Children's and young people’s right to participate has been increasingly acknowledged and taken up internationally, as expressed in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet much of this has focused on collecting children’s voices, rather than achieving change, and has met its limits. This book provides an analysis of children’s participation in formal, collective and action research processes in six different international settings. It offers a deeper understanding of what helps and facilitates children's and young people’s participation through research, evaluation and decision-making to go beyond voice and effect change. This analysis is set in the context of historical and current discourses of participation, the sociology of childhood, contemporary anthropology, children’s geography and international development. Themes addressed include time and processes in children’s participation, shifting and multiple identities of children, political and cultural contexts, places and spaces children inhabit, skills and capacities of adults, accountability and power. The analysis promotes an approach to children’s participation as relational and collaborative, and will contribute to answering some of the questions facing practitioners and researchers embarking on participatory enquiry with children and young people. This is an invaluable book for practitioners and for scholars, postgraduates in anthropology, sociology, human geography, childhood studies, development studies, social policy, social work, community work, education, youth work and those with an interest in citizenship, children’s rights and human rights. Researchers and practitioners in UN, government and non-government services will also find it applicable to engaging with children and young people.

There have long been doubts within social work about the viability of reconciling participatory practice with the statutory power that comes hand-in-hand with child protection work. This book explores this issue by proposing an original theory of children’s participation within statutory child protection interventions. It prioritises children’s voices through presentation of a wide collection of children’s experiences of the child protection system including three unique in-depth accounts. Identifying the different ways in which children engage with professionals in the child protection process, Duncan explores why they act in the ways that they do. The book reveals why some children are sceptical participants or become disaffected with the system whilst others participate more positively within it. Participation in Child Protection will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including social work, sociology, psychology, counselling, law and education, as well as child protection professionals such as social workers, child protection police officers, health visitors and teachers.

This book showcases rights based participatory approaches to policy-making, practice and research with children and youth. Throughout its three parts, the book conceptualises a rights-based participatory approach; showcases constructive and innovative rights based participatory approaches across the domains of research, policy and practice; and interrogates the challenges and complexities in the implementation of such an approach. In recent times, Ireland has been at the forefront of promoting and implementing participatory approaches to policy-making, practice and research focused on children and youth. This edited volume is a timely opportunity to capture previously undocumented learning generated from a wide range of innovative participatory initiatives implemented in Ireland. In capturing this learning, real world guidance will be provided to international policy-makers, practitioners and researchers working with children and youth. This book is essential reading for those interested in a rights based participatory approach, for those who want to appropriately and meaningfully engage children and youth in research, and for those wishing to maximise the contribution of children and youth in policy-making.

Bringing together theories, ideas, insights and experiences of practitioners and researchers from Brazil, India, South Africa and the UK, this book explores children and young people's involvement in public action. The contributors consider the potential of children and young people's participation to be transformative.

This book considers children?s participation rights in the context of family law proceedings, and how their operation can be improved for the benefit of children and family justice systems globally. In doing so, it provides the pedagogical reasoning for child participation, as well as a thorough analysis of the relevant human rights instruments in this area, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.00This comprehensive book examines the way in which private international law instruments deal with child participation in separation/divorce, parental responsibility and child abduction proceedings. In addition, the book includes individual contributions from renowned family law experts from 17 countries who describe and analyse the local laws and exercise of child participation rights in their own jurisdictions. These insightful texts include the authors? views on the improvements needed to ensure that child participation rights are fully respected and implemented in the countries under review. A detailed comparative analysis follows which helpfully pinpoints both the key commonalities and differences in these global processes. Finally, the concluding chapter draws together the different perspectives revealed across the handbook, and identifies several key issues requiring further reflection from scholars, policy makers and family justice professionals.

