I am absolutely delighted to host this post on 'miming participation' by Bill Badham. Bill is one of the UK's leading thinkers on youth participation (and a lot more besides). Do go over and visit the site he runs with Tim Davis www.practicalparticipation.co.uk plus the excellent resources he suggests in this article.
Miming participation – reflecting on recent images
Bill Badham
Participation – the impossible mime
Two colleagues whispered to me to mime the word “participation.” This was in front of a range of government officials at a training event on the voice and influence of children and young people in government policy. Of course I tried heartily. But the more I tried the worse – and perhaps the funnier – it got. Folks gave up. It was a point well made. It is hard to mime participation. You cannot abstract participation from what you are participating in. So I mimed – and they got – what I was doing: tennis, football, chess – whatever else I tried. But it was harder for them to get and define the doing itself – the participating.
Fast forward ten years and I met a youth work manager in a local youth club who said he was “passionate about participation.” His oft repeated refrain left me more and more confused and wanting to ask “participation in what?” It struck me as dangerously irrelevant to children and young people’s lives if notions of their participation are separated out somehow from the immediate stuff that matters to them. It only makes sense where it is being worked out in the context of the matters that affect them – school, family, health, safety, culture, play and more widely local and national decision making.
Participation built in
Our experience is simply that it requires care and commitment to help ensure the voice and influence of children and young people is safe, sound and effective in making a demonstrable difference to them as well as to the organisation or services they use. Participation needs to be built in not bolted on. Hear by Right draws on an internationally renowned model of organisational change. It is based on 7Ss which we adapted to participation. We added indicators as ideas or suggestions to show what might be done to see a standard embedded. Crucially, the 7S model highlights that most importance should be given to the diamond of shared values, style of leadership, staff and skills. Change should not be driven by the tough rigid triangle at the top of structures, systems and strategy. These are important - but only in relation to core purpose, vision and values.
(Peters and Waterman, 1982)
Participation – human right and procedural right
To take part, as shown in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is a human right. It is also, as explored above a means to an end – vital for the fullest attainment of all other rights to education, health, play, protection and so on. I wrote back in 2002 that “Participation is the keystone of the arch that is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is unique and holds the whole structure together. Without it the framework falls. Without the active participation of children and young people in the promotion of their rights to a good childhood, none will be achieved effectively.” This right for example is embedded in English domestic law on child protection in the Children Acts of 1989 and 2004. Georgia’s drawing below illustrates this powerfully and makes a deeper point. Georgia does not talk about participation, but about being welcomed, liked and respected, feeling part of her young carers group in Leeds and getting hugs from the worker who she trusts. Participation may start as transactional – give and take - but it cannot stay like this; it will either wither if not nurtured or it will grow to become about relationship, being and belonging.
(Georgia, young carer, aged 12, Leeds)
Participation triangle
We need to get our means and ends right. Tools like Hear by Right helping build in participation are a means so that the services children and young people get become more effective and responsive so that they get a better deal as a result. A way to hold this tension is to see the three corners of a triangle: standards for building in participation bottom left; skills for children and young people to campaign and take action to help make change happen; and the apex – change as evidenced by children and young people themselves.
Keeping these three aspects in creative tension is critical. Hear by Right offers a range of materials and over ten years of shared learning to support organisations.
Act by Right looks to support building skills for action and making change happen. Its family of resources include community activism, tackling climate change and supporting young people to develop skills in organisational decision making. We recently added Leading for the Future, created for the Woodcraft Folk and useful to all those looking to take leadership seriously.
The apex of the triangle is of course change for children and young people, evidenced by them. Over a number of years we contributed to creating a rich archive of What’s Changed stories which were told following a simple pattern of: what children and young people said, what happened, what changed. These stories drew on different perspectives, but the crucial component – the magic box – was that those who were meant to have benefited said that they had (or had not) benefitted. They still read powerfully and we are keen to add to them and develop the library or stories that demonstrate the power of participation to affect change.
Participation matrix
When thinking about the involvement of children and young people, the picture below from Caitlin, aged 9, can help. She used it to tell her story of becoming involved in the Willow Young Carers project run by Barnardo’s in Leeds. Starting out in the bottom left corner when she first joined, feeling a bit alone and not very involved, she did however feel welcomed and listened to. This helped her gain wings of confidence through many helping hands, leading her to take further part in the things that mattered to her directly and made a difference to her. Drawing on these experiences, she began to get involved in things with other young carers toward the top right of her drawing. Roger Hart describes this link between participative democracy (taking part in the things that matter to me personally) and representative democracy (taking part with others in wider decision making).
(Caitlin, young carer, aged 9, Leeds)
Participation – miming the impossible?
Most concerning in Caitlin’s drawing is the position of the big red blob, which she described as what happens if you try and do representational stuff without this being rooted in the lived everyday lives of the children and young people around you. A warning indeed to keep the practice of participation real and relevant and not abstract and disconnected. We are still looking for anyone who can convincingly mime participation. Let us know how you get on.
April 2012
Bill Badham
Co-Director, Practical Participation
07540138967
Twitter: @billbadham
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