To achieve real social change, we must listen to children and young people’s experiences

By Gwen Dalziel, Regional Operational Lead at Children North East

Children North East is a large North East based children’s charity, with work extending across England, Wales and Scotland. Children North East want all babies, children and young people to be happy and healthy, and believe that real social change is achieved when those who have experienced issues lead the change. We deliver services including: therapeutic services, mental health support, youth work, domestic abuse support, help for families, community initiatives, participation and consultation activities and our UK-wide Poverty Proofing© initiative.   

Children North East is proud of its ethical approach to research and passionately believes all of its research is impact-driven, aiming to enact real change for those that participate. Our recently-published Change Now report consolidates learning from consultations with children and young people carried out since 2020 and Poverty Proofing© the school day audits. It brought together the voices of over 35,000 children and young people into a single report with a number of key recommendations for the North East of England.

Its purpose is to analyse and assimilate previous work to highlight key thematic areas of learning and make recommendations for the North East of England, putting the voice of children and young people at the centre of understanding what is important to them and ensure those involved in how to improve services that increase their quality of life and opportunities are informed by the voice of their lived experience. We took the opportunity to celebrate and share the milestone report at our Change Now event held on 29 February 2024. The event provided a platform to share recommendations with key decision-makers and organisations working with young people in the North East region.

The themes of consultations and projects were many and varied. They were commissioned for a variety of purposes and all asked questions of children and young people in different contexts, but all had children and young people, and their futures, at the centre. Poverty Proofing© the School Day audits formed the largest number of participants focused on socio-economic status and its impact on the school day, while the VOICES project was the next largest number of participants, concentrating on the impact of Covid-19. The Now and Next consultation had over one thousand voices and was dedicated to finding out about culture and creativity in Newcastle and Gateshead, while other consultations were smaller and focused on specific areas, including accessing health settings and safety.

Despite the variety and differences among consultations, common themes were easily identified.

Young people told us that they want equality of opportunity and their ability to access opportunities should not be curtailed by their differences, whether that be socio-economic status, additional needs or gender.

Young people want to be consulted on decisions that impact their future and we have a responsibility to ensure proper processes are in place across all environments they access to allow this to happen and for their views to be acted upon.

The overwhelming factor underpinning all the recommendations is that children and young people do not feel listened to and valued. The ultimate recommendation that was prevalent across all categories is children and young people want to be listened to effectively, as the ‘experts in their lived experience’. This means fully listened to, with their opinions and thoughts taken seriously and suggestions acted upon. Only then will this viably reflect Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989: the right to be heard.

Click here to read the full Change Now Report.

——————————————————————-

This article is featured in our 24 July newsletter.

Resolve Poverty will use the information you provide to send you our newsletter by email. We may occasionally send you emails about other Resolve Poverty projects, services and events to pursue our legitimate organisational activities, but we won’t share your personal information; transfer your data internationally; or use your data for automatic profiling. Your personal data will be stored on a secure, password protected database that can only be accessed by members of the Resolve Poverty team. Members of the team are required to adhere to the organisation’s privacy and data use policy. Your personal data will be stored until you tell us you no longer want to receive our newsletter. You have the right to know what information we hold about you and you can ask to see it, amend it or have it deleted by emailing us at contact@resolvepoverty.org.