People's relationship to nature is the greatest issue facing the world at the turn of the millennium, and all over the world young people have shown enormous enthusiasm for environmental action. Many countries are radically reassessing both the role of citizens in managing their environment and the rights and responsibilities of children to be involved in shaping their own and their communities' futures. This book, by one of the world's leading authorities on environmental education, is written in the conviction that children can play a valuable and lasting role in sustainable development, if their participation is taken seriously and planned with thought for their developing capabilities and unique strengths. Through direct participation, children can develop a genuine appreciation of democracy and a sense of their own competence and responsibility. The planning, design, monitoring and management of the physical environment is an ideal domain for their participation, in part because their commitment to it is so strong. The book is for planners, educationalists and environmentalists, introducing the theory and the practice of children's participation, and its importance for developing democracy and sustainable communities. It emphasises genuine participation, where children are themselves involved in defining problems and acting as reflective, critical participants in issues affecting their communities. The 'environment' is interpreted broadly to include, for example, the planning of housing areas and the management of playgrounds. Detailed case studies are provided from urban and rural, poor and middle class communities from both the North and South. For teachers, group facilitators and community leaders, it presents organising principles, successful models, practical techniques and resources for involving young people in environmental projects.

Occupational Therapy with Children draws on contemporary research to examine children’s roles, their occupations and the skills which underpin their ability to participate in society. The book will develop the occupational therapist’s understanding of how to optimise the participation of children in the various environments in which they are required or choose to engage. Occupational Therapy with Children maintains a developmental perspective and incorporates child-centred interventions to improve performance deficits. Section one examines children’s roles and occupations in contemporary society at a broad level. Coverage includes the child’s participation in the family, at school and in the community. This section considers environmental influences on childhood activities, and highlights children’s changing occupational time use and the impact this has on health and wellbeing. Section two focuses on childhood as a period of significant development and skill acquisition. This is profiled as a dynamic period for the therapist to encourage occupational mastery across the spectrum of childhood experience: in play; in self-care; as a student; and beyond the school grounds. Topical chapters evaluate participation in physical activity and consider the potential for ‘healthy’ leisure, along with the risk characteristics associated with certain approaches to leisure. Occupational Therapy with Children is aimed at students and practitioners of occupational therapy. Other childhood professionals, particularly early childhood educators, will also appreciate the articulate approach this book takes towards the development of the child. Highly illustrated with contemporary photographs, drawings and succinct tables Includes case studies; providing worked examples of therapeutic applications Draws on the World Health Organisation International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) to frame the concept of children’s occupations and societal participation Responsive to developments in occupational science Expert contributors provide international perspectives From the Foreword by Professor Charles Christiansen, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston [Occupational therapists] will find that this book provides a framework that makes planning effective therapy with children practical, relevant, and effective . . . [Rodger & Ziviani’s] contribution to the literature has helped unleash the genie of occupation in the service of improved therapy with children.

This 12-hour free course explored the values, knowledge and skills required for effective communication with groups of children in different contexts.

This new edition of A Handbook of Children and Young People’s Participation brings together work from research and practice to reflect on some of the key developments in the field since the first edition published in 2010. Subtitled ‘Conversations for Transformational Change’, the collection focuses on both ongoing and new discourses that enable us to advance thinking and practice to better understand what it means for participation to be transformational. Featuring all new content, it explores the developments that have been achieved in theory and practice in the last decade as well as the challenges and, indeed, the limitations of dominant participation approaches with children and young people in achieving genuine societal transformation. A key feature of the Handbook is the inclusion of young people as co-authors in many of the chapters. Foregrounding aspects of participation as experienced by diverse groups of children and young people, the book especially illuminates the experiences and perspectives of participation relating to groups of children who face particular challenges, such as displaced children and children living with disabilities and young people from indigenous groups in a range of contexts. The broad spectrum of debates that the text covers will be invaluable in challenging and transforming thinking and practice for a wide range of scholars, practitioners, activists and young people themselves. It will additionally be suitable for use on a wide range of courses including childhood and youth studies, sociology, law, political studies, community development, development studies, children’s rights, citizenship studies, education and social work.

This book provides a much-needed, first broad portrayal of how child participation is implemented in practice today. Bringing together 19 chapters written by prominent authors from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and Israel, the book includes descriptions of programs that engage children and youth in decision-making processes, as well as insightful findings regarding what children, their families, and professionals think about these programs.