Decision-making: children and young people's participation

Practice

Practice examples

There are many examples of projects, programmes and policies in Scotland, where children and young people have participated in a meaningful way to inform decision-making and improve outcomes for themselves and others. 

These examples give ideas on how you could engage with children and young people in decision-making. They were chosen with input from a group of young people and some members of an expert working group.

All examples have taken place since 2017 and include the annual Cabinet meeting with children and young people, rights cafes and developing strategic plans.

They are not the only examples but we hope that they are useful as a starting point to illustrate the different processes and approaches that can be used for children and young people’s participation in decision-making.    

Read more: Children and young people's participation: practice examples 

Resources to support participation with babies and infants

Engagement with babies and infants will be different to participation with older children and young people. This is because their needs are different. You should pay close attention to things like space, activities, time, and accessible information. Below are some specific resources that may help guide your journey:

• Care Inspectorate - Child Led Participation Guide
• The Care and Learning Alliance: Consulting our Youngest Children Toolkit
• Voice of the Infant Best Practice Guidelines and Infant Pledge has been co-produced by a short-life working group, on behalf of the Infant Mental Health Implementation and Advisory Group, which is part of the Scottish Government's Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Programme Board
• Look Who’s Talking seeks to help researchers and practitioners engage with and listen to young children (birth to seven years)
• some examples of projects with younger children can be viewed in the Childcare and Early Years Archives - Children and Young People’s Evidence Bank

Resources to support participation with primary aged children

To facilitate younger children’s participation, practitioners must consider their needs and preferences and their age and stage of development. There are many useful sources of advice. Some examples of resources that may help practitioners to develop bespoke approaches:

• Save the Children has published various toolkits for monitoring and evaluating children's participation. It has also published So you want to consult with children? A toolkit of good practice, which is a resource pack of guidelines and good practice for enabling safe and meaningful participation with children
• Learning Resources - Children's Parliament
• Council of Europe Handbook:  Council of Europe Handbook on children's participation

Resources to support participation with young people

When supporting participation of young people, it is important to consider their needs and preferences and how approaches can be designed collaboratively with participants.

• ‘The Right Way’ is a resource by the Scottish Youth Parliament (SYP) funded by the Scottish Government’s Children’s Rights Unit. It aims to support and challenge officials and decision-makers, as duty bearers, to work to ensure young people’s views are heard and respected (Article 12).
• Co-design Blueprint - Communic18, Year of Young People, was developed by young people who were directly involved in designing and delivering the Year of Young People (YoYP) 2018. Based on Young Scot’s Co-design methodology, the Co-design Blueprint is a guide for anyone looking to engage young people in decision making.