Between February and August 2008, The NYA through Participation Works, teamed up with Government Office South East to support local authorities to build in the effective participation of children and young people in the services they use. Some themes emerge which we would value reflections on. Do these key messages echo your experiences? Is there anything from your experience which is missing? Please email franf@nya.org.uk.

Key messages

A number of significant, reoccurring messages resulted from this project:

• In order for organisational change to take place, there is a need for strong strategic leadership from senior and middle managers – ‘buy-in’ from the top
• Participation needs to effectively coordinated at a senior level, with clear roles and responsibilities throughout service providers
• Accountability needs to be clear and well publicised, both to young people and other professionals within Trusts and LAs
• Agreeing a small number of over arching priorities initially will ensure a sound basis on which to develop participation strategically across all services, whilst also recognising that some services will wish to develop at a faster pace

Additionally:

• The development of Children’s Trusts means that delivery and management boundaries are changing. This must not allow accountability to become confused, and must include all sectors / partner agencies.
• There are indications that the link between the individual experience of targeted services and the collective experience of young people as citizens is stronger in some places. The Hear by Right Building Standards type processes can help strengthen this in less successful services.
• There are excellent examples of participation workers taking a strategic lead when backed by senior management. However, there are still some situations where the designated participation lead or leads do not have the authority or capacity to act strategically