RESOURCES: Review - The right to be heard ... and taken seriously

Carolyne Willow is one of the leading lights of the children's rights and advocacy movement in the UK. Some years ago she published the seminal Hear, Hear, about children and young people's democratic participation in local government. Participation in Practice now brings together both the case for promoting participation and a range of case studies illustrating how it's done.

There is, of course, no single blueprint for participative practice, and finding the right formula for the right context is necessarily a long process. We may now be reasonably alert to the reasons why, but we still often struggle with the question how. But, as Willow notes, since the UK ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child some ten years ago, participatory initiatives and consultation projects have mushroomed within public bodies and children's charities. What is now required is organisational change flowing from both conferring on young people the right to participate and responding to the legitimate claims of children and young people to be listened to and taken seriously.