The Role of the Child’s Voice in Safeguarding Practices
Understanding a child's lived experience is crucial in effective safeguarding; this articles helps professionals to gain the voice of the child.
The Importance of the Voice of the Child in Safeguarding
The child's voice and understanding of their lived experiences are essential to safeguarding practices. How can we as professionals keep children safe if we do not know what we are trying to protect them from? Often, children do not see risks and harm as professionals do; this is especially true if the child has grown up in this environment for an extended period. This is why you can often get the response that nothing is wrong or everything is ok when you ask them questions.
Even children who are more to talking to professionals often find it challenging to express their views. They are acutely aware of the potential consequences ofing up and sharing details of what is happening at home. This awareness can create a dilemma for them, as they are torn between doing what is right and doing what they need to do to keep their family together. Professionals ' understanding and patience are crucial in such situations.
The child’s voice is not just a factor but central to any decisions concerning the best course of action for the safety and well-being of the child. This underscores the importance of considering the child's perspective in all safeguarding decisions. The following strategies will help you gather the views, perspectives, experiences, and wishes of any child you work with.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children (UNCRC) lays out 54 articles (rights) that cover every aspect of a child’s life (UNICEF, 1989). Concerning the voice of the child, Article 12 is fundamental and sets out the following:
Empowering Agency in Children
The critical aspects of empowering children are providing them the ability, confidence and opportunities to make decisions, express themselves and take responsibility for their actions.
By empowering children, we support their development, well-being and sense of self and give them the tools, support and opportunities to control and shape their lives.
Seven key ways to empower agency in children include:
- Encouraging decision-making: You can encourage this by offering choices to children rather than dictating what actions will be taken. Including children in family decisions or safety planning will further support this.
- Promoting critical thinking: You can promote this by mixing-ended questions with opportunities to problem solve. These will encourage the child to think for themselves and improve their confidence.
- Supporting self-expression: You can support this by creating safe spaces where children can feel comfortable expressing themselves without fear of judgement. Reflective listening can be utilised to validate their feelings and let them know that it is okay to express themselves.
- Building confidence: You can build confidence in children by recognising and praising effort rather than successes, as this will reinforce their beliefs in their abilities; combining this with encouraging them to explore new hobbies, activities, etc., without fear of failure will help children to discover their strengths and passions.
- Teaching self-advocacy: You can teach this by role-modelling self-advocacy behaviours. Mixing this with encouraging children to speak up for themselves will empower them to voice their opinions and ask for what they need.
- Promoting a growth mindset: You can promote a growth mindset by teaching children that setbacks are normal and part of life and that setbacks can be reframed, where children view failure as a stepping stone rather than a setback.
- Respecting autonomy: Respecting children’s autonomy is crucial to empowering them. Allowing them to make mistakes and experience the consequences of their actions is essential for their learning and growth. It's also important to respect their choices, even if you disagree. This approach helps children feel empowered and responsible for their lives, showing them that their voices and decisions are valued.
Understanding the Child’s Lived Experience
To fully support children, make informed decisions, provide intervention and prevent misunderstanding, we first need an accurate understanding of their experiences. This requires a professional who genuinely listens to the child, recognises changes in behaviour, emotions and feelings, and interprets their words and behaviours in context. It's a diligent and committed process that is essential for effective safeguarding.
Where there is more than one professional involved in the child’s life, multi-agency working will be crucial as it is likely that each professional has a different piece of information that is not fully understood until it is all put together.
The following should be considered when trying to understand the child’s experience.
- Using age-appropriate communication: Depending on the age and stage of development and any additional needs the child might have, you should use language that uses the most information while still being simple enough for the child to understand. Some children prefer verbal communication, while others prefer acting out, drawing or singing.
- Active listening: When engaging with children, give them 100% undivided attention. You should remove any distractions (phone, email, files) and show the child you are in the moment with them.
- Body language and Behaviour changes: Be aware of any change in behaviour or body language. Becoming withdrawn, rigid, insular or angry could signify distress or that something has changed.
