Children's Consultation and Participation

1. Introduction

1.1 Participation

Participation of children and young people in decisions about their lives helps us to work according to our principles.

Good participation helps to ensure that all children

Safe:

• Children have someone to tell when they don't feel safe, and that person listens and acts on those feelings;
• Children understand what is happening to them and why, and who to speak to if they don't understand or don't agree.

Secure:

• Children feel listened to when they express their wishes and feelings to the adults who care for them and the professionals who support them;
• These adults know how to listen to children, champion their voice to others and demonstrate that they care about the child's future;
• Children have an opportunity to reflect on their experiences in the social care system.

Successful:

• Children gain skills, experience and confidence in expressing their views, including to senior decision-makers and advocating for other children and young people;
• Children are provided with better support to be successful in all aspects of their lives when they are encouraged to provide feedback and influence improvement;
• Concerns and issues are dealt with at an early stage, which could have an immediate impact for them in terms of how they identify their 'quality of life'.

Slough Children First is committed to both speaking and listening clearly, purposefully and honestly with children and young people. This reflects Slough Children First's values.

Everyone who comes into contact with children and young people, at every level of the organisation, should be:

Professional:

• Having the right skills to communicate effectively with children and young people;
• Understanding that children and young people may communicate through their behaviour, and be skilled in interpreting that behaviour;
• Knowing how to record the views of children and young people, the effect these had on decisions and the reasons, if any, why the child's view was not acted on;
• Keeping shared focus on the wishes and feelings of the child in professional meetings.

Resourceful:

• Able to identify and create opportunities for meaningful communication with children and young people;
• Understanding and using available resources, tools and processes to find out more about children's views. These resources are listed below;
• Seeing participation as a resource for engaging young people in the support being offered to them.

Respectful:

• Having a positive attitude towards all children and young people, even when their behaviour challenges our listening skills;
• Being reliable and consistent in our approach to children and young people;
• Taking into account any difficulties or barriers that children face when communicating their needs to us and providing any support that they need to be heard;
• Being honest with children and young people about what can be expected to change as a result of them expressing their views and wishes.

Reflective:

• Using the voices of children and young people to reflect on their own practice and 'self-audit' their participation work;
• Continuing to learn and develop positive approaches to active listening;
• Discussing participation techniques and progress in teams and at supervision.

Slough Children First 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.

1.2 Roles and responsibilities for participation and consultation

Every practitioner working with children and young people should:

• Encourage them to express their views, wishes and feelings;
• Report those wishes and feelings to the responsible case worker, with the child's consent.

Some practitioners have specific responsibilities for listening to and recording the wishes and feelings of children and young people. How, when and where to record children's views is included in the relevant procedure.

• The allocated social worker;
• The allocated Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO);
• The Child Protection Conference Chair;
• The allocated personal advisor for care leavers;
• An advocate;
• An independent visitor;
• Participation officer.

Managers of these practitioners have responsibilities to:

• Ensure staff have the time and resources they need to support participation;
• Use supervision and training opportunities to encourage reflection and development of participation skills;
• Use management oversight and quality assurance processes to check that the child's voice is recorded and listened to;
• Review feedback including complaints and compliments about their service as part of ongoing improvement plans.

Corporate parents also have a duty to seek out and listen to the views of children and young people about the services that they receive. This includes:

• The Joint  Parenting Panel;
• The senior management team of Slough Children First;
• Elected members of Slough Borough Council.

The participation officer is responsible for listening to children looked after and care leavers as follows:

• Planning and executing strategies for collecting the views of children and young people;
• Reporting the views of children and young people that result from participation activities, including to children and young people themselves;
• Maintaining and supporting 'Reach Out', a forum for consulting children looked after and care leavers;
• Challenging other managers and practitioners to increase participation and consultation;
• Reporting on the success or current participation activities across Slough Children First and making recommendations for improvements.

Anyone involved in designing services for, or communication with children and young people has a responsibility to consider:

• How they will seek out and listen to the views of children and young people about current service provision;
• How they will test ideas for improvement with children and young people;
• How children and young people might be involved in co-designing or co-producing any changes.

2. How the Views of Children Looked After Influence Strategic Decision-Making

The participation officer collects, collates, analyses and reports on the views of children and young people who are looked after or who have left care.

The mechanisms for doing this include:

• "My Review – My Views", an online portal for children to record their wishes and feelings in order to inform their review;
• "Your care, We care", an annual survey of children's views about the services that they receive;
• "Reach Out", A regular set of forums for children who are looked after and care leavers to express their views about services, set priorities and engage directly with decision-makers.

The results of these activities are reported to:

• The Joint Parenting Panel;
• The ELT of Slough Children First;
• Reach Out forums;
• All children and young people who are looked after and care leavers.

For more detail on the consultation processes used in Slough and how to get involved in those consultations, either as a child or a practitioner or manager, see Section 5, Processes for Consulting Children and Young People Looked After.

3. Participation - the Role of the Social Worker

The relationship with their Social Worker and other significant professionals and adults in their lives is the most important factor affecting whether children and young people feel that their voice is heard.

