How Infants and Non-speaking Children are Involved in Decision-making About Their Healthcare Needs in Emergency Departments that Treat Children
How Children Take Part in Decision-making in a Junior Infants Classroom
How Children in an After-school Service are Involved in Decision-making
Enabling Children to Choose the Clothes They Wear in an Outdoor Preschool
This toolkit is about how to listen to babies, toddlers and young children and involve them in decision-making on matters that affect their lives.It contains guidance, advice and examples of good practice on involving children in decision-making for professionals and practitioners who work with babies, toddlers and children under the age of five. Throughout the toolkit, babies, infants, toddlers and young children under the age of five are referred to as ‘children’, and their stage of life is referred to as ‘early childhood’.
How children make choices about when to finish an activity or a game
The Starcatchers Voice of the Baby project explored current and emerging rights-based approaches in the arts for babies and young children aged 0-3 in Scotland, with a focus on participation rights and creating an arts-based methodology for early years participation. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) enshrines children’s right to express their views, on all matters affecting them, and to have those views given due weight (Article 12). Babies and young children are entitled to all the rights enshrined in the UNCRC—including the right to be heard—but in early childhood this right is often overlooked or neglected. Full implementation of Article 12 requires recognition and respect for both verbal and non-verbal communication, and the arts offer great potential for babies to exercise their right to be heard. Participation in cultural life and the arts is itself a right enshrined in the UNCRC (Article 31) and is connected to a longer human rights history–for example, the right to participate in the cultural life of the community is enshrined in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948). The participation of babies and young children in artistic and cultural life is not only an opportunity for babies themselves, but also has the potential to develop and transform the societies in which they live. As Scotland moves toward incorporation of the UNCRC into Scots law, it is timely to investigate how the arts can enable babies and young children to exercise their right to be heard.
Phase One of the project (funded by Cattanach and Interface) investigated existing knowledge and best practice in this area, via a scoping review of peer-reviewed empirical research studies, a survey conducted with Scottish-based arts practitioners and arts organisations, and group interviews with Starcatchers staff and associate artists. In Phase Two, we visited three Starcatchers creative play projects to learn how artists support the participation rights of babies and young children in ‘real life’. Bringing together our learning from those visits with the findings from Phase One, we have constructed a flexible reflective guide for practitioners across sectors, who wish to facilitate rights based participatory practice with babies and young children through the creative arts.
Phase Two is centred around working with babies from birth who are pre-verbal or developing language skills, however, we recognise that the resulting Reflective Guide may well have a broader application with older children and young people who are nonverbal.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is currently being incorporated into domestic Law in Scotland. In the lead up to incorporation, and as implementation is rolled out, cross-sector organisations, statutory services and government bodies are acknowledging that we must listen to children and young people when it comes to matters that affect their lives; this also includes pre-and non-verbal children.
This Summary Research Report represents Phase 1 of a larger research project. The purpose of Phase 1 was to explore current and emerging rights-based approaches in the arts for children aged birth to 3 in Scotland, with a particular focus on pre- and/or non-verbal children in this age category. The findings from Phase 1 will contribute towards the development of a framework for participation specific to pre-and non-verbal children (Phase 2).
This research represents a partnership project between Starcatchers and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, with funding from Cattanach and Interface.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is now front and centre in almost every major app or platform that children use. Recent data reveals rapid adoption: 67 per cent of UK teens now use AI (a figure that has almost doubled in two years), 39 per cent of American elementary students learn through AI applications and 37 per cent of children aged 9–11 in Argentina turn to ChatGPT for information.3 Uptake, however, is not even: UNICEF research (forthcoming) with 12,000 children aged 12–17 and their parents/caregivers found substantial AI usage but wide divides between countries, leading to the exclusion of some children. The little research available on children and AI shows the differences are about more than access – disparities exist in types of usage, attitudes to AI, trust levels, understanding of privacy protections and exposure to harm.
Collectively, these changes bring opportunities and risks to children, young people and their families, teachers and communities. New benefits that could be leveraged include the use of AI systems to better support learning and increase accessibility for children with disabilities. Novel risks include AI-generated disinformation and emotional dependency on companion chatbots. Real harms are experienced through AI-generated explicit ‘deepfakes’ and AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM), sometimes based on the images of real children. Essential questions remain unanswered, such as what disruption AI systems may cause in children’s education, skill needs and future workplaces?
Since 2021, there has been a much-needed uptick in efforts to support and protect children in an AI world. From a governance perspective, these include child-related legal stipulations in the EU AI Act and the Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI and human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Recommendations appear in the Joint Statement on AI and the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2025 and co-led by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and UNICEF, the UN High-level Advisory Body on AI’s report and the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI. There are also efforts to research and engage children on the topic, notably by UNICEF, the Alan Turing Institute, the Children’s Parliament and the Scottish AI Alliance, as well as by research groups like Digital Futures for Children with EU Kids Online.
Yet, despite children being at the forefront of AI adoption, little is known about the mid- to long-term impact of AI on them; for example, developmental (cognitive and psychological) and learning impacts, as well as impacts on the societies in which they live. In addition, children remain at the margin of shaping AI systems. This is especially true for children from the Global South, for whom location, digital divides and severely limited access to policy forums and AI design processes are exclusionary factors. Even in wealthy countries in the Global North, most children are not sufficiently engaged in such activities. If AI systems are to benefit every child and function in their best interests, children must be urgently and meaningfully included in AI governance and development processes. Particular attention must be paid to those from the Global South, in rural areas, and from marginalized or vulnerable communities.
The notable policy, research and engagement efforts towards child-centred AI listed above are the exception, not the norm. Children’s rights are still not receiving sufficient attention in AI policy, law, governance and development. As noted, there is very limited understanding of how this unprecedented technological shift is shaping different children’s worldviews, development and futures at large. Further, the growing climate of AI competition and fragmentation between countries creates headwinds for national, regional and global cooperation, resourcing and interoperability – all key for ensuring greater protections and opportunities for children.
The message is clear: in order to uphold children’s rights, AI governance and systems need to optimize opportunities, mitigate risks and eliminate harms for children. The need to address the evidence gap on how AI impacts children and their environments, ideally through participatory research and decision-making, and to centre children in AI policies and systems has never been more urgent or important.
This guidance draws on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to lay out the foundations for child-centred AI: today and in the future, AI policies and systems should protect children, provide equitably for their needs and rights and support their participation in an AI world by contributing to the development and use of AI.
Children should be empowered with access to, and opportunity to benefit from, AI systems. Building on this foundation, the guidance presents ten requirements for child-centred AI, complementing key work already underway, but with a central focus on children.
The guidance is accompanied by many resources, including previous versions, eight implementation case studies, guides for parents and teens, opinion pieces and previous project reports – all available online.
Professor Laura Lundy addresses common myths and misinterpretations surrounding the meaningful participation of children.