Tackling Child Exploitation Programme — Young People’s voices in strategic decision making. #Week 4: 27th November 2020

Isabelle and I have taken some time this week to think further about the responses we have received so far enquiring about how the sector engages young people’s voices in strategic decisions, and especially about how we can utilise this opportunity to make a difference and contribute to this space.

This week we reached our final week of asking our set of Twitter questions. In case you missed it, we asked ‘what support or information do you need to engage children and young people into the strategic dialogue?’

Our week 3 diary entry is proof of the pudding that our Twitter audience consists of people and organisations who are signed up to the idea that children and young people should participate in strategic decision making! We did not get as much engagement this week but I truly believe it is because our question did not reach those who may be able to share some suggestions.

@nerysanthony responded with

“Not sure it’s support or information but a recognition that this takes time and any involvement needs to be in the interests of the young person. Not just because strategy development would be better for their involvement”

And we could not agree more. We have discussed how we do not feel that senior leaders do not want to include young people in strategic decisions or do not know how to but there might be conditions senior leaders and partnerships need to enable this to take place, including the letting-go of power.

Some of the wider activity taking place in the TCE Programme may be helpful in thinking about this. We have been working with some of my The Children’s Society colleagues from the Accelerating Impact team — @gemmadrake to explore the long-term system change goal that TCE is working towards (more about that another time).This week we explored the enabling conditions the TCE programme needs to support local areas to develop strategic responses to child exploitation and extra-familial harm. Some of the enabling conditions discussed that initially come to mind are:

• Holding a space with sufficient and quality time to be able to focus and conduct participation
• An enthusiasm and drive for collaboration and co-production at a strategic level
• Access to the system — having and giving permission with stakeholders and sharing information, knowledge and experiences
• Permission to challenge — how we get comfortable with being uncomfortable. We referenced this in our week two blog that a skill required to enable meaningful participation is to respect young people and respect that what we may want to hear might not be the answer we receive.

And these are just a few! We would be interested in hearing what you perceive the enabling conditions may be for senior leaders to engage children and young people’s voice into strategic discussion about child exploitation and extra familial harm.

So that is the end of our Twitter questions (for now!) We are in the process of drafting what our next set of actions will be — we guarantee this will involve consulting with young people but if you have any ideas or want to contribute to our work please do contact us on Twitter: @EllieFairgrieve or @isabellebrodie4 or by email: ellie.fairgrieve@childrenssociety.org.uk and Isabelle.brodie@beds.ac.uk

Ellie and Isabelle