Background:

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that when decisions are made that affect children under the age of 18 who are struggling or living in vulnerable life situations, groups of these children have the right to express their views and have those views taken seriously in the decision-making process. This rarely happens in the way the Convention intends. Yet these children are the ones who must live with the consequences of adults’ decisions.

Why is this right so often overlooked? These are some of the explanations we have frequently heard from experts and public officials:

• Articles 3 and 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child should be interpreted differently for children in vulnerable life situations. Because they have experienced hard things, they need protection, and participating may place an additional burden on them.
• Speaking about their experiences may be difficult and could even retraumatise them.
• If these children are invited to share their views, they will focus only on their immediate needs because they are unable to see the bigger picture.

What ChangeFactory does:

For more than ten years, ChangeFactory has carried out projects and development initiatives to ensure that the views of groups of children living in vulnerable life situations are heard and taken seriously in decision-making. These are children who receive support from health services, schools, child welfare services, or who come into contact with the police or the justice system.

What ChangeFactory is doing now

• Working with Norwegian municipalities to identify and share good examples of children contributing to decision-making.
• Inspiring initiatives in the Netherlands, where children and young people up to the age of 18 provide advice to the police.
• Identifying examples from Europe and beyond where groups of children and young people who are struggling or living in vulnerable situations are able to share their views. Examples are presented at Children in Decision-making.

Background:

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that every child under the age of 18 has the right to be heard in all decisions that affect them. This includes children in kindergarten, schools, and children receiving support and help from public services. It also applies when the police or the justice system take actions or make decisions that affect children. This right belongs to all children, including the youngest. Leaders, public officials and politicians are responsible for ensuring that the groups of children affected by a decision are heard.

Why are young children so rarely invited to share their views? These are some of the explanations we have frequently heard from professionals and experts:

• Young children need to be protected and should not be expected to have opinions.
• Young children are often loyal to their parents and therefore may not answer honestly.
• Young children cannot know what is best for them in the long term.

What ChangeFactory does:

In recent years, ChangeFactory has focused on inspiring the systems that work with children to actively seek the views and perspectives of younger children as well. In 2021–2022, we carried out a national qualitative survey with 722 children in early childhood education and care (kindergartens). Read more here. We have also conducted qualitative surveys with: children from the age of 6 with experience of the child welfare service (read more here), children from the age of 8 whose families have received family guidance services (read more here), children from the age of 10 with experience of health services (read more here).

What ChangeFactory is doing now

• Explaining why young children must be heard in decisions that affect them, and the benefits this brings, based on more than a decade of experience.
• Working with Norwegian municipalities to identify and share good examples of how young children’s views contribute to better decision-making.
• Identifying examples from Europe and beyond where groups of young children are invited to express their views and influence decisions. These examples are presented at Children in decision-making

Background:

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that when decisions are made on behalf of children under the age of 18, the views of the child or group of children affected by the decision must be taken seriously. The child or group of children concerned must be able to express their views in a safe environment. Decision-makers are required to consider these views and weigh them alongside other relevant considerations. It should be documented and made transparent whose views were obtained, how they were obtained, and how they were assessed and weighed in the decision-making process.

Why are the views of the children affected by a decision often not included in the evidence base for decision-making?

• Many municipalities and national authorities are unaware of their obligation to obtain, assess, and weigh the views of the child or group of children affected by a decision.
• Youth councils or youth advisory panels may be invited to express their views without ensuring that they are representative of the children or young people the decision concerns.
• Student councils may be invited to express their views even when a decision affects a smaller group of pupils, such as children who are struggling or children whose behaviour is experienced as challenging.

What ChangeFactory does:

For many years, ChangeFactory has worked in Norway to increase awareness that children have the right to express their views in a safe environment. This applies both to individual children and to groups of children. The aim has been to help adults understand what children experience as safe, and how adults need to act, what they need to say, and what they need to keep in mind to ensure that children feel safe expressing their views. In recent years, a key focus has been strengthening children’s right to have their views taken seriously in decisions that affect them.

What ChangeFactory is doing now:

• Presenterer “Messages to the Parliament” from children to each Parliament committee in Norway making decisions on behalf of children in the areas of School and Kindergarten, Health, Child welfare and Justice
• Planning inspiration days in Denmark to share experiences from Norway on how the views of different groups of children under the age of 18 can be meaningfully included in decision-making.
• Identifying examples from Europe and beyond where groups of children and young people who are struggling or living in vulnerable situations are able to share their views and influence decisions. Examples are presented at Children in decision-making

Background:

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children have the right to express their views on what constitutes good quality in the systems and services designed for them. Today, the quality of services for children and young people is measured primarily through indicators related to organisational structures, processes, and the use of resources. These measures are designed from an adult perspective. As a result, the information collected says little or nothing about how children themselves experience the actual outcomes of the services they receive, such as whether they feel safe, experience trusting relationships, or find the support helpful. This also limits efforts to improve quality and to carry out effective monitoring and inspection

Why are quality measurements most often designed from an adult perspective? Why are the actual outcomes for the children the services are intended to support not measured?

