Listening to children and promoting participation

Listening to young children is an integral part of understanding what they are feeling and what they need from their early years experience. If young children feel that their views are listened to and taken seriously by adults it can have a positive effect on their confidence and social skills.

Participation is the active involvement of young children in how services for them are planned and developed. By listening to children and helping them develop their skills of making choices and expressing views, early years practitioners will better understand children’s needs and will reflect this in the way those needs are met.

Listening to children and involving them in decision-making is central to Every Child Matters: Change for Children, the programme of change to improve outcomes for all children and young people.

Good practice

Early years educational settings that promote a culture of listening, and help all children to express their views, will be best placed to ensure that their services meet the needs of young refugee children.

Ensure all children are included

Children from all backgrounds should have opportunities to be listened to and opportunities to make choices and express their views. Practitioners can consider what barriers there may be for young refugee children and how these can be addressed. Some children may need more time than others to start saying what they think and feel. Their initial silence does not necessarily indicate a lack of views or feelings about something. Practitioners can also check and record how children listen and engage. Eye contact and non-verbal communications can also be indicators of engagement, listening and participation.

Ensure practitioners understand the benefits of a listening culture

The National Children's Bureau (NCB) Early Childhood Unit (ECU) website provides a series of downloadable fact sheets entitled Listening as a way of life, to support practitioners. These include

Why and how we listen to young children provides guidance on why all children should be listened to and the particular benefits for early years settings.

Are equalities an issue? Finding out what young children think provides useful guidance on children’s participation and race equality issues.

The Save the Children publication Never Too Young: How young children can take responsibility and make decisions, is a practical resource that shows how young children can participate, make decisions and take responsibility for their actions. It provides early years practitioners with information about why participation works, and explores tried and tested techniques for involving children in decisions that affect them.

Monitor how well all groups of children are listened to

Early years settings should monitor how successful the setting is in listening to refugee children and how well they are encouraged to express their opinions. Learning for all, published by the Commission for Racial Equality, provides guidance on monitoring provision.

Involve children in planning and decision-making

Children of all ages appreciate being consulted and having their views considered as part of how services and activities are planned. Opportunities to be consulted and involved can be fun and can provide the foundation for children to make decisions and develop independence. The following publications contain examples of consultation strategies and activities for use with young children in early years settings.

Spaces to Play: More listening to young children using the Mosaic approach (NCB) provides guidance on listening to children’s views and experiences of their outdoor environments.

Save the Children publishes a range of publications that can help practitioners consult children and involve them in planning. These include:

• Children as Partners in Planning : A training resource to support consultation with children
• Children are Service Users Too: A guide for consulting children and young people
• Starting With Choice: Inclusive strategies for consulting young children.

Learn about children’s rights

First Steps to Rights, published by UNICEF, is a book containing activities, for children aged 3 to 7, to introduce them to the rights of all children, as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Convention on the Rights of the Child This area of the UNICEF website provides information on the responsibilities that accompany those rights.

Consider innovative and creative approaches

Participation-Spice it up! This Save the Children publication has lots of practical tools and ideas for creative approaches.

Listening to Young Children, published by Coram (a leading children’s charity), is a comprehensive resource that uses the arts to enable children under the age of eight to express their views and feelings.

Case study

Listening to young children in Southall (.PDF)

Southall, in the London Borough of Ealing, is a culturally and linguistically diverse area that is home to refugees of many nationalities. Southall Early Years Education Centre provides an inclusive environment, where listening to children and developing their participation is central to developing their learning and confidence. The case study describes how children have been actively involved in expressing their ideas and opinions in a range of participation activities.