Participation at CWDC

Our mission includes making sure the child is at the centre of all services. We want this to be true in our own organisation.

Examples of involvement work

Working with our Board

We are developing ways to make sure our Board is directly informed by young people when making decisions. Between November 2009 and May 2010 we worked with four groups of young people from North Tyneside, Haringey, Norfolk and Southampton to investigate how other organisations involve young people in their governance. The young people met with CWDC Board members in March 2010 to discuss what they found out and what should happen at CWDC.

Find out more about how young people are working with our Board.

Explaining the work of a Connexions PA

A panel of young people became judges for a postcard competition to explain the work of a Connexions personal adviser.

Find out more about the Connexions PA postcard competition and have a look at the winning designs.

Explaining CAF

The common assessment framework (CAF) can sound scary and confusing to children and young people - so we worked with young people to help us develop materials to explain what CAF is all about. The resources produced can be used by professionals to explain the common assessment framework and the role of the lead professional to children, young people and families.

Find out more about explaining CAF to young people.

Participation fund panel

Young people where involved in making decisions about the projects funded by the CWDC participation fund for the third year running. Young people from Wolverhampton and Newcastle came together in May 2009 to decide on projects for 2009 - 2010. An adult panel decided on a shortlist of applications, a young people's panel then made the final decision on which projects should receive the funding.

Find out more about projects funded through the participation fund.

In June 2010 the panel members came to a sharing event which brought together staff, young people and parents involved in the participation fund 2009 - 2010 projects. This gave the panel the chance to find out what the projects had achieved and the impact of the decisions they made.

'Get involved' events

In October and November 2009 we held three creative consultation events - Get Involved - for children and young people to tell us what they think. We used this to inform our business plan for 2010-2011.

This build upon successful events held in October and November 2008.

Find out what young people told us at the Get Involved events 2009 and creative consultation events 2008.

National occupational standards (NOS)

CWDC staff conducted consultation work with groups of children and young people across the country as part of the review of national occupational standards for the learning, development and support services (LDSS), Children's Care, Learning and Development (CCLD) and Health and Social Care. 
What children and young people said about NOS [PDF - 2 Mb].

Find out more about national occupational standards.

Common Core

The Common Core sets out the skills and knowledge needed by people (including volunteers) who come into contact with children and young people as part of their work. In 2008 - 2009 we ran a number of projects with children and young people from across England who, with their workers, looked at ways to visually and linguistically communicate the benefits and impact of the common core in improving outcomes for children and young people. The final resources were fantastic!

Find out more about 'different people, same skills'.

In 2009 - 2010 groups of children, young people and parents helped us look again at the common to see if it was still right. Together we decided it was, but that it needed a few tweaks!

Take a look at the refreshed version of the common core and read about the journey we went through.