Good Practice Principles

The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth (DCEDIY) and Hub na nÓg have developed a set of good practice principles on how to engage with children and young people and ensure that their voices can make a difference or have an impact on decision-making, which are outlined below:

Good Practice Principles – Engaging With Children:

• Involve children in decision-making from the start.
• Seek children’s blue sky thinking.
• Avoid giving children information that can limit their thinking.
• Use a strengths-based approach, starting with children’s own experience and understanding.
• Use open consultation questions or easily understood survey questions developed by children.
• Use creative and age-appropriate methods.
• Avoid interpreting children’s views during the process.
• Ensure that children evaluate the process and that feedback is given to them on decisions made.

Good Practice Principles – Ensuring Impact:

• Ensure that human and financial resources are in place.
• Identify and name how children views will be used.
• Identify and name how decisions that are taken will be fed back to children.
• Report on the views of children and avoid adult interpretations of their views.
• Ensure that children play a prominent role in presenting their own views at relevant events.