Purple PawPaw

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most signed up to Convention in the history of the world (as we know it). Article 12 which says that children and young people have the right to have their say about decisions that affect them is the statement upon which the last 10 years of my career is predicated upon. It is something about which I am passionate.

While eating crispy toast and talking this morning I thought I heard a snippet on the radio about how the UK was going to pull out of the Convention. I was surprised about the feeling of panic that gripped my stomach and in my head groups of young people were already marching on Downing Street.

Such was my dismay that husband recognised the pointlessness in trying to enagage me in converstaion and I dashed to check on BBC. Relief and joy…

The UK has only ever partially signed up to the Convention – this has meant that there has been a loophole for children and young people who were asylum seekers or migrants. It has meant that our country has been allowed to lock these children up without judicial scrutiny.

Now we are completely obliged at all times, with all children to put their needs first, thus protecting all children, but some of the most vulnerable who were previously not protected.

This is a happy day for workers like me – and for all children and young people in the country.

I am spending some time trying to identify if there is any useful research or theories that can support me with a problem I have identified.

I work in the field of youth participation/empowerment and we are quite successful. I work for a county council who are taking the work very seriously and investing considerable money and time into ensuring that young people have voice and influence. However we are starting to identify tht young people are becoming a threat to some staff.

As young people recognise their power and use it effectively some staff are feeling concerned about what ‘might be said’. As a team we are able to support young poeple to use their power and influence responsibly and effectively however the gap still remains about how we support staff.

There is a school of thought which says that young people have the right to be heard and adults should handle whatever they say – but this just shifts the power balance and moves away from effective partnership.

I was thinking about banks and how they have moved from a place where a manager sat in a room with a pipe and worked limited hours and we were all beholden to his whims and relationships, to a situation where they are open 24/7 and work to the needs of the customer – but I seem to have drawn a blank.

I am looking at power theories but there seems to be nothing around on how as you empower one group another becomes potentially disempowered. Up until now I always saw the power as just needing to be redistributed.

Does this point to how staff feel themselves?

Are they disempowered?

 

Its been a very exciting day so far today. The team – Devon Participation Development Team- met to look at the training we deliver and to work on shaping it up and honing it.

We have now been working together as a group for about 6 months and although we still have little storms we are now pretty much at the performing stage. We worked on the basic training for youth workers we deliver and the introductory activity training we also run.

The team have really challenged me recently, as have other colleagues, and as a result we are starting to look at how we hold people who run consultation with young people more to account and how we can track that. As blogging is my new favourite thing in the world I somehow feel a blog may be coming on looking at what consultation takes place, reviewing it and then what happens as a result of the commitments made to young people.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot around in the field of Participation around accountability. There is a lot about how to do it and the importance of letting young people knowing what you will do – but that doesn’t really go far enough. It’s certainly a gap – maybe we will just have to fill it. I’m currently thinking about how we adapt the Plan, Do, Review Cycle.

Lots to think about over the next week or two…any ideas gratefully received.