"Always collaborate with me"
"Trust is crucial"
"Safe with each other"
"Boys' advice on equality"
"Decide with each of us"
"Let us talk about feelings"
"Meet absence safely"
"Short way to friendships"
"Queer in school"
"Collaboration in patient pathways"
"Understanding drug use"
"Safe with a safety advocate"
"The way forward"
"Safe for us"
"Needs to help for us"
"Talking safely in school"
"Ask us and you'll find out"
"Talking safely in the child protection system"
"They think they know best"
"It's about us"
"Not mean"
"Safe in class"
"Understand what's most important"
"Talking kindly"
"It was supposed to get better"
"Life skills"
"Angry on the outside, hurting on the inside"
"Give us a chance"
"Right and certain"
"If I was your child"
"If I was your child"
"Wisdom about drug use"
How can we help young people before they start using drugs? What is useful help from help systems and schools? What must change in Norway?
ChangeFactory has collaborated closely with children and young people for over 20 years. Towards a society where their thoughts and viewpoints are needed and taken seriously in all areas concerning them. Fighting for their rights also gives them an experience of mattering
16 000+
children and youth have participated in qualitative surveys
70 000+
professionals and students have gotten advice from children
300+
meetings with politicians
50+
knowledge reports produced
70+
weekend gatherings with young people
Youth present together
Young people aged 15–18 from the Ukrainian Step by Step Foundation (Ukraine), Corporación Memoria y Paz (Colombia), and ChangeFactory (Norway) led a session at a conference in Oslo organized by the Nordic Network for Global Mental Health.
The young people planned the session together online in advance, with support from War Child and ChangeFactory.
The young people explained the importance of giving children living in war and conflict the opportunity to contribute to the communities in which they live, and how this at the same time helps many children and young people achieve better mental health.
The theme of the conference was: From Response to Resilience: Strengthening Mental Health and Psychosocial Wellbeing Before, During and After Emergencies.
Boosting municipalities
When politicians, heads of schools, sport teams or municipalities are making decisions that affect children and young people, they are obliged to take seriously the views of and solutions from groups of the children or young people concerned. This is why Changefactory has conducted BOOST events in several Norwegian municipalities this spring. The aim has been to boost and inspire with knowledge and insights from children.
The decision-makers met with young people in Changefactory to listen to them present and explain solutions from groups of children and young people. When children participate meaningfully, everyone benefits. Involving children in decision-making leads to better solutions and outcomes, both for children and for society.
CIDM platform is launched
05/26
The platform welcomes contributions that can strengthen how children are involved in decision-making, including frameworks, guidance, tools, research, reports, or examples of practice. If you are working on something relevant – or know of something that should be included – we would like to hear from you. Please ensure that what you share has permission to share any content, especially when it involves children.
New board elected by CF's representative board
Board members Åslaug Krogsæter, Toril Taklo, Marit Ursin, Vanessa Marin Gundersen, Leon Bell, Arne Kristian Myhre, Steffen Iversen. Cathrine Torp was not present when the picture was taken
“The foundation’s board has the overall responsibility for ChangeFactory’s activities. The board shall ensure sound operation and good development in line with the foundation’s purpose. The board shall have broad and comprehensive expertise to safeguard the foundation’s purpose and assist in the development of ChangeFactory Foundation.
The board shall ensure that the management and the organisation satisfy society’s requirements for openness and accountability, and shall work consciously to ensure that partners, stakeholders, employees, and children and young people who are involved can have full confidence in ChangeFactory and its work.”
The board for 2026 consists of:
- Vanessa Marin Gundersen, former Pro in CF and journalism student (Head of the board)
- Arne Kristian Myhre, Chief Physician at the Children and Adolescent Clinic, St. Olav’s Hospital (Deputy Head of the board)
- Marit Ursin, Professor in interdisciplinary childhood and youth studies at the Department of Education and Lifelong Learning, NTNU
- Åslaug Krogsæter, Former teacher, principal, municipal director, education director and process advisor in KS’s (The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities) elected program
- Steffen Iversen, environmental worker, former football coach and professional football player
- Leon Bell, former Pro in CF and Higher Executive Officer at the Norwegian Civil Affairs Authority and former Pro
- Cathrine Torp, Communications and Strategy Director at The Norwegian Institute of Public Accountants
- Toril Taklo, Head of Department at Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service
The first two board meetings have been held and the board members have divided their areas of responsibility between them.
