IN RAPPSODY
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS OPEN LETTER
Looking at Children’s Rights from a different point of view:
Dear Adult,
I am a child or young person,
A decade ago the UN Convention decided, on my behalf, that as well as my human rights, I have rights as a child. These include my right to play, to an education, a safe place to live and a right to have a voice and a say in decisions that affect me.
Just like your human rights my rights are laid down in international law; because of this they are not dependant on the colour of my skin, my attitude, my sexuality, gender or whether or not you deem me responsible.
Please support me and those who work with me to ensure that my rights are protected and not violated.
Thank you
RULES FOR ADULT WORKERS
Rules for a RAPP worker written by children and young people:
Rules for adult workers:
More Rules for Adult Workers:
Ideal Adult Workers from Young People:
Top 10 Rules for Teachers:
Below are the Top Ten attributes and qualities children and young people feel teachers should possess.
10/ Teachers must be laid back
9/ Have a good personality
8/ Be able to relate to young people
7/ Make lessons fun and interesting
6/ Listen to young people
5/ Treat everyone fairly and equally
4/ Be friendly
3/ Be helpful
2/ Have a sense of humour
1/ Teachers should understand
Research undertaken by the RAP Project. The information presented here summarises the results of 200 interviews’ carried out between June and August 2003 and represent the views of children and young and are not the views of the RAPP Project. For further information contact:
RAPP, Queens Dock Chambers, 47/49 Queens Dock Avenue, Hull,
HU1 3DR.
Rules for Social Workers written by young people:
This is my idea of what a Social Worker’s role is and what should be done by them when working with clients. They are sort of a counselor and this is my breakdown of what should be done.
This list was written by Mark, a care leaver who worked with RAPP as a peer researcher in 1998, on a project that looked into the views of care leavers, and resulted in a report called 'Which Way Now?' which proved to be a major influence in the development of the Young Peoples Support Service (Y.P.S.S.)
C:Care
Show their clients that they do care and that they are not just another number on their list.
O:Organise
A proper programme so clients know what is expected of them.
U:Understand
To try and understand the client’s problems and let the client know they understand in a positive manner.
N:Neutral
If there is more than one person involved not to take sides and adopt a neutral attitude.
S :Say
Say what you mean and mean what you say.
E:Educate
This is a very important part to educate clients into a new lifestyle and not expect them to be street wise.
L:Listen
To the needs of their clients and not push their opinions on to them.
L:Learn
To learn that every client has different way of sorting out their problems and dealing with them.
O:Observe
To look at what needs to be done.
R:Respect
To respect client's wishes and opinions.
HOW TO TREAT YOUNG PEOPLE:
Don’t stereotype us, don’t label us.
Don’t deny our right to be heard.
Let us be ourselves.
Believe in us.
Allow us to make mistakes.
Don’t tell us what to do.
Don’t tell us what’s best for us.
Don’t exclude us from our society.
Support us in being active members of our community.
Let us make decisions.
Don’t threaten us with violence.
Don’t abuse us.
Support us with our education.
Listen to our opinions.
Encourage us to make up our own minds.
Don’t make us pay for our education.
Don’t pressure us to live in poor housing .
Don’t deny us our choices.
Give us decent jobs.
Support us in developing our skills.
Build our self confidence.
Don’t throw us on the scrapheap.
Respect .O.K.
Written by young people accessing the Warren
LISTEN
Ears are to listen, not to ignore
Why should I talk to them any more?
All I want is for my voice to be heard
I wish for them to listen, so my opinion can be shared
When they talk to me, they make me feel small
When I talk to them, it’s like talking to a wall
They wind me up and make me shout
And then say sort your attitude out
I haven’t got an attitude, it’s just the way I am
I can’t say anything, but everyone else can.
Which way now?
I was walking along
On my own
When suddenly I heard a groan
I turned around
But there was no-one there.
Then I felt a breeze through my hair
I turned back round to find three paths of stone
And then again I
Heard a groan.
But there was
Nobody in sight.
Then I started
Then to get a fright.
I looked up and saw a sign.
Asking which path
Was going to be mine
I was confused
I didn’t know which one to choose.
Any of them
I could win or lose.
Shall I go back?
Or carry on.
I know I’m frightened
But I have to be strong.
I thought
Long and hard
To choose a path.
And I choose the right path
Now I’m having a laugh.
Both these poems were written by Colleen, aged 16. Colleen worked with RAPP with three other care leavers, on a research project, into the views of care leavers in Hull in 1998. The research findings were turned into a report called ‘Which Way now?” and proved to be a major influence in the development of the Young Peoples Support Service (Y.P.S.S.)
A RAPP IDEA FOR THE WORKERS TOOL KIT
Vital tools of the trade:
The worker
Themselves the most important resource of all - positive attitude, active, listening, being
approachable, honest, committed to young people, non-judgmental, not patronising, flexible, active, enthusiastic, sense of humour and a willingness to learn from young people and share control.
The Screwdriver
For clarity and explaining skills, each turn of the screwdriver should try to make the picture clearer of how you are working with and alongside young people. The screwdriver can also be used to make fine adjustments to the plan as agreed with the young person.
A Saw
For an honest upfront approach that cuts both ways. Young people have rights but so do adults. To cut through the issues and concerns and chop them into manageable chunks with young people to challenge and address and work through aiming at small victories.