- Non-judgemental spaces: You should meet the child in a space where they feel comfortable, safe and secure; this should also be where the child can speak freely without fearing judgement.
- Confidentiality: While some things the child says will have to be shared with others, not everything a child says to you has to be shared, and it is nice to remind children of what you can keep private and what you cannot. When confidentiality needs to be broken, you should be and honest with the child about why you need to share the information and why it needs to be shared. It should always be in their best interest. Confidentiality further promotes the rights of the child and their right to privacy.
- Cultural sensitivities and Family dynamics: If you are working with a child from a different culture, you should learn about their culture; this will help you understand how cultural factors can influence how the child reacts to you. Similarly, in terms of culture, understanding the family dynamics can help you better understand the child.
- Open-ended questions: Using-ended questions can help to encourage children to elaborate on what they are telling you. The TED (Tell me, Explain to me, Describe to me) and the WWW (Who, What, Where) styles can be helpful in these situations. You should avoid using leading questions that might influence the child’s responses to you at all costs.
- Validate children’s feelings: You should acknowledge and validate the child's feelings, and showing empathy by seeing the situation from the child’s point of view will help you understand the child's emotions and reactions.
- Involve the child: Involving the child in the solution is essential; they should be aware (age appropriate) of why you are asking them these questions, what might happen next (you can use different scenarios), and ensure that their thoughts and feelings are heard during the assessment and in the formation of any plan that is made.
Challenges
Miscommunication, emotional barriers, bias, and assumptions can all present challenges in gathering the child’s voice.
Children may or may not understand what you are saying and might respond with an answer they have heard others use or an answer they think is what you want to hear. It would be best to explore the reasoning behind any given answers to ensure they are their true thoughts/feelings.
Fear, shame and mistrust can all hinder children from being comfortable enough to share information. These can be minimalised by building trust and rapport.
We live our lives through lenses based on our experiences; these lenses can create bias and assumptions (often unconscious). It would be best to approach each child with an mind and not assume you know what is happening in their life. Including the child’s input into assessments can help eliminate any assumptions we might have and help inform a child-centred plan.
Conclusion
The voice of the child is paramount in safeguarding. It empowers children while providing critical insights into the child's lived experience. Involving the child helps inform child-centred decision-making and safety plans whilst upholding their rights as a child.
Listening to children, validating their feelings and implementing their ideas will all contribute to emotional resilience and long-term mental health; furthermore, children included in the decisions about their care and safety are more likely to experience positive outcomes both in the short and long term.
Prioritising the child’s perspective is not only beneficial; it is also essential for effective safeguarding practice, which promotes the well-being of children.
References
- United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) - UNICEF UK
- Listening to Children: A Practitioner's Guide by Alison Clark and Peter Moss
- The Voice of the Child: A Handbook for Professionals by Julia Cook and Susan Davie
- Children's Rights, Education, and the Voice of the Child by Cath Lutterworth
- Every Child’s Right to Be Heard - UNICEF Report
- Empowering Children as Active Participants in Their Education by Amanda Keddie
Recommended Reading
If we want children to be successful, confident, independent learners, we need to relearn the skill of truly listening. The Voice of the Child builds on a number of theories which recognise the importance of interacting with, and listening, to the children in our care, and demonstrates how these can be put into practice
This collection provides a guide to the legal requirements surrounding children's rights. The book discusses the practicalities and problems of listening to the child in educational, social and health settings.
Presenting an easy to adopt step-by-step framework, this book argues in favour of children's potential to advocate for themselves, in contrast to the current model in which adults take full control and advocate on the child's behalf.
Recent legislative changes in England and Wales have eroded children’s ability to exercise their article 12 UNCRC rights to information, consultation and representation when parents separate. However, children’s voices may be heard through child-inclusive mediation (CIM).
By first describing her methods and subsequently illustrating them with a selection of case studies, Madge Bray shows the reader how abuse can affect the mental well-being of children, and how the repair of the child's trust of adults is crucial to the process of healing.
Seeing young children as competent and capable social actors, The Theory and Practice of Voice in Early Childhood looks at how we can better understand young children’s perspectives.