ChangeFactory’s board of directors with Pros and factory workers
From youth to decision-makers
Decidewithus.org is a website that inspires national, local, and school decision-makers to involve groups of children and young people in decisions that affect them.
The website consists of films where young people and decision-makers explain why involving children in decision-making is important.
The website was developed as part of the project No Decisions Without Us, funded by Nordic Culture Point. Young people from the organisations Unga Örnar (Sweden), Danske Skoleelever (Denmark), and ChangeFactory (Norway) were part of developing the website.
Youth train police officers
The police, like all other public services, have an obligation to understand the perspectives of groups of children who have experience interacting with the police when practices are being further developed. This is also wise in order to ensure that the police work in ways that are safe and effective from the point of view of children and young people.
Since 2009, Forandringsfabrikken has gathered experiences and advice from young people who have been in contact with the police. Their responses have been summarized in several reports, including “Justicepros” (2010), “Angry on the Outside, Hurting on the Inside” (2020), and “Not Mean – There`s always a reason” (2021).
In recent weeks, young people with experience of interacting with the police on the street have visited preventive units in two different police districts. The focus has been on how the police can work in ways that feel safe for young people while also working effectively.
Some of the topics presented included:
✔️ What characterizes safe police
✔️ Reasons why young people commit crime
✔️ How the police can create safety and build trust
✔️ How to share information about children in ways that are safe and uphold children’s rights
✔️ How to conduct conversations when the police is concerned in ways that feel safe and helpful
Pupils teach students at Lund University
At Lund University in Sweden, students studying to become teachers were visited by upper secondary school pupils in the subject “School Development”. The pupils explained summarised knowledge from many pupils, and then met with the students in smaller groups.
Nordic project at universities
This form of teaching is part of a Nordic collaboration project, with universities in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Here, ways are being tested where students get to hear knowledge from children and young people – directly from children and young people. The goal is to find ways that work in different places in Nordic countries.
How to collaborate with students
The theme of the day with the students in Lund was collaboration between teachers and pupils, both with individual pupils and with groups of pupils. The young people started by explaining why adults in schools have to collaborate with pupils, and what must be the basis for it to feel safe for pupils to express their opinions. They also explained what adults in schools can do before a decision is made, when pupils have expressed their opinion and after a decision has been made, so that pupils feel that they have truly been involved and taken seriously in the decision. The young people also gave advice on what adults can do if what one or more pupils want is not possible to achieve.
Helpful for the students
The feedback that was most noticeable from the students was that it is very helpful to hear from, and talk to, pupils about how to create safety and good collaboration in practice. Many said that it gave motivation to be a teacher who asks pupils about their opinions and takes their opinions seriously.
Thank you so much to the students and teachers at Lund University for having us!
LEARN SAFELY - online resource for teachers, build on advice from each other
How can teachers help students feel safe in the classroom, in group work and in other learning situations?
In the project Learn Safely, around 260 students in Norway and Portugal have shared their experiences and advice – turned into practical tools for teachers and films with advice from students.
The tools show how teachers can:
🧡 Create safety in the classroom
🤝 Collaborate safely with students
👥 Do group work in safe ways
🛑 Stop trouble in safe ways for students
On the online resource Learn Safely you will find films and tools created from advice from students in Norway and Portugal, which show how safety can be created in everyday life at school.
Learn Safely is an Erasmus+ project, created in collaboration between Forandringsfabrikken (Norway) and ComParte (Portugal), with support from the European Union.
For teachers and other adults in school:
👉 Use the website as inspiration and support in your work for safe and inclusive learning situations.
💛 Students know what makes learning safe.
See more here: learnsafely.org
The knowledge festival WHERE CHILDREN PAVE THE WAY
Young people and the Mayor opening the festival
Children and young people have advice and opinions that adults need. Adults need this in order to be able to make good decisions for individual children and for groups of children, in collaboration with children. When adults want to listen, understand and take seriously the advice and opinions from children, actions and decisions concerning children can become wiser and more useful for those concerned.
