| Indicator ID | R&E6 |
|---|---|
| Indicator full statement | % of children and youth (disaggregated by age, gender) who demonstrate increased knowledge and skills that support their collective engagement and participation. |
Purpose
| Importance | Meaningful child participation fulfills children’s right to be heard. It is also a means to other ends: child participation contributes to agency and empowerment as children and young people progressively develop key life skills and capacities. This indicator aims to measure the changes in knowledge and skills related to participation, amongst children and young people who are involved in collaborative or child-led participation activities (see definitions under Indicator R&E7 – child participation output). Measuring changes in skills and knowledge helps identify how individuals and groups grow over time. This insight is crucial for understanding the effectiveness of engagement activities and determining whether participants are acquiring the competencies needed for meaningful involvement. The knowledge and skills referred to in this indicator have been identified as crucial in supporting the meaningful participation of youth in line with the 5 pillars of psychosocial well-being in the Tdh MHPSS Psychosocial resilience framework, as specified in the MOVE ON and ENGAGE Methodological Guide. |
|---|---|
| Related services | Examples of collaborative and child-led participation activities: access to appropriate information to enable informed and active decision making; providing opportunities for effective participation such as safe and accessible spaces for children and young people to contribute to programme design and evaluation through feedback loops, including through advisory boards including advisory boards; participatory action research (such as with YouCreate methodology) and supporting children and youth-led advocacy initiatives at community, local, national and international levels. |
Definition
“Children” : persons under the age of 18 years old (Article 1, UNCRC)
“Youth” and “Young People”: Internationally, the terms “youth” and “young people” are used interchangeably to refer to individuals aged 15-24 years old (References : UNICEF, 2017, Adolescent and Youth Engagement Strategic Framework, Innocenti Research Centre; UN Youth definition). However, this age categorization overlaps with the definition of "child” above. This can result in confusion, ie individuals aged 15-17 may be counted either as children or as youth. In order to avoid this confusion, Tdh refers to “"youth” and “young people” interchangeably as individuals aged 18-25 years old.
“Knowledge”: refers to awareness and understanding of facts, situations, emotions and relational dynamics in a child’s or young person’s environment at different levels of the socio-ecological model (self, family, community, institutions, etc). In this context, this knowledge is particularly related to a holistic understanding that includes physical, emotional, social, political, economic, cultural and spiritual factors that determine both the external environment, as well as the internal environment linked to Tdh’s five pillars of children’s psychosocial well-being (feeling safe, feeling connected, feeling worthy, feeling respected, feeling hopeful).
“Skills”: refers to the ability to use relevant knowledge to build their adaptative and transformative capacity to strengthen their resilience, as well as their self and collective efficacy. The specific skills set out in MOVE ON and ENGAGE (p.10) are cooperation; communication; emotional management; creative thinking; and taking responsibility.
“Collective engagement”: Collective engagement of children and youth refer to the active participation of young people working together to influence decisions, actions, and policies that affect their lives. In the context of children and youth, collective actions can include activities like community projects, advocacy, or campaigns aimed at improving social, environmental, or justice-related issues.
“Participation”: Tdh adopts a rights-based understanding of participation, anchored in Article 12 of the UNCRC which stipulates that children have a right to be heard and have their views given due weight by duty bearers. Tdh’s understanding of child and youth participation draws on two complementary frameworks, which guide our work on participation: the Lansdown model (which distinguishes between consultative, collaborative, and child-led participation), and the Lundy model (see “Additional guidance” section below)
How to collect & analyse the data
| What do we count? | This indicator counts individuals. |
|---|---|
| How to calculate the indicator's value | The percentage is calculated based on the following formula:
|
| Data sources | Children and young people at the end of a specific intervention / set of collaborative or child-led activities (ex. campaign / research project) |
| Data collection methods and tools |
|
| Example of survey questions |
|
| Disaggregation | Gender and age groups. |
| Important considerations | NB: The denominator for indicator R&E 6- engage skills child should be a proportion / sample of the total number of children who took part in collaborative and child-led participation activities (Indicator R&E7 – child participation output).
|
Limitations and precautions
Risks:
When reporting against this indicator, it’s critical to ensure that the cohort of children and young people concerned have been included in counting for indicator Indicator R&E7 – child participation output (# of children and youth (disaggregated by age, gender) who took part in collaborative and child-led activities (disaggregated by: collaboration and child/youth-led) in Tdh/partners supported projects.
You should not report on this indicator if the children and youth you work with have not been engaged in a meaningful participation process, ad minima collaborative and child-led participation projects.
Another risk is around the are the bias in case leading questions are used in monitoring tools.
Precautions:
An important precaution to take into consideration with this indicator is with respect to our own expectations of different levels of knowledge and skills that can result from different levels of participation activities. For example, in a collaborative process, we would expect that children / young people would gain some new knowledge about a certain topic through child-friendly information and have a chance to apply that knowledge through actions supported by adults, leading to an improvement in skills related to communication. Meanwhile, in a child-led process for example, we would expect that participants may develop their knowledge in further depth and develop skills around leadership.
Therefore, questions need to be formulated in a way that reduces the risk of confirmation and social desirability bias, alongside open-ended questions that allow for respondents to tell us about what were the most significant knowledge and skills that they gained, and their recommendations for future activities.
NB: Use this indicator as an opportunity to collect the feedback of the children and improve your interventions rather than for reporting purpose.
What further analysis are we interested in?
Any trends in responses to this questions and other questions we are asking in the monitoring tool. For example:
Any notable trends related to the age range of respondents?
Any notable trends related to the gender of respondents?
Any notable trends related to the level of participation (between collaborative and child-led processes)?
Any insights around accessibility and inclusion, particularly for children and young people with disabilities?
In addition, in interpreting the percentage generated in calculating this data, you can make use of additional qualitative information in the questionnaire, for example:
What at the most important new types of knowledge and what new skills have they said that they have developed during the process (Any trends?) And why are these important for them?
Any absences/ things not mentioned that we would have expected to be mentioned? Followed by an analysis of what factors may have prevented the expected new knowledge and skills from being reported.
If respondents felt that they did not acquire new knowledge and skills, then we should refer to their recommendations for what they would like to learn in the future.
Additional guidance
All activities undertaking a child participatory approach must adopt appropriate and ethical methodologies as outlined in the Fundamentals for Child Protection – Child Participation, in line with the 9 basic requirements of child participation (Committee on the Rights of the Child - General Comment N. 12). In addition, Tdh is currently finalising it Child and Youth Participation and Empowerment framework, which should be piloted from 2025 and systematically used as a reference guiding document when planning and measuring child and youth empowerment activities (involving a high level of participation).
Tdh’s understanding of child and youth participation draws on two complementary frameworks:
The Lansdown model (2000, pp.21-23) offers a categorisation of three different levels of engagement for children: consultative, collaborative and child-led (NB : see indicator 44 below for more detailed information).
The Lundy Model (2007) proposes a model for rights-compliant children’s participation which offers a legally sound but practical conceptualisation of Article 12 of the CRC. This model suggests that implementation of Article 12 requires consideration of four inter-related concepts:
a. SPACE: Children must be given the opportunity to express a view
b. VOICE: Children must be facilitated to express their views
c. AUDIENCE: The view must be listened to.
d. INFLUENCE: The view must be acted upon, as appropriate.