About Changefactory

This webpage is a page for three organisations:

  • Changefactory Norway (CF)
  • Changefactory Nordic (CFN)
  • Forandringsfabrikken Knowledge Centre (FF)

Changefactory Nordic and Changefactory Norway started in 2023. 
The organisations build on and benefit from the experiences of Forandringsfabrikken

Forandringsfabrikken (FF) has conducted many national surveys in Norway with large numbers of children and young people aged 2-25 (100-3000 participants, depending on the topic). The organisation has worked to ensure that children and young people themselves have the opportunity to present main findings to relevant students, professionals, and decision-makers on the local and national level, as well as in some other countries. This has been done to contribute to ensuring that adults working with, or making decisions concerning young people, have knowledge directly from young people, along with knowledge from research and professionals. In sum, Forandringsfabrikken has extensive experience with conducting national surveys with many children and young people, facilitating meetings between children and young people and decision-makers, and advocacy work.

Although CFN and CF build on experience from FF, they are independent organisations running their own projects with a primary focus on a Nordic and European scale.

All work in the organisations is based on knowledge from children and young people. The work is done in close collaboration with them and reflects the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

THE MISSION is to help ensure that public systems in Norway and internationally, meet children and young people’s needs, so they feel safe and useful for them.

THE FIELDS where we do this work are schools, kindergartens, health services, child protection services, the police and the judiciary

OUR VISION is that children and young people are viewed as wise and important and have to be included in all decisions and actions regarding them. Children also have to be included as a group, on a local and national level

The Changemethod
CF has a participatory approach for working with children and youth, where children and youth are directly involved in design, implementation and finalisation of projects. Participatory method tools, based on the Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) method, are used to include participants in all aspects of projects.

These are tools that enable participation from all types of young people – including those who can be quiet, restless, uncertain, or angry, who may often be removed from situations and who rarely get a chance to have their voices heard. Method tools include drawing, writing and talking. Emphasis is placed on ensuring that the participants feel safe, and that they want to participate.

Surveys with children and young people
Using the method above, facilitators in CF gather experiences and advice from children and young people aged 2-21 years old, from small and larger municipalities across Norway.

Participants in the surveys aged 13-21 are invited to become youth members who can continue to give advice and present the main answers to students, professionals and decision makers on the local, national and international level.

Children present knowledge from children
Youth members who wish to, can participate in presenting the main answers from the surveys, to students, professionals and decision makers in the fields mentioned in CF’s mission. This is done in presentations, meetings, dialogues, conferences, films, podcasts and books.

Young people do lobby work
Young people have participated in different lobbying projects, building on main answers from surveys, so that the answers from children and young people have a stronger influence in the design of laws, regulations and other frameworks that concern them. 

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