Social workers should consider:

• What support does the child need from me to express their views for the first time? How can I show creativity, empathy and resilience?
• What preparation do I need to do before I consult the child?
• What information does the child need to make a decision and express a view? What format should the child be given that information in? When?
• Does the child need to experience the different options before they make an informed choice? How can I facilitate that?
• What opportunities are there for me to reflect on what I have heard?
• If I can't ask the child their views, how can I keep them informed of decisions being made and the reasons for them?
• What is the child's behaviour telling me about their views, wishes and feelings? What else do I know about the child and their views?
• Who else might the child have expressed their views, wishes and feelings to? Where else might their views, wishes and feelings be recorded?
• Do I need to give the child another opportunity to express their views?
• If I can't do as the child wants, how can I best explain to them why not, and what they can do to complain or get the decision reviewed?

All assessments, plans and reviews should contain a record of children's views, wishes and feelings. Before consulting a child, social workers might find it helpful to review these documents, including reports from return home interviews and reports of other independent people, such as independent visitors, advocates or mentors.

4. Participation - the Role of Managers

Managers must ensure that social workers and/or staff have the time and resources available to them to ensure the effective participation of children and young people.

Managers must support social workers to listen to children and ensure their participation in decisions about them. Managers can do this through:

• Using supervision to consider issues relating to the child's voice;
• Review methodologies and techniques for recording children's views.

Managers are responsible for quality assuring assessments, plans and reviews and this process must include checking 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.

Managers should make use of complaints and compliments and other sources of feedback to develop the service. This includes:

• Establishing a process to aggregate complaints and compliments
• Considering whether the issues raised are representative of wider practice, particularly where this relates to gender, sexuality, ethnicity and culture or disability
• Feeding back to children and young people about what has changed as a result.

5. Processes for Consulting Children and Young People Looked After

5.1 Reach Out

Children and young people can be involved in the development of services through Reach Out within Slough Children First.

Reach Out is promoted through:

• Postcards in the child's information packs;
• Reach Out section on the website;
• Instagram promotion;
• Reach Out update bi-annual newsletter;
• Events and clubs;
• Regular e-mails to carers, social workers and IROs.

Any child or young person who is looked after can attend a Reach out forum, with no need for an application, or invitation.

Participation in Reach Out is supported by:

• Holding activities during school holidays so that carers can support children to attend;
• Using a range of tools, such as webconferencing to engage children out of area.

Managers can and should use the Reach Out group as a way of understanding the views of children and young people about how to improve a service or part of a service. To do this, managers should:

• Ensure sufficient time to plan and execute a meaningful consultation process;
• Fill out an Expression of Interest form (see Local Resources). This encourages managers to think about what they want to achieve from consulting the group, what the benefits are to the young people, and how this will influence their decision;
• Consult the participation officer about creative and accessible ways of collecting views.

Reach Out groups meet monthly in age-appropriate groups and on a quarterly basis they meet with the Joint Parenting Panel. Reach Out identify their priority issues, 'hot topics', to raise with decision-makers at the quarterly meeting. Young people attend as representatives of Reach Out, and while their personal experiences are important, they should not be asked to speak for all children looked after on an issue that they haven't consulted upon. See the Reach Out Feedback Flowchart.

5.2 Recruitment of staff

Children and young people can also be involved in recruitment of staff.

• Managers recruiting staff should notify the participation officer of planned recruitment processes so that children and young people can be meaningfully involved;
• Young people are provided with training to prepare them for taking part in recruitment processes and a recording tool is provided to support them in recording their views;
• Children and young people can be provided with a range of ways to be involved in recruitment including:
  1. A children and young people's panel that asks questions of candidates;
  2. A young person sitting on an adult recruitment panel;
  3. Making a pre-recorded interview question that is played to candidates.
• Young people taking part in recruitment report their views to the recruitment panel and are taken into consideration when appointing candidates.

Children and young people can also be involved in:

• Mentoring;
• Staff and carer training;
• Recruitment fairs for foster carers.
  
  Contact the participation officer to discuss options for doing this.

5.3 Looked After Reviews and other Meetings

See also: Looked After Reviews Procedure.

Every Review and/or meeting relating to a child's case is an opportunity for children and young people to participate in their Care Plan and arrangements.

The "My Review, My Views" online form allows children to report their views prior to their review. The process for collecting children's views in this way is set out in Flowchart 1 - to follow.

5.4 Advocacy and Independent Visitors Advocacy

Advocacy and Independent Visitors Advocacy is available to all children receiving a service from Slough Children First and is provided by the National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS).

5.5 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. The Participation officer can support practitioners with tools and methods for communicating with children with disabilities.

For children for whom English is not their first language a translator should be considered to enable the child to contribute. 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.

Local children's respite unit advises on techniques for communicating with children and young people with disabilities, and feeding messages into the participation process.

Social media

Increasingly children and young people are becoming confident users of social media such as facebook, texting, 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 texting their IRO or by using social media applications.

Annual survey process

Each year Slough Children First undertakes a survey of all children and young people who are looked after. Children and young people are involved in the design and communication of this survey through 'Reach Out', and the design is tested with children with autism to ensure that they can fully participate.

The process for completing the survey and reporting the results is set out at in the CLA Annual Survey flowchart.

Further Information

Legislation, Statutory Guidance and Government Non-Statutory Guidance

SEND complaints: guide for young people aged 16 to 25 in education - A guide for young people on how to resolve special education needs and disability (SEND) disagreements.

Useful Websites

NDTi - Works with children/young people and communities to influence change in the community in terms of inclusion. Particularly relevant to transitions.

Council for Disabled Children - Provides useful resources for disabled children and young people.

IRISS: Frameworks for child participation in social care - An article which provides some interesting evidence based on research completed into children's participation.