Participation

Listen to me! Babies and infants participation

October 17, 2024 by Digital Engagement Team No Comments | Category Children & young people, Guest blog

In this blog post we hear from Hannah Murison, Early Learning and Childcare Policy Adviser from National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) Scotland. Hannah talks about the development of a participatory method of engaging children on the subject of their rights to inform the creation of Children’s Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessments (CRWIA), which is called ‘Listen to me!’. Read all about it below!

National Day Nurseries Association Scotland

NDNA is the national charity representing private, voluntary and independent (PVI) children’s nurseries across the UK. We are the voice of the 21,000-strong nursery sector and a core part of the lives of more than a million young children and their families. NDNA Scotland is the national representative body for PVI nurseries in Scotland with eight networks covering 17 local authority areas.

As well as a wide and varied resource base to help those who run nurseries, we also represent you at both local and national levels to ensure that your voice is heard as part of the vibrant and enthusiastic Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) sector in Scotland. We are often called up by the media to give the opinion of the sector on a number of different issues. Being part of NDNA Scotland ensures that these voices are heard.

NDNA Scotland is a strategic partner to the Scottish Government, supporting policy development and the implementation of Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) strategy.

This piece of work came about because part of NDNA’s role is to support members to develop an understanding of children’s rights and how the UNCRC incorporation act implementation will affect them.

Where the idea for ‘Listen to me!’ came from

When the UNCRC (Incorporation)(Scotland) Act 2024 first started its journey through the Scottish Parliament, NDNA Scotland knew this would be a huge culture shift for society. The Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) sector is already underpinned by the UNCRC, with children’s rights at the heart of legislation, policy, guidance, and practice. When guidance on CRWIAs were being developed for public services, we saw an opportunity to create a process that worked for staff and children in nurseries. Bearing in mind the age range in a Private, Voluntary and Independent (PVI) sector nursery is anything from 6 week old babies to school age.

Developing a participatory method to engage children

We started with a step by step guide to completing a CRWIA for nurseries. Those familiar with a CRWIA will know it is good practice for the organisation to consult with all

stakeholders, including children. We needed a way for nurseries to meaningfully consult with every child in their nursery – not just the older children who could more obviously understand the concept of rights. Jane Malcolm (National Operations Manager) and I (Hannah Murison, ELC advisor) put our heads together with combined expertise in early years practice and policy work. We quickly came to the conclusion that meaningful engagement would have to take into account more than just children’s words and it would have to be bigger than simply asking children questions.

We read research (signposted below), consulted with nursery staff and used our experience to develop something we thought could work. Of all the participation resources that we came across in our research stage, nothing was aimed directly at including babies in work on their rights. We felt passionately that this was a significant gap. Babies have the right to be included! The method should empower babies to develop an understanding that they are rights holders and to show that babies can understand complex ideas like rights when they have experienced them. This way we could ensure all children were included and that it was realistic in terms of developmental appropriateness.

The method that we created is interactive: a gentle discussion and observation based method to gather children’s views on their rights. We talk about the language of babies, infants, and young children. How it is made up of so much more than their words. We encourage practitioners to talk about rights, using the language of rights in day to day practice, to empower children to exercise their rights, treating them with respect and dignity so they can be empowered to expect respect and dignity.

We then tested it with member nurseries. We recruited five nurseries to pilot the method with the children in their setting, so we knew it would work for children and staff in practice. I worked closely with the pilot settings on guiding them through the process with children, writing and re-writing advice and guidance to make sure they could follow it. It was also important that other members reading the guidance could follow it without my direct input when the publication was released. After a first round of free training for practitioners, we have used the feedback to inform two further updates since the first publication in 2021.

Pilot findings

Our pilot settings have shown how children can understand complex ideas like rights when they have experienced them. Children enthusiastically accepted adults introducing this method, engaging with nursery staff and sharing their views. Quality observations were undertaken and children’s words and actions were captured to show their understanding. This type of participation is about engaging children with rights language and then using this knowledge of the understanding in the nursery to inform a CRWIA or planning for provisions.

We continue to develop our resources further as more in known about incorporation. If you’re interested in our toolkit, have a look at the NDNA website.

Research in the development of the toolkit

Blaisdell, C (2017). Listening to young children: meaningful participation in early childhood settings. Centre for Research on Families and Relations. Research briefing 88.

Tisdall, K (2015). Children’s Rights and Children’s Wellbeing: Equivalent Policy Concepts? Social Policy and Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. 44 (4) 807 – 823.

Quennerstedt, A (2016). Young Children’s Enactments of Human Rights in Early Childhood Education. International Journal of Early Years Education. 24:1, 5 – 18

Siraj, I and Asani, R. (2015) The role of sustained shared thinking, play and metacognition in young children’s learning. In S. Robson and S. Quinn (eds), The Routledge International Handbook of Young Children’s Thinking and Understanding. London: Routledge.

Tags: children and young people, guest blog, UNCRC

Comments