice across organisations in Herefordshire was completed
Youth scrutiny groups explored outcomes and key messages, feeding back to 70 professionals at a safeguarding partnership summit and 15 strategic leads on behalf of the county’s young people.
Each part of the consultancy process has fed into the creation of the HSCP Voice of the Child Participation Toolkit. It combines examples of existing good practice and newly generated material that can be easily accessed when needed.
Whether at a strategic or practitioner level, this Toolkit aims to give tips and practical suggestions that put young people, their views and their ideas at the heart of the safeguarding partnership.
Do your practitioners have the tools, skills and understanding to listen to the views of children, and to ensure that children’s views influence decisions about them?
Do your support and encourage your team to engage with children and young people in a participative way?
Do children and young people have the opportunity to feedback on services that affect them?
Do children and young people have the opportunity to influence your organisation strategically, for example by being involved in priority-setting, or recruitment?
Do you regularly feedback to children about how their views have had an impact, in a way that is accessible to them?
Do you self-evaluate how your organisation includes children’s views and opinions, to ensure that you can build on good practice, and correct gaps or poor practice?
All quotations throughout the Toolkit (unless referenced) are the anonymous contributions of the young people of Herefordshire. Though we don’t know their names, their voice matters and we thank them.
Funded by: Department for Education
Authored by: Herefordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership
Copyright: Herefordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership
The HSCP is grateful for the contributions and support of many individuals who assisted in the completion of this Toolkit. Namely, the HSCP would like to acknowledge the primary author, Kate Ross, and the support of the No Wrong Door project team in Herefordshire and HVOSS. We would also like to thank the young people, Jessie Punn and Sam Evans, who provided feedback and ideas for the development of the Toolkit. Lastly, we would like to thank the Department for Education for the funding that made this project possible.