Using Hear by Right does not need to be a daunting or complex experience. This page offers friendly support and advice about learning from the experiences of other Hear by Right users, and moving from words to action in your own organisation.

The mapping and planning tool is designed to allow organisations to route to self-assessment to assess and improve the way that they involve children and young people in the decision making process.

From Words to Action - 10 Top Tips:

Getting started: Hear by Right is flexible as a tool and as a process. The tips below offer guidance to help you discover what suits your organisation or partnership best.

1. Go to www.nya.org.uk/hearbyright to see how others have made the most of Hear by Right.

2. Get the early agreement and backing from leaders, staff and children and young people by using, for example, the PowerPoint presentation and Hear by Right Briefings.

3. Make sure there is someone with clear responsibility to drive the process.

Developing a strategy for children and young people’s active involvement

4. Involve children and young people on their own terms, using the Building Standards for active involvement tools to help them say how they expect to be listened to and influence the services they use.

5. Use the Hear by Right mapping and planning tool on the CD Rom to map your evidence and plan your strategy.

6. Run some short workshops with leaders, staff and children and young people to give the mapping and planning a flying start.

7. Base your participation strategy on the evidence from the mapping and planning with adults and children and young people.

8. Cut and paste any other relevant text from the Word version of Hear by Right on the CD-Rom to underpin your strategy.

Sharing and celebrating achievement of development and change for children and young people

9. Record successful evidence of dialogue and evidence of change using the What's changed? tool.

10. Use www.nya.org.uk/hearbyright to share information, plans and stories more widely.

In order to make the Hear by Right standards framework as successful as possible, The National Youth Agency has set what it considers requirements for any organisation serious about the active involvement of children and young people in the decision making process:

• A Map & Plan (this does not have to be complete)
• Stories of organisational change
• What's changed for young people examples.

To make the process easier we have put together a number of briefing papers that detail how Hear by Right has been used across a range of different sectors. These offer further information and advice on using the Hear by Right standards framework which may more detailed and tailored to answer sector specific questions. Please see the user briefings in our downloads section.