6: A case study of children’s participation in health policy and practice

Publication Date:
11 Jul 2018
Pages:
62–73
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51952/9781447332558.ch006
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This chapter considers children and young people’s participation in the development of health policy and service delivery. The chapter was written by Louca-Mai, at the time a postgraduate researcher at the University of the West of England, in collaboration with Emily (Barnardo’s Participation Manager) and Felicity1 and draws on our experience of a project in the Bristol Community Children’s Health Partnership (CCHP). The project involved health professionals, young people and Barnardo’s participation service working collaboratively to develop a strategy and framework to support children’s participation in the organisation. The chapter considers the lessons from this work for the involvement of children and young people2 in health policy and services from both professional and young people’s perspectives.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC: UN, 1989) established international recognition that all children have a right to the highest possible standards of both healthcare and participation (Alderson, 2014). The CRC encompasses social, economic, civil and political rights, and ‘asserts children’s right to have a voice in decision-making, as well as rights to freedom of thought and expression’ (Percy-Smith and Thomas, 2010: 1). The understanding that children should be involved in decisions which affect them has been increasingly reflected in law, policy, guidance and regulation (Franklin and Sloper, 2005). But participation is a multi-layered (Sinclair, 2004) and sometimes contested concept (Lansdown, 2006; Shaw et al, 2011). There are also concerns about when and whether participation is meaningful for all those involved, effective in terms of impacts on service decision making and outcomes for children, and sustained (Crowley, 2015).

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