The monthly post that distills the notes from our Children's Participation Group meeting. This post focuses on training in children's participation. (This post was written and edited by two other members of the CP group)
Welcome!
The April meeting saw us with a new member. Welcome Lisa! You’ve already enriched the group and it is great to have you on board. The group is now what we think is a maximum size for the format which is a monthly meeting and sharing over skype. The decision to limit discussion to one topic per session and to extend the session to an hour and 15 minutes was wise as was the decision to spend the last 15 minutes sharing what we were all up to, relating to children’s participation or not. We also all endorsed the putting up of our discussion on a blog because we think it is great to capture key points and to share - it furthers reflection, sharing and learning. So those of you who may be reading this but were not a part of the skype discussion please feel free to add/comment/challenge the ideas and notions here. We’ll be happy to hear from you and to widen the sharing pool.
THE DISCUSSION
The focus of the meeting was the question...When we are conducting a training in children's participation what are we training our participants to- know, be able to do and to feel? (Are there core components?)
That this is a burning issue that all those involved in CP are grappling with is evidenced by the fact that we talked about this to some extent last month but yet felt that much remained to be explored.
On training:
The issues that CP training raises are diverse and include:
Barriers, both with respect to individual attitudes (don’t believe in CP) and organisational constraints (who sometimes insist on it as a core element in the programmes run, but do not embed it within their own organisational practices and /or think they do it already). The barriers need to be:
- Anticipated and pre-empted where possible
- Dealt with at the outset of any training programme (see ‘training strategies’ and ‘tools’ for suggestions on how)
- Shifted a little through ‘evidence’ of good CP in practice, often through a video (the group offered a rich range of links which are grouped at the end of this note for ease of access). The attitudinal ones are the most difficult to shift when perspectives are entrenched. A leaf from coaching work might help here. Acute and attentive listening, a ‘listening with all your senses’ is key. We need to ascertain where participants are ‘coming from’ and, in particular, what strengths they already bring that might be built on may help them and us, see this as a ‘journey’ rather than a ‘training’ scenario.
What those of us engaged in CP need to get across, and it is debatable whether the training alone can do this, is the value in practice of CP. And it is crucial to link CP with action in the community: action on health or education or another social aspect of childhood and life in the community. However, there is a wider social agenda as well, as we discussed later.
The organisational barriers are equally challenging. The participants need to be equipped with strong advocacy and communication skills to get their organisations to see either that they need to practice what they preach or, indeed to review their own policies and practices and not assume that they automatically child inclusive. We really need to support opportunities to apply CP in practice, to reflect on practice, and to learn based on experience. We also need to equip ‘returning’ participants with the skills to persuade or shift their organisations’ work, policies and attitude regarding the practice of CP within the organisation itself.
So the training needs to:
Recent Comments