Our ambition
Our vision is simple. Children and young people’s voices are at the centre of all decision-making. Children and young people are encouraged, enabled and empowered to have their voices heard in everything that we do in Waltham Forest. This means ensuring that they are able to take part in decision-making in relation to the review of services, across the participation circle.
Participation circle diagram
Why do we need it?
This framework has been created out of the recognised need to increase the active involvement of children and young people throughout the Council and its partner organisations.
Over the last five years, throughout all sectors, the involvement of children and young people in decision-making has been increasing. Services have improved as the voices of children and young people have been heard and acted on. By working with young people to design, deliver and review services, together we are creating accessible, high quality services that are responsive to the needs of people in our community. Furthermore, it has been a legal requirement since the Children Act 1989 and further enforced by subsequent legislation that we ascertain the wishes and feelings of children and young people when making decisions that affect their lives.
It is an ongoing challenge for organisations to move from policies or strategies that promote and support active involvement, to embedding that commitment in everyday practice. This is the journey that we are on in Waltham Forest and we need to equip ourselves with the knowledge, resources and skills to make involvement an every day activity, rather than simply an ‘add-on’.
The following toolkit is an attempt to de-mystify active involvement work, and provide the necessary resources and structure to enable Waltham Forest Council to continue with the organisational change which is necessary for children and young people’s involvement to become mainstreamed and sustained across the Council.
How it has been developed
There is a nationally recognised standard for involvement, “Hear by Right”, which has been developed by the National Youth Agency (NYA). You can find out more about the Hear by Right Standard at www.nya.org.uk/hearbyright
Practitioners and young people in Waltham Forest recognised the value of this standard. They also felt that the standard was too generic and didn’t always take account of everyday life and work in Waltham Forest. We wanted to ensure that we developed a framework that fitted with Waltham Forest. In agreement with NYA we have adapted the Hear by Right Standard and developed a framework, through a long process of consultation. This has “Waltham-Forest-ised” the standard to ensure it is fit for our purpose. This gives us the double benefit of achieving the external recognition of the national standard, and having a local standard that meets our local needs.
The Step2step project, with 11-19 year olds working in children and families, led the way with this work. This project developed the partnership model, which forms the basis of how the standards framework audit will be completed. Other work completed includes:
- A group of 0-5 year olds and parents/guardians at the Sybourn Children Centre
- Council staff within the Children and Young People Consultation and Participation Working Group
- Representatives from various directorates who haven’t traditionally involved children and young people in their work
Our framework also draws on and complements our corporate Children and Young People Consultation and Participation Plan. This contains a 30-point action plan, and will allow us, as a Council, to meet many of the standards. A copy of this strategy can be found at www.walthamforest.gov.uk/community-engagement.
Rollout and embedding
To support the rollout of the framework, involvement leads have been identified in each directorate. These leads are members of the corporate consultation-working group, which meets regularly to troubleshoot, provide peer support and share learning and practice.
Also, an initial group of 15 young people have received accredited training to be Young Advisors. Young Advisors is a national, accredited training programme that provides young people with the skills required to work with organisations like local authorities, as advisors on service design, review and monitoring from a young person’s perspective. Each Young Advisor is paid for their services and it is envisaged they could play a significant role in supporting the implementation of the standards framework and the capacity building of staff. For more information on Young Advisors see www.youngadvisors.org.uk
Costs and resources
Involvement of children and young people on both a strategic and every day level will require additional resources of staff time and finances. It is not possible to meet our vision without additional resources. Time is a crucial factor and a clear way of showing our commitment to this process is to make it everyday practice to factor in time for involvement in all our work. To support directorates with this, some resources are going to be made available corporately. Other resources will need to be identified within each directorate.
Governance arrangements
To ensure that there is consistency in the roll out of the framework, progress on its implementation will be reported to and monitored in the corporate community engagement working group. Lead involvement officers are members of this group. The lead officer in Children and Young People services will also report to the Director of Children and Young People who in turn can raise any relevant issues at the Council-wide chief officers leadership group.
A list of six priority services, over a three year period, across the Council have been identified for the first phase of the implementation plan. The commitment to complete audits against the framework will be identified in relevant service plans and these are monitored within the corporate performance management structure. This provides an additional monitoring process. In addition other service areas will be able to complete the audit if they are able to identify resources to do this.
Communication strategy
A communication strategy for staff, children and young people and their families and partner agencies will accompany the launch and roll out of the framework. It is vital that children and young people know what changes we are trying to achieve and that we have high expectiations of how they will be involved.
Toolkit
There are two main parts to this toolkit:
How2 Guide
The purpose of the How2 Guide is to give you practical support and guidance on how to audit the current involvement practice within your service, and work with children, young people and their families to map the ‘way forward’ in terms of meeting the remaining standards.
The guide details a tried and tested ‘partnership model’ (developed by Step2Step) of working collectively with children and young people. It takes you through all the necessary steps, from how to establish a partnership group, to conducting research and action planning.
Online matrix
This sets out each of our ‘Waltham Forest-ised’ standards under five different categories: Our values, The way voices are heard, Role of staff and adults, Knowledge and understanding and Taking the lead.
The online matrix is a web-based updateable tool to be completed by all directorates within Waltham Forest as they identify which standards they are meeting and which they still need to meet. The tool is for communal use because young people are potential users of all Council services. Improving, and eventually mainstreaming, the active involvement of children and young people is something we need to work together to achieve.
Each of the standards within the matrix has an accompanying section giving practical suggestions on how to implement the standards and what children, young people and their families have told us are the key ingredients for ‘what works well’ when implementing these.
When people are then working on their action plans following the audit, they will be expected to submit evidence for inclusion in the matrix and to share good practice. At regular intervals, the lead person for involvement in each directorate will report on progress in line with the arrangements set out in the governance arrangements above.
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