• Adults often assume that they are responsible for defining and measuring quality, believing that they know better than children how this should be done. As a result, experts from different professional fields become the primary contributors to the development of quality measures.
• Adults tend to measure what they can observe, count, and understand themselves. Although an increasing number of researchers ask children about whether support has been helpful, there are still few examples of children’s own experiences of benefit being systematically measured and used to define and improve the quality of services.

What ChangeFactory does:

Since 2009, ChangeFactory has conducted national qualitative surveys with children across different areas affecting childhood and adolescence. The findings show, among other things, that many children have received services for long periods without being involved in decisions about the content, structure, or course of the support or help they received. They have also rarely been asked whether they experienced the support as helpful. A consistent message from children has been that they need opportunities to express what kind of support and help they feel they need, which adults they feel safe with, and to speak up if the support they receive is not helping, so that it can be adjusted accordingly.

What ChangeFactory is doing now:

• Develops quality indicators based on what children themselves describe as most important when services for children are designed, delivered, and improved. These indicators can be used to measure how children experience the quality and usefulness of services.
• Pilots these child-informed quality indicators in several Norwegian municipalities. The indicators are refined through dialogue with professionals and legal experts to ensure that they are both meaningful to children and applicable in practice.

Background:

How can this be achieved in ways that also include young children and children living in vulnerable situations? In many countries, participation methods have been developed by adults and are best suited to children who are comfortable participating within adult-defined settings and processes. In close collaboration with children and young people, ChangeFactory developed ChangeMethod to ensure that children with diverse experiences—including those in vulnerable situations and younger children—are able to express their views, feel safe doing so, and have the energy and motivation to participate.

Why are children most often invited to participate through school councils, municipal youth councils, or groups selected by adults? Based on more than 15 years of experience using ChangeMethod in Norway and 10 years of international collaboration, we have learned the following:

• Many adults find it easiest to engage with children who express their views within adult-designed structures and processes, such as councils, committees, or advisory panels that are modelled on the way adults make decisions.
• In Norway and many other countries, awareness is still limited of why children’s views are essential and how they can be decisive in ensuring that decisions are meaningful and beneficial for the children they affect.
• Decision-makers who recognise that children have the right to be heard often also emphasise that adults are ultimately responsible for making decisions. This can make it difficult to fully appreciate the value of children’s perspectives as an essential part of the evidence base for decision-making.

What ChangeFactory does:

ChangeFactory uses the ChangeMethod to gather the views of children and young people. It is closely based on experiences we did with Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) in Uganda, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Norway. ChangeMethod was developed in close collaboration with children and young people. The method has been used to gather the views of more than 16,000 children and young people in Norway, through qualitative studies, resulting in more than 50 reports. It is used in studies involving children in kindergarten, schools, leisure activities, help services, the police, and the justice system.

What ChangeFactory is doing now:

Plans inspiration days in Denmark and Sweden to share experiences from Norway on how to gather views of different groups of children and young people, including younger children and children in vulnerable life situations

Publishes the ChangeMethod described in a book to be launched in English, making the methodology accessible to professionals, researchers, and organisations wanting to collect views of children and youth

Trains groups of practitioners and researchers in the Netherlands to use ChangeMethod for gathering the views of children and young people in a safe and meaningful way

Background:

ChangeFactory was founded based closely on what children told us: that if we are to succeed in creating a better society, children must be included in developing ideas, finding solutions, and making decisions. The vision was to build an organisation where adults and young people work as equals, with a shared understanding that we need one another. This requires adults in the organisation who are willing to seek understanding, even when challenged on what they have learned, know, or believe, or when young people question what they say, write, or do. It also requires adults who have the courage to be honest and open with young people.

Why can it be challenging for adults to work as equal with young people? Many years of experience have taught us about both the challenges and the opportunities:

• We have found very few organisations or initiatives in Norway or elsewhere in Europe with experience that we could learn from.
• Most of the young people in the organisation have been attending school while contributing. This has made it challenging to organise collaboration between young people and adults within standard working hours.
• Some adults who started at ChangeFactory believed they would support the way the organisation was run, but ended up wanting to turn ChangeFactory into a regular workplace. The challenges were particularly related to pace, flexibility in working hours, and the desire for adults to contribute enough. Impatient young people pushed for this.

What ChangeFactory does:

ChangeFactory’s work is carried out through close collaboration between young people with experience from different public systems and adult Factory Workers. The summarized views collected through the qualitative surveys determine the organisation’s strategy and priorities. Young people and adults work as equal partners in implementing this strategy. The young people help ensure that ChangeFactory’s work remains true to the views of children. It is a powerful way of working, but not always an easy one in practice. Even so, we continue to work in this way because we have seen the remarkable results it creates and the opportunities it makes possible.

What ChangeFactory is doing now:

• Publishes a book in autumn 2026 describing 15 years of experience building an organisation based on equal collaboration between young people and adults.
• Challenges authorities and services based on what we have learned about how solutions must be developed in close collaboration between children and adults.