A Shifting Spanner
For regular adjustments, alterations and checking of the joint plan. Tightening and loosening off the nuts and bolts as the young person directs. For a universal, flexible and enabling approach.
A Drill
To aim and hit a child centred approach to bore holes into and highlight negative practice to make room for children’s rights and participation within the walls and fabric of childcare practice until it becomes an integral DIY skill for all workers.
A Tape Measure
For measuring up, reflecting and reviewing on how the situation went or how the plan progressed. For regular monitoring and checking details alongside the young person to be accurate about the next step to move things forward. Keep handy for continual sizing up of how effective your service or project is from young people’s views and perspectives.
Written by Craig Clark.
Consultations with children and young people.
Since RAPP started in 1997, the project has been involved in numerous pieces of City wide and national consultation work with young people. This has been an area of work the project is very interested in and is continually looking to develop alongside partners.
Some examples of this work include a consultation research project in 1998, that proved to be a catalyst in setting up the Young Peoples Support Service (Y.P.S.S.) Specific consultation work with young people who live in foster care or children's homes to find out their views on improving opportunities to read and learn, to support the Book Ahead project and work with young people with disabilities to find out their views and ideas on advocacy. More recently RAPP carried out a consultation exercise to find out the reasons why young people do not attend School in Hull.
Effective consultation remains a constant theme and driving force within RAPPs work, one of the main challenges is to ensure that the consultation process is grounded, real and worthwhile for those involved and not tokenistic gestures.
To find out more about the projects work in this area; contact Craig Clark or Ian Bolton on 225855.
The RAPP casework and group work philosophy and ethos is very much about how we can listen and learn from the children and young people we have worked with in the past and continue to have contact with.
This is a continual learning process for us a project.
There are a number of established theories, approaches and techniques that inform social and youth work with children and young people. The RAPP workers are encouraged to have an genuine awareness and an understanding of these and be alive and receptive to any new innovative or creative approaches that may add value and further depth to our 'tool kit' or 'Mary Poppins bag'
Children and young people present a range of issues and often have to deal with a number of difficulties in their lives. It therefore makes perfect sense to us, that we need a range of techniques and approaches and creativity to respond to what is presented to us in an effective, meaningful way.
The key driver in this whole process is the worker and what they bring to the working relationship in terms of energy, enthusiasm, positive attitude, skills and qualities.
APPROACHES WITH YOUNG PEOPLE (Power Point Slide Show)
What makes a good participation worker?
Some one who genuinely enjoys working with children and young people and has a passion, enthusiasm and energy for the work. I believe that whether its about youth or social work or participation work, its always about approach and workers having almost an intuitive understanding of the skills, qualities and attitudes that are required to build positive, meaningful, working relationships with young children and young people.
Children and young people do some amazing things; we need to acknowledge more fully, this is often because of some amazing people who support them. In addition to this workers, should never underestimate the positive influences they can have on children and young people’s lives. The view at RAPP is that we feel privileged to be able to share in the lives of the children and young people we work with and learn from them.
What are the barriers to involving children and young people?
In my experience the barriers to Participation lie within other peoples negative and cynical attitudes towards children and young people generally, which can then result in a culture of further reluctance and obstacles to involve them. Many organisations today, involve young people in a number of ways through a participatory approach, the contradiction is that there still remain a number of agencies that don’t do this, and given their remit should do! The challenge is for us all to be much more vocal about the benefits of participation in order to effectively challenge the negative attitudes towards the whole process.
On a different note, I firmly believe that the politics of participation has a role to play as a potential barrier. If we are trying to establish participation as a way of being with children and young people and effectively working with them across a range of services then we need to be much more effective and intelligent in terms of how we lobby central government on the topic. I feel that there are a number of leading organisations in the UK, carrying out some fantastic participation work; however they appear to be in competition with other organisations engaged in similar work (especially when it comes to funding or jockeying for position) My question is who has really got the ear of the Government in terms of being an serious voice and influence that can change systems at this level. I feel we all could be much better organised as a ‘united participation or Children’s Rights force’ in order to achieve this more comprehensively.
What are the benefits?
Children and young people today, are often demonised and negatively stereotyped by the media, a participation approach can create the opportunity to turn these ideas around and develop a feel good factor and a positivity, where children and young people are not only engaged in the process but making changes in the ways in which some organisations or agencies conduct themselves. Unfortunately these stories do not always make the headlines. We have numerous examples at RAPP where the challenge has been to try and engage with 'hard to reach' groups of young people, if the workers rise to the challenge and remain tenacious, creative and genuine in their approach then the benefits for the children and young people in terms in developing confidence and improving their outlook on life, are ten fold.
What tips do you have for effective participation of children and young people?
Both from my experience and RAPPs experience in this field, my tips would be that the participation and involvement of children and young people must be genuine, have a clear focus and built upon an established value base to nurture and develop positive working relationships. Workers involved in the process must be explicitly clear as to why children and young people are to be involved, in terms of their role, the support on offer and most importantly what they are going to achieve from the piece of work.
What is effective participation?
If participation is be effective then it must include a range of the ingredients I have described above. It’s definitely not about quick wins, if we are going to challenge attitudes and cultures towards young people, then this is certainly not a process to be rushed but delivered within a patient, tenacious, and planned approach that fully acknowledges the need to learn from our mistakes along the way. It’s about having integrity with a very large helping of humility for good measure!
Craig Clark
Hull Children’s Rights Officer / Rights and Participation Project Co-ordinator
March 2009
