Available online: https://pub.norden.org/nord2020-043/ “The Nordic Region must be the best place in the world for children and young people”. This is the vision of the Nordic Council of Ministers’ strategy for children and young people in the Nordic Region. This publication aims to inspire administrative bodies, organisations, individuals and others to recognise their opportunities and responsibilities. Participation in society and having influence over one’s own life is not only a right for boys and girls, young women and men, but it also leads to better decision-making, more engaged citizens and a more inclusive society.

This book explores how young people across different European contexts participate in decision-making and foster changes on issues that concern them and their communities, giving new insights into discourses on young people’s as active citizens across Europe.

Available online: https://pub.norden.org/nord2020-015/ Abstract [en] The well-being of children and young people, and their ability to exercise their rights, is a pre-requisite for the continued development of the Nordic region. Children and young people are therefore priority target groups for the Nordic Council of Ministers, so the Council will integrate a children’s rights and youth perspective in its work. The ambition for greater integration of a children’s rights and youth perspective also brings a responsibility to ensure that the work is based on a number of guiding principles. There must be a common minimum level of the involvement of children and young people and, above all, the work must be carried out in a way that protects and promotes children’s safety and security. This document is relevant for all situations in which children and young people are contacted or involved in the work of the Nordic Council of Ministers.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child lays down the right of children to form their own opinions, as well as the right to express these opinions. In the light of this, the Ombudsman for Children in Sweden has created Young Speakers – a qualitative method which recognises and elevates the voices of young people, without adult adjustment or correction. The rationale for the method is that children are experts on their own lives and have important information to share with decision makers. It is about listening to reflections, nuances, and in-depth stories that are difficult to understand and take into account without going into detail. By listening to different people tell their personal stories about the same topics, patterns, trends, and shortcomings can be identified.

This study explores whether and how enshrining children's rights in national constitutions improves implementation and enforcement of those rights by comparing Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish law.

Available online: https://pub.norden.org/nord2020-047/ “The Nordic region must be the best place in the world for children and young people.” This is the vision of the Nordic Council of Ministers as expressed in its cross-sector strategy for children and young people in the Nordic region. The 0–25 age group is a prioritised target group in the strategy. A key objective in the strategy is that the Nordic Council of Ministers will increasingly integrate a child rights and youth perspective in its work, thereby raising the level of participation of children and young people. The objective is based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but also on a conviction that today’s projects and activities would be improved when children and young people participate and exert influence in various ways. Decisions would also be given greater legitimacy, and initiatives would be of higher quality and relevant to more people when the perspective of children and young people is incorporated.

The 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has inspired advocates and policy makers across the globe, injecting children's rights terminology into various public and private arenas. Children's right to participate in decision-making processes affecting their lives is the acme of the Convention and its central contribution to the children's rights discourse. At the same time the participation right presents enormous challenges in its implementation. Laws, regulations and mechanisms addressing children's right to participate in decision-making processes affecting their lives have been established in many jurisdictions across the globe. Yet these worldwide developments have only rarely been accompanied with empirical investigations. The effectiveness of various policies in achieving meaningful participation for children of different ages, cultures and circumstances have remained largely unproven empirically. Therefore, with the growing awareness of the importance of evidence-based policies, it becomes clear that without empirical investigations on the implementation of children's right to participation it is difficult to promote their effective inclusion in decision making. 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. Beyond their contribution to the empirical evidence on ways children engage in decision-making processes, the volume's chapters contribute to the theoretical development of the meaning of "participation," "citizenship," "inclusiveness," and "relational rights" in regards to children and youth. There is no matching to the book's scope both in terms of its breadth of subjects and the diversity of jurisdictions it covers. The book's chapters include experiences of child participation in special education, child protection, juvenile justice, restorative justice, family disputes, research, and policy making.

A Handbook of Children and Young People’s Participation brings together key thinkers and practitioners from diverse contexts across the globe to provide an authoritative overview of contemporary theory and practice around children’s participation. Promoting the participation of children and young people - in decision-making and policy development, and as active contributors to everyday family and community life - has become a central part of policy and programme initiatives in both majority and minority worlds. This book presents the most useful recent work in children’s participation as a resource for academics, students and practitioners in childhood studies, children’s rights and welfare, child and family social work, youth and community work, governance, aid and development programmes. The book introduces key concepts and debates, and presents a rich collection of accounts of the diverse ways in which children’s participation is understood and enacted around the world, interspersed with reflective commentaries from adults and young people. It concludes with a number of substantial theoretical contributions that aim to take forward our understanding of children’s participation. The emphasis throughout the text is on learning from the complexity of children’s participation in practice to improve our theoretical understanding, and on using those theoretical insights to challenge practice, with the aim of realising children’s rights and citizenship more fully.

This collection provides a comprehensive insight into disabled children and youth in Nordic countries. It seeks to understand the experiences of children from their own perspectives and takes a multidisciplinary approach grounded in the new social studies of childhood and the Nordic relational approach to disability.