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Welcome and IntroductionHello and welcome to our first Involved by Right newsletter!

First, let me give you a brief introduction to the project. Involved by Right is an EU Daphne programme grant-funded project which seeks to improve participation and advocacy in child protection to achieve better outcomes for children at risk. The project is unique in that it will ensure the active participation of children with experience of the child protection system and those in public care.

The project started in March 2011 and will end in February 2013. A strong partnership of five organisations has been brought together to bring expertise of children’s rights to frontline practitioners:

Barnardo’s and National Children’s Bureau (NCB) which are two UK non-government organisations, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (UK) Helsingborg local authority (Sweden) and the local Social Health Unit in Bassano del Grappa ( Italy).

The project has been designed to deliver a specific Daphne programme priority:

“ Field work at grass-roots level with involvement of children and young people to empower them to protect themselves and their peers against violence.”

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It is envisaged that children and young people will be at the forefront of project activities through the emphasis on:

• Participation – young people who have experience of the child protection system will be recruited to Youth Advisory Boards (YABs) in the three countries to help steer the project. YAB representatives will take part in transnational project steering meetings, and a residential event in the UK. They will also be supported to develop resources for young people to have their voice heard in the child protection processes.

• Advocacy - an advocacy model will be piloted to effectively enable children to influence decision- making in individual child protection planning processes.

The project set -up stage is now almost complete and the pilot field work study and YABs pilot field work study...is now up and running. I think we all recognise that the progress would not have been possible without the transnational meetings which have taken place in England and Sweden. These meetings have provided a forum to think about advocacy and participation in a broader, international context and to share knowledge and experiences of best practice by bringing together practitioners and experts in the field.

From my own perspective, It has been particularly enjoyable to see how partnerships have come together to form a strong alliance around Article 12 UNCRC principles, which for this project is about empowering children to be active participants in child protection decision-making processes. Children in the child protection system are too often ignored because of the challenges involved in balancing rights that are about protection and rights that are about participation. The aspiration is to make a real difference by providing effective advocacy support for children to have a say in decisions that affect their lives. At the end of the project, we will bring findings together in an international EU protocol to set standards for children’s active participation in the child protection system. A best practice toolkit and young people’s resources will be produced by involving the YABs in all stages of the developments.

In addition to bringing you up to speed with the project group’s aspirations and work to date, this edition will also introduce you to Amanda Rodgers who is our international YAB coordinator. Amanda will help make arrangements for young people to participate in transnational project steering group meetings, and host the young people’s residential event in the UK in 2012. I hope you will all join me in welcoming her to the project.

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I am really grateful to everyone in the project team for the commitment to develop project delivery plans which sets out the details of the project description.

I hope this newsletter has helped you get to know the project better, and watch this space for updates of Involved by Right activities. If you want to find out more, the contact page provides contact details to the project leads in each organisation.

Enjoy the rest of the summer, and all the best!

Camilla Webster Involved by Right Project Manager

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The ProjectThe key, specific aim of the project is:

“ To improve participation and advocacy in child protection to achieve better outcomes for children at risk.”

The project has four overlapping work strands with their own objectives:

1) Participation – a Young People’s Shadow Board has participated in project design and has set up activities. A Youth Advisory Board will be set up in each country to help steer the project and develop resources for young people and professionals. In the UK, young people will have had experience of child protection processes, some will also have care experiences and a care leaver will chair the YAB. In Sweden, the YAB will be made up by young people in a residential care unit. In Italy, young people will be recruited from a regional area and will participate in hosting the transnational meeting in Italy in the autumn.

2) Advocacy – in the UK an advocacy model will be developed for children in child protection as a partnership between the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Barnardo’s. The pilot will also include developing a Strengthening Families approach to improve the engagement of families in child protection conferences. In Italy and Sweden, advocacy approaches will be piloted in foster care and residential care settings.

3) Research and development – the National Children’s Bureau research team bring much valued expertise and will undertake a literature review, evaluate the UK field work study of advocacy in child protection, and help coordinate the evaluation of advocacy approaches in foster care and residential care in Italy and Sweden.

4) Knowledge transfer – round table discussions and workshops will be held at transnational meetings on the topics of advocacy and participation. At the end of the project a dissemination conference will take place in London, UK to bring together partners and professionals and YAB representatives. The evaluation report, best practice toolkit and young people’s resources will be published and disseminated at this event.

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NewsNew child protection advocacy projectIn June, an article was published in Children and Young People Now with the heading ‘Safeguarding: Advocacy programme gives children chance to be heard’. The article stated that:

“ Barnardo’s will be running a new child protection advocacy project in Kensington and Chelsea after the authority secured EU funding as part of its wider Involved By Right scheme.

“ The project will be evaluated by the National Children’s Bureau and involve young people from start to finish.”

A link to the full article is provided here.

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Transnational project meetingsLondon meetingThe first Steering Committee (SC) meeting was held in London on 4 and 5 April 2011. The purpose of this meeting was to introduce partners from the UK, Sweden and Italy to each other and to find out about EU project and budget management rules.

NCB gave a presentation on how Involved by Right would build on and share expertise from programmes such as ‘Participation Works’, ‘Young Inspectors’ and ‘Youth Advisory Boards’.

A ‘How to’ guide on Youth Advisory Boards has been published, and a broad range of participation resources can be found on the NCB website click here.

A proposed research strategy was circulated and discussed by the NCB research lead. It was agreed that further work was needed to determine the local research approach in both Sweden and Italy. This was to be finalised at the June meeting.

