children and young people’s - københavns professionshøjskole · 2017-12-05 · children and...
TRANSCRIPT
Children and young people’s participation in care: what
can we learn from the British experience?
Nigel Thomas
Professor Emeritus of Childhood and Youth
University of Central Lancashire
Konference: Børns ret til involvering i beslutningsprocesserProfessionshøjskolen Metropol, København
26. okt. 2017
The Centrefor Children and Young People’s Participationpromoting and researching participation, inclusion and empowerment
‘Voices with Volume’
Children and Decision Making: a study of children’s participation in decisions about
their care(Nuffield Foundation 1996-8)
Children invited to meetings at different ages
Age in completed
years
Child invited to
none
Child invited to
all or part
8 61% 39%
9 53% 46%
10 33% 66%
11 27% 72%
12 15% 85%
(N=223; p = 0.00001)
Social workers’ ratings of children’s contributions in meetings
Child’s contribution Proportion given this
rating
‘Freely contributed actively to
discussion’
21%
‘Contributed actively when
prompted’
12%
‘Gave brief answers when
prompted’
12%
‘Didn’t speak in the meeting’ 3%
Not present 51%
How children rated their review meetings (‘pots and beans’)
Support
a lotsomea little
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
How much I speak
a lotsomea little
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
How much they listen
a lotsomea little
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Influence
a lotsomea little
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
How much I like meetings
a lotsomea little
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Preparation
a lotsomea little
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
MOST IMPORTANT
to be
listened to
to let me
have my
say
to be
supported
to find out
what is
going on
to be
given
choices
to have time
to think
about things
for adults
not to
pressurise
me
for adults
to make
good
decisions
to get
what I
want
LEAST IMPORTANT
What’s most important in involving children in decisions
Children and Decision Making: Conclusions
Increasing level of participation
Children who are not included
Children bored by meetings
Children having limited influence on decisions
Importance of adult commitment
Need to draw on children’s competence –includes redesigning meetings
Need to recognise children’s rights
Why the rise in participation?
Research that showed need for improvement
Changes in legislation and policy
Convention on the Rights of the Child
Consumer/User rights movements
Campaigns by young people in care
Young people’s campaigns
Leeds Ad-Libbers (1973)
Who Cares? Project (1975-1978)
NAYPIC – National Association of Young People In Care (1979-1994)
‘Care Less Lives’ Mike Stein 2011
Care Less Lives…
Leeds Ad-Libbers – a group of young people living in children’s homes in Leeds who came together to share experiences and campaign to improve their lives in care
Who Cares? – NCB organised a national conference in 1975 –invited young people living in children’s homes all over England and Wales – 100 young people aged 12-16 attended
Charter of Rights for Young People in Care:
3. “The right to be able to make our own decisions and to have real influence over those decisions we are considered too thick to participate in.”
The Things We Want to Change:
2. “Give all young people in care the chance to attend their own six-monthly review… Learn how to talk with us, and how to listen.”
Growth of ‘children’s voice’
Voice for the Child in Care 1975– individual and group advocacy
1975 Children Act required attention to child’s ‘wishes and feelings’ (following Maria Colwell inquiry)
Children Act 1989 – much stronger emphasis on listening to children
Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989
Young people get organised
NAYPIC – made a major impact on law, policy and practice –shifted the professional culture and led to more young people being aware of their rights
Organisational and personnel problems led to its collapse
Utting report (1997) – followed disclosure of widespread and systematic abuse in children’s homes – led to government support to establish ‘a national voice for children in care and those formerly in care’
A National Voice (1999):
No Bin Bag policy
Sleepovers without checks
Minimum leaving care grant
LILAC project – training young people to be inspectors of services
CREATE Foundation (previously AAYPIC) also established 1999
Children’s Rights Director for England (2001)
And yet…
“You put your views across, but people don’t take you seriously… because you’re young.”
“There are too many people with some sort of investment in you at a review for you to be able to say what you really
honestly feel.”
Blueprint Report (Voice for the Child in Care, 2004)
Key messages for change:
● Put children’s interests first.
