Community Planning Advice Note - Engaging children and young people in community planning
As part of their work in building a picture of the views and concerns of communities, Community Planning Partnerships should be developing an awareness of the diverse needs of the children and young people in their area. This responsibility is shared by all members of the Partnership and all services, not just those traditionally recognised as having a role in working with children and young people. This Advice Note sets out why engagement is so important and looks at the factors which contribute to effective engagement planning and activity.
Introduction
Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that children and young people have a right to have their views taken into account in decisions made about matters that affect them, and that adults in a position to help them have a duty to provide them with support. Community Planning provides a mechanism for everyone's views to be included in developing the public services in their communities, from childhood on.
"Organising public services around the needs and aspirations of service users and citizens is fundamental in our approach to reforming public services. Children and young people are an important and challenging group in this. Involving them now is an investment in the future of our public services, ensuring that they are responsive to our changing needs in coming years, but also an investment in citizenship for Scotland."
Tom McCabe, Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform
This Advice Note aims to help Community Planning Partnerships ( CPPs) and their individual partners to interpret their responsibilities under the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 and other relevant legislation in relation to engagement with children and young people. This can involve a range of activities, from providing information to them, listening to their views (consultation), enlisting their help (participation) and involving them in decision-making, monitoring and evaluation (empowerment). To illustrate existing practice and to help to stimulate an exchange of ideas, the Advice Note includes examples ( at Annex B) of engagement in practice that others have found effective or have learned from. These examples are not exhaustive or necessarily right for all situations: there is no easy, off-the-shelf game plan for engagement and new ideas are constantly evolving. The potential audience for the Advice Note is very broad and it therefore gives a high-level overview and offers further contacts and links for investigation. Annex C contains links to a number of organisations with expertise in the area and points out relevant publications and tools. The note is not intended as a hands-on toolkit, although Annex A, based on the National Standards for Community Engagement, does provide a framework for thinking through how engagement is planned at a CPP level.
This Advice Note adds to existing Community Planning Advice Notes (especially Advice Note 5 on Effective Community Engagement), published to build on the Statutory Guidance issued under the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003, and on the National Standards for Community Engagement (Communities Scotland, 2005).