A young person from the Shadow Board, supported by NCB, gave a brief presentation on principles of participation. The Shadow Board was tasked with putting together a job description and application form to recruit Youth Advisory Board members. YABS are due to be up and running in September 2011 in the UK and Sweden. The Italian partner is taking a regional approach and the timescale will therefore be different.

The full presentations from the first Steering Committee meeting are available on the Participation Works membership area to be shared more widely within the partnership. The website provides access to useful participation information and resources, and as project partners, NCB will share other resources for free on request. To access the website click here: the project manager in each country has been provided with password details.

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Sweden meetingThe second SC, a workshop and a round table discussion was held in Helsingborg, Sweden from 20 to 22 June 2011. The SC programme covered progress on Youth Advisory Boards and the pilot fieldwork study. The Research Strategy was also agreed at this meeting.

The focus for the round table discussion was ‘Advocacy’, with Barnardo’s delivering a presentation on advocacy approaches in the UK. It provided important insights into the direct work with children involved in child protection processes.

The workshop focused on ‘Common Assessments’ in early intervention in the UK. In Italy, the Common Assessment Framework is used in statutory childcare processes. It was noted that the ‘Assessment Triangle’ - which underpins the framework by providing dimensions of children’s needs, parenting capacity and family environment, is used in all three countries.

Helsingborg presented PART - a service delivery model to pool local authority resources together to deliver prevention projects (in English, ‘Preventative Work Together’). Current projects are ‘SkolFam’ – children in foster care; ‘Utsikter’ – children in families of long-term income benefit claimants and newly arrived in Sweden’; and HUB – long-term children supported long-term by multiple agencies.

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PART has now been expanded to include international collaboration by taking part in the Involved by Right project to improve participation of vulnerable children and young people in care planning and organisational development work.

The host country gave a presentation on ‘Achieving Educational Outcomes for Children in Care’, which focused on the use of educational assessments and attainment measures to monitor educational progress.

The emphasis was on building strong and effective partnerships with schools, social workers, foster carers, birth parents and the child. The findings are very encouraging and show that effective educational support to children in care has a significant impact on outcomes. An article has been published in the international journal ‘Adoption & Fostering’ (volume 35, No. 1, 2011), and can be accessed by contacting the project manager in Sweden (see contact details).

Save the Children in Sweden gave a presentation on Domestic Programmes, which include child poverty and child protection. More detailed information was also provided on the advocacy support provided by Save the Children (they undertake both individual and group work with children and young people). These advocacy experiences will be utilised in the project by young people being interviewed as part of the pilot field work study in Helsingborg.

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CalendarKey milestones:

August: Commission YABs up and running

September: Submission of revised budget to EU. Field work studies up and running. Project delivery plans submitted.

October: Transnational meeting in Italy.

November: Progress report submitted to EU.

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ContactsUK Lead Agency Project manager: Camilla Webster Email: Camilla.Webster@rbkc.gov.uk

Royal Borough Kensington and Chelsea Operational Project manager: Jonathan Williams Email: jonathan.williams@rbkc.gov.uk

Barnardo’s Project manager: Alison Levy Email: alison.levy@barnardos.org.uk

National Children’s Bureau Project manager: Nicola Murdoch Email: nmurdoch@ncb.org.uk

Sweden Project co-ordinator: Maria Rosendahl Email: Maria.Rosendahl@helsingborg.se

Italy Project manager: Claudia Bontorin Email: Claudia.Bontorin@gmail.com

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Spotlight on ...Name: Amanda RodgersJob title: I’m not sure at the moment! I’m currently the Looked After Children (LAC) Advocacy and Participation Officer, but this will change shortly. From September I’ll be doing three days as a child protection conference advocate for Barnardos, and two days on the IBR project

Likes: Sunny days and coffee Dislikes: Rainy days and tea

How did you get into participation work?As a young person, I got into youth leadership and it developed from there. Most of my career has been spent working with children and young people in some form.

What were you doing before this role?I have been the LAC Advocacy and Consultation Officer for the last few years. This has involved supporting individuals with complaints, or challenges to decisions being made about their care, and ensuring their rights are being met.

I have also been involved with projects such as Teenagers to Work, Stepping Up and the development of our Children In Care Council.

How did you become involved in the IBR project?I would have been involved anyway with the setting up and work with the Youth Advisory Board. However, I was also really interested in the advocacy role, but it was only part-time. So it all worked out quite nicely!

Could you tell us a bit about your experience of the child protection system?This is a relatively new role for me. I have supported a couple of children with child protection plans, and it is undoubtedly a very unfriendly environment for children and young people.

I am hoping that the combination of the advocacy offer and the new Strengthening Families model for conferences will enable children and young people to be at the heart of the process. This will mean having their views taken into account and their wishes translated into actions for the plans.

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Tell us a bit more about running a residential with children. Sounds like a tricky job!Nothing to it – you just need lots of energy and lots of caffeine! It’s the part of the job I most enjoy, as it’s much less formal and you have a real opportunity to get to know the children and young people you work with.

My favourite part is seeing them making friends with each other. Obviously the residential event will be slightly different, as we will have young people present from both Sweden and Italy. This will naturally bring its own set of challenges, but as long as long as we can all communicate with each other we should be alright!

What are your hopes for the IBR project?I hope that it will change the way children and young people are worked with in child protection situations.

I believe that it is the right of every child and young person to be heard by adults who make decisions about them and, while child protection is a particularly sensitive area, ways can always be found to make it appropriate for the children and young people.

At the end of the project we hope to be able to share our learning with others, and have a lot of proven suggestions of ways in which children and young people can be involved.