● Recognise the importance of
children’s relationships with family, friends and professionals.
● Actively involve children and
young people in decisions about their own lives.
● Minimise bureaucratic
processes to free professionals to spend more time working directly with children.
Phase 2: Local Projects
Derbyshire: to improve the daily life of children in residential care.
Greenwich: to act on what young people say makes a good children’s professional.
Kirklees: to increase attendance by young people at their review meetings.
Leeds: to create a culture of participation across services for looked-after children, including in the recruitment of staff.
Southampton: to improve placement stability.
Swindon: to ensure care leavers are heard by their corporate parents and have equal access to mainstream youth services.
Wandsworth: to seek the views of young people, carers and professionals on the role special guardianship might play in providing permanence, including training young people in peer research skills.
And now…
Children and young people attending some or all of their review (latest research):
at 5-12, 43%
at 13-15, 65%
at 16 and over, 80%
Dickens et al (2014)
What children expect
Children told us they wanted the right to: feel safe – not to be abused, bullied, hit, abandoned, or subjected to racism; be looked after and given help when needed; not have decisions made for them by people they don’t know; have somewhere stable in their life; be asked and listened to; have their own property; say no to a new placement; have choices; have no rules without reasons; privacy and to have private problems kept confidential; not have repeated punishments for the same offence; know about their parents and family and to keep in contact with them; have where they live treated as their home and not just where staff work; have teachers they get on with; learn, make mistakes, and go back to something they don’t understand; a chance of a good job and university if they are good enough; play and make and keep friends; know what is happening; be treated fairly and not treated as stupid because they have problems; if in care, not miss out on what those not in care would have or do; be listened to and not just told; not lose out on a right because someone else abused it; and be respected and trusted with responsibilities.
Children’s messages on care: a report by the Children’s Rights Director for England (2007)
What children experience
Many children said they find it hard to express themselves in mainly adult review meetings, and to hear their personal problems being discussed in front of them by a daunting group of professional adults, many of whom they don’t know. They want a choice of different ways to feed their views in to reviews and decisions, to feel safe in expressing views and concerns, and to be asked before a decision is made, not consulted afterwards. Children want their feelings to count too – even for very young children. Feelings ‘just are’ and shouldn’t have to be justified. Children often don’t know who makes the final decisions about their lives and some decisions don’t stay made.
Placements, decisions and reviews (2006): from The Children’s Views Digest, Children’s Rights Director for
England (Morgan 2014)
Some good news…
Most children (65%) said they are asked usually or a lot about things that matter to them, and 63% said their views are taken as seriously as an adult’s views. A majority (60%) said their views make quite a bit or a lot of difference; 77% are usually or always told what changes are going to happen in their lives.
Looked after in England (2007): from The children’s views digest, Children’s Rights Director for England
Independent Reviewing Officers
Right to an advocate
Right to leaving care support
Children in Care Councils
What research tells us
A consistent finding across studies was young people’s wish to be more involved in decision-making. Young people wanted to be kept informed between review meetings and to have decisions explained to them. They wanted to be made aware of what their care plan contained and to be involved:
I’ve been in care for a long time and I never get a say in what I would like. It’s always what other people would like and I’m fed up with it.
Talk to me before you make decisions for me.
Feeling as though they were involved in decision-making was both dependent on and part of creating a good relationship with professionals, as the following young person reflected:
My social worker was really good. She made sure I was involved in everything.
If they’d sat down and talked to me, asked me how I wanted to deal with it, it would have shown…I don’t know, it would have shown caring, I suppose.
Children and Young People’s Views on Being in Care: A Literature Review(Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies, 2015)
So what’s the problem…?Everyone seems to agree that children’s participation is important, but so often it doesn’t happen.
Is it down to lack of:
Skills?
Capacity?
Is it the wrong:
Values?
Attitudes?
Policies?
Is it a problem with:
Resources?
Organisations?
(Not these two)
Some ideas for thinking about the problem
– from German philosophers!
Jürgen Habermas:‘System’ vs ‘lifeworld’
Life-world – our everyday world of interaction, based on communication, agreement, and consensus.
