Children in participation activities

Indicator ID	R&E7
Indicator full statement	# of children and youth who took part in quality participation activities (consulted, collaboration and child/youth-led) in Tdh/partners supported projects.

Importance	This indicator measures the total number of children and young people who took part in participatory activities supported by Tdh and partners (including consultative, collaborative and child-led forms of participation). As an output indicator, this indicator should be used to calculate the outcomes of child participation (see indicators R&E 6 – engage skills and R&E 5 – outcome participation child).
Related services	Tdh catalogue of services, examples of quality participation activities (Advocacy, awareness & communication): Child being consulted in the context of advocacy, such as through child-friendly versions of policy documents (laws etc.) or contributing to policy documents on children's rights (e.g. shadow CRC reporting). Child collaboratively involved with Tdh or partners (through co-creation processes) in raising awareness of child protection issues, advocacy or child rights in general. Children leading activities to raise awareness on child protection-related issues, on advocacy or child rights in general. Other examples of activities include: Strengthening skills, including psychosocial abilities to enable active participation, such as communication skills, self-confidence and self-esteem. MHPSS curriculum/ activities which include child led actions, such as YOU CREATE, MOVE ON ENGAGE. Providing opportunities for effective participation such as safe and accessible spaces for children and young people to provide feedback and support and assistance from international and national actors for raising their voices in international forums through participation in Child and Youth Advisory Boards, Youth Committees, etc. Support to undertake children and youth-led advocacy initiatives at community, local, national and international levels, for example advocating for reforms of child justice or migration policies to be better aligned with children’s rights. Supporting children to be involved in sustainability initiatives at local level (such as blue schools) and in advocating for children’s right to a health environment at local, national or international levels (for example, improving school curricula to include information about General Comment 26 on Children’s rights to a health environment).

Importance

This indicator measures the total number of children and young people who took part in participatory activities supported by Tdh and partners (including consultative, collaborative and child-led forms of participation).

As an output indicator, this indicator should be used to calculate the outcomes of child participation (see indicators R&E 6 – engage skills and R&E 5 – outcome participation child).

Related services

Tdh catalogue of services, examples of quality participation activities (Advocacy, awareness & communication):

Child being consulted in the context of advocacy, such as through child-friendly versions of policy documents (laws etc.) or contributing to policy documents on children's rights (e.g. shadow CRC reporting).
Child collaboratively involved with Tdh or partners (through co-creation processes) in raising awareness of child protection issues, advocacy or child rights in general.
Children leading activities to raise awareness on child protection-related issues, on advocacy or child rights in general.

Other examples of activities include:

Strengthening skills, including psychosocial abilities to enable active participation, such as communication skills, self-confidence and self-esteem.
MHPSS curriculum/ activities which include child led actions, such as YOU CREATE, MOVE ON ENGAGE.
Providing opportunities for effective participation such as safe and accessible spaces for children and young people to provide feedback and support and assistance from international and national actors for raising their voices in international forums through participation in Child and Youth Advisory Boards, Youth Committees, etc.
Support to undertake children and youth-led advocacy initiatives at community, local, national and international levels, for example advocating for reforms of child justice or migration policies to be better aligned with children’s rights.
Supporting children to be involved in sustainability initiatives at local level (such as blue schools) and in advocating for children’s right to a health environment at local, national or international levels (for example, improving school curricula to include information about General Comment 26 on Children’s rights to a health environment).

“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; https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/youth/fact-sheets/youth-definition.pdf

However, this age categorisation overlaps with the definition of "child” above. This can result in confusion, i.e. individuals aged 15-17 may be counted either as children or as youth. To avoid this confusion, Tdh refers to “"youth” and “young people” interchangeably as individuals aged 18-25 years old.

“Quality participation activities”: 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.

Accordingly, ‘quality participation’ is understood as participation that is aligned with a rights-based approach, in line with the 9 basic requirements of meaningful and ethical child participation (Committee on the Rights of the Child - General Comment N. 12 : transparent and informative; voluntary; respectful; relevant; child-friendly; inclusive; supported by training; safe and sensitive to risk; accountable. All activities undertaking a child participatory approach should reflect these nine principles, as further outlined in the Child Protection Fundamentals

a. Consultative / Collaborative / Child-led: Tdh’ follows the Lansdown model (2000, pp.21-23) in categorizing types of child and youth participation activities into three different levels of engagement :Consultative: where adults seek children’s views to build knowledge and understanding of their lives and experience. It is characterized by being adult-initiated and adult-led, where children have little control over the outcomes.

b. Collaborative: where there is a greater degree of partnership between adults and children, with the opportunity for active engagement at any stage of a decision, initiative, project or service. It can be characterized as adult initiated; involving partnership with children; empowering children to influence or challenge both process and outcomes

c. Child-led: where children are afforded the space and opportunity to initiate activities and advocate for themselves. It is characterized by: the issues of concern being identified by children themselves; adults serving as facilitators rather than leaders; children controlling the process

What do we count?	Children and young people involved in participatory processes.
How to calculate the indicator's value	Sum of children and young people.
Data sources	Project monitoring tools (activity registers).
Data collection methods and tools	Document review.
Example of survey questions
Disaggregation	Consulted, collaboration and child/youth-led, age and gender, disability.
Important considerations	This indicator will often be combined with R&E 5 and R&E 6 (outcome of participation)

This indicator is an output indicator that does not capture the outcomes of participation. Therefore, for all projects in which beneficiaries are being counted towards this indicator, it is crucial to consider how the project will measure children’s and young people’s perceptions of their participation, which required deploying an additional tool (such as a questionnaire). See Indicators R&E 5 and R&E 6 for more guidance.

This output indicator is an opportunity for Tdh staff who are implementing participatory activities with children and young people to reflect on the activities, for example in terms of accessibility and inclusion, and to consider ways of improving participatory activities in the future. For example:

Any notable trends related to the age range and gender of participants? ie: if there were more girls than boys involved in a certain activity, how can we account for this? Where there any specific challenges that we encountered to include specific groups, and if so, how might these be overcome in the future?
What do the profiles of the participants in these activities tell us about the types of participatory activities we are implementing?
Do you see any areas for improvement for future participatory activities? If so, please explain. Are children with disabilities included in participatory processes? If not, how can we make our participatory processes more inclusive for children with disabilities in the future?

In addition to the Lansdown model, Tdh’s participatory activities should take note of the Lundy Model (2007) to articulate a rights-based, practical conceptualization of Article 12 of the CRC. The Lundy model complements Lansdown’s three categories/ levels of participation by suggesting that implementation of Article 12 requires consideration of four inter-related concepts: (space, voice, audience and influence.

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).

Propose Improvements

Print or Save in pdf

Children in participation activities

Purpose

Definition

How to collect & analyse the data

Limitations and precautions

What further analysis are we interested in?

Additional guidance