The Knowledge Festival WHERE CHILDREN PAVE THE WAY happened in Trondheim, Norway. Children, young people and adults have for four days highlighted the knowledge that children themselves have. The mayor, Children and Education Commissioner, municipal council politicians, judges and lawyers, researchers, employees of the state administrator, leaders and professionals in schools, kindergartens, help-services, Youth Outreach Services and the police have participated in dialogues with children and young people with experience from schools, activities and help-services.
The Mayor and pupils from Trondheim
Pros and the County Governor team
Pros and NTNU university
Pros and professionals on stage
The Changemethod is now to be used in several countries
Changefactory (CF) has for more than 15 years invited children and young people around Norway to participate in surveys, using a method called the Changemethod. Authorities, knowledge centers and organisations around Europe have noticed the method for many years. Several now want training in how to use it in their country. CF visited the Netherlands last week to learn about the method. The authorities there are now preparing to conduct more surveys next year.
The Changemethod is closely based on Participatory Learning and Action (PLA), a participatory method used in action research. PLA has been further developed together with young people in Norway, to find tools that engage many children and young people here. The Changemethod takes very seriously that children are different and that groups of children have the right to express their opinion, in ways that are felt safe for them.
Since 2009, more than 16,000 children and young people in Norway have given advice in various types of knowledge acquisition that Changefactory has carried out. Visual and creative tools and dialogues have been used. Both at the beginning and at different periods throughout these years, researchers have been closely linked to the work, especially to CF’s qualitative surveys. In recent years, researchers have also had methodological responsibility for each individual survey.
What kind of knowledge directly from children do students in the Nordic regions need?
Many of the professionals that children and young people will encounter in the future upbringing systems are now studying at universities, to become teachers, kindergarten teachers, health workers, psychologists, doctors, work in child and family welfare, police and several other professions.
What kind of knowledge directly from children do these students need? This question concerns the children and young people that the students will later encounter. They have the right to be taken seriously in this decisions concerning them, according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The students, teachers in the higher education programmes, professionals in the services, bureaucrats and politicians also have important voices in this.
Changefactory has worked on these topics for the past decade in Norway, in collaboration with teachers at various universities and educations. Now this work has gone to Nordic countries and higher education programmes in several countries have signed up. Together with teachers, students and organisations around the Nordic region, we will find out what kind of knowledge and in what ways this can be done. This is conducted with the support of Nordplus Horizontal.
Here are some of the teaching methods being tested, based on responses from groups of children and young people and in collaboration with the education programmes:
CO-TEACHING: Young people and professors teach together. In dialogues, they go into depth to find out how young people can be met in safe and useful ways. This has been tested in education programmes for child welfare workers, social workers and psychosocial workers
CASE WITH YOUNG PEOPLE: Students are divided into groups and each group meets a young person who explains a situation and shows how children and young people can express themselves in this situation. In dialogues, they work on how students can best meet young people. This has been tested in education programmes for teachers, psychologists, health workers, child welfare workers, social workers and social workers.
KICK: 4-5 young people visit the education programmes at the very beginning of their education to “kickstart” receiving knowledge from children. The young people explain what constitutes good professionalism, based on the knowledge of many children, and how they think children’s rights under Articles 3, 12 and 16 can be secured in good ways. KICK has been tested in most universities in Norway over the past years, in child welfare, teachers and social worker studies.
We look forward to continuing to gather experiences that can inspire the Nordic region – and Europe!
Parliament politicians and pros from Changefactory thanked each other
A very important goal for Changefactory is to raise knowledge from children to those who make decisions about laws and frameworks for all children in Norway. Pros and factory workers have collaborated with most political parties in the Norwegian Parliament in 2021-2025, and are very grateful for the way politicians in Norway have shown that they want to understand the views of the groups of children that decisions affect. Then there are differences in how these views are included in decisions: how they are assessed, emphasised and how this is documented, here the Parliament still has a way to go.
In June, Pros and young project workers from Changefactory thanked parliamentary politicians from six parties on both the right and left wing. These were great meetings, with different themes because there were different things to thank them for. Very grateful for that!
The election is approaching and Changefactory will keep a close eye on which parties are promoting children’s rights and which are promoting other issues that are important for children in different life situations, and for the future of those who will take over Norway.
Politicians and other decision makers need to know from children and young people. To ensure their thoughts and viewpoints are presented in correct ways, children and young people are invited to present and explain directly to those in power. This also helps the authorities to fulfill their obligations in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child