System – the economic and political systems that govern our lives, based on instrumental rationality and control.
Tendency of the system to ‘colonise’ the lifeworld.
‘System’ vs ‘lifeworld’ in practice
Lifeworld – the everyday world in which young people, their families, carers, social workers, live their lives – the dialogue, the non-verbal communication, hopes and dreams and fears…
System – public authorities, official policies – has its own drivers – efficiency, performance indicators and targets –imposes structures and procedures that are externally determined
‘have the meeting around the kitchen table…at ten past eight in the morning over dippy eggs and orange juice’
But the system can also underpin rights where they are fragile – risk of idealising the lifeworld and making the system into a bogeyman
Does it make sense to talk about ‘corporate parenting’?
Tension between rights and caring
Axel Honneth: The Struggle for Recognition
Mutual recognition – key to:
the development of individuals
and the progress of societies
We define who we are in interaction with others, and can only flourish if we are fully recognised.
Distinguishes three modes of recognition…
‘Love, rights and solidarity’
Love – intimate relationships in which our sense of self develops
Rights – mutual respect as persons under law
Solidarity – reciprocal esteem for contribution to shared values
Recognition theory in practice
Enables a holistic way of thinking about the relationships between young people and the adults charged with ‘looking after’ them.
Reminds us that relationships are two-way and everyone should have ‘skin in the game’. Young people mistrust professionals who don’t seem to give anything of themselves.
Addresses the false choice between respecting children’s rights and taking care of their needs.
Reminds us that children and young people have a contribution to make – are not just recipients.
Also reminds us that we sometimes have to struggle to get to the place we need to be – conflict is not necessarily negative.
What can young people do?
Expect to be loved, and to be allowed to love others.
Insist on your right to be treated with respect, and to engage in dialogue on a basis of equality.
Expect your talents to be recognised and your contributions valued.
Final words
“Basically the review meeting was about them, it was about what they thought was best for me. I could say what’s best for me as well, like you could say what’s best for you. I don’t need – well, I do need sometimes, but most of the times I don’t need people to say what’s best for me.”
James, aged 13
References Dickens, J., Schofield, G., Beckett, C., Philip, G. and Young, J. (2014) Care Planning and the Role of the Independent Reviewing Officer: Research Briefing. Centre for Research on Children and Families, University of East Anglia.
Habermas, J. (1986) The Theory of Communicative Action. Cambridge: Polity.
Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies (2015) Children and Young People’s Views on Being in Care: A Literature Review. London: Coram Voice.
Honneth, A. (1995) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. Cambridge: Polity.
Honneth, A. (2014) Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life. Cambridge: Polity.
Morgan, R. (2007) Children’s messages on care: a report by the Children’s Rights Director for England. London: Ofsted.
Morgan, R. (2014) The Children’s Views Digest, Children’s Rights Director for England. Manchester: Ofsted.
Stein, M. (2011) Care Less Lives: The Story of the Rights Movement for Children in Care. Catch22.
Thomas, N. and O’Kane, C. (1998) Children and Decision Making: a summary report. University of Wales Swansea, International Centre for Childhood Studies. Also published in Norwegian as Barns medbestemmelse (Oslo, 2004) and in Sami as Máná mielmearrideapmi (Oslo, 2006).*
Thomas, N., Phillipson, J., O’Kane, C. and Davies, E. (1999) Children and Decision Making: a training and resource pack. University of Wales Swansea, International Centre for Childhood Studies.*
Thomas, N. and O’Kane, C. (1999) ‘Children’s participation in reviews and planning meetings when they are ‘looked after’ in middle childhood’, Child & Family Social Work 4(3), 221-30.
Thomas, N. and O’Kane, C. (1999) ‘Experiences of decision-making in middle childhood: the example of children ‘looked after’ by local authorities’, Childhood 6(3), 369-88.
Voice for the Child in Care (2004) Start with the Child, Stay with the Child: A Blueprint for a Child-Centred Approach to Children and Young People in Public Care, London: Voice for the Child in Care.
* Obtainable from [email protected]