Listening to Children and Young People - Essay Example

Listening to Children and Young People Department: Listening Listening is defined as an active activity that involves effective and accurate receiving, making sense of, and perceiving pieces of information with a mind set of sometimes responding i.e. to Looked-After children and young people. The term listening can also be defined as the whole process of making sense out of what we hear which involves receiving of information, processing, and interpreting aural stimuli. Good listening therefore involves taking in only the meaningful sounds and noise and somehow retaining and for future use (Lusting, M. and Koester J., 2006). Children who are capable of forming their own views have a right to receive and make known information they have through being attentively listened to, to effectively express their opinions, and to have those opinions taken into account in whatever matters affecting them. All views of the children ought to be given due weight in accordance to the age, maturity and capability of the children. According to Committee on the Rights of the Child (2009), all children with special education requirements are supposed to have a say in the roles of decision making in regards to their special education needs. Listening to the children and young ones do have very important concepts to be considered. Whoever interacts with children and young people should actually consider ensuring that they are able to benefit by growing up or developing uprightly. Through listening, adults are able to emphasize well with children by understanding the children’s inimitable thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Hence, there is creation of a child’s focused culture on communication. 1.1 Why listening to children and young people is important Effectively engaging with children and young people is very essential to Child, Youth and Family (CYF)’s task in supporting all families and adequately protecting children. By being in a position to understand the perspective of any child or young person is important in completing the assessment and development interventions. Demonstration of genuine interest in children or young people’s viewpoint, having a thorough understanding of the child/ young people’s personal development, and appreciating the environmental conditions which aid good communication with children, are so fundamental in genuine consultation and active inclusion of children in the decision making process. By ensuring that one is able to listen and try to understand children and the young people, he/she can help the child to develop the perceptions that they can be have some trust on you and come to you in case of anything to share. There are a number of reasons for listening among which are that it is a basic human right. This group of young people and children are under all circumstances under the obligation to live with the consequences of decisions that in some way affect them. Therefore, it would be considered humanly fair if they are given the importunity to participate in such decisions (Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2009). Immense importance of listening to children: According to the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) and the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act of 1989 (CYP & F Act), children and young people’s voices to be heard are provided. It actually works: Considering children and young people’s views has the likelihood of creating more successful interventions and better results. Once they are able to feel that they have a voice, they will be eager to construct even positive sense of identity, belonging, increasingly become confident and assertive, and to a very minimal extent be vulnerable to abuse and neglect. In situation of any depression and lack of the opportunity to satisfactorily participate in the decision making process, children and young people are less likely to be part of the decision hence obstructing and circumventing them greatly (Commissioner for Children and Young People WA, 2009). 1.1. Policy drivers and context for listening to children and young people Children and young people all over the world are entitle to close attentions so as to ensure that they are healthy, able to achieve their dreams, are nurtured and are active, shown mutual respect and responsibility, included and kept safe. Ideally, these factors means building on the strengths of children and young people and their families, friends, teachers and neighbors with the intension of resolving any issues that may affect them and result into their holding back. Approaches given in this respect however differ from country to country and from institution to institution, although the main aims are common. For instance, the key policy drivers for practice have been well defined in Scotland as follows: Health for All Children 4, a guide on Implementation (SE 2005); Delivering a Healthy Future; Action Framework for Children and Young People’s Health (SE 2007); Early Years Framework (SG 2008b); Better Health, Better Care – National Delivery Plans for Children and Young People’s Specialist Services (SG 2009a); Equally Well, Report of the Ministerial Task Force on Health Inequalities (SG 2008c); The Education Acts 2004 & 2009- Consultation on Changes to the Secondary Legislation and Supporting Children’s Learning Code of Practice (SG 2009b); Better Together- Scotland’s Patient Experience Program, Based on Children and Young People’s Experience (SG 2009c); Partnership working between allied health professionals and education; working collectively to enhance outcomes for children and young people (SG 2010c); Implementing Getting It Right For Every Child Guide (SG 2010d); and Curriculum for Excellence- Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS 2010). One of the policy contexts that have been of concern is bullying of children and the young people. Bullying, as it is known in most parts of the world, is currently an issue for public policy in the recent years, because of the wide spread of public and professional concern with the negative effects of bullying. Other stress factors to the children and young people may include; not getting on with parents, stress and worries concerning academic performance and not getting on with examinations, bereavement, race, culture, religion, low self-esteem and the feeling of rejection. 2. Looked After Children Globally, Looked-After Children more importantly underachieve and are at higher risks of exclusion while compared to their peers within their learning institutions i.e., Secondary Schools. It is acknowledged that Secondary schools have major roles to play in making sure that Looked After Children are enabled to be healthy, safe in their stay at schools, enjoy, achieve, make a positive contribution to the entire society and attain economic well being, in conjunction with Every Child Issues. Initiatives to help Looked-After Children (LAC) succeed and effectively providing a brighter future for them is a factor of key priority for all the Secondary Schools with such category of students. This move was propelled by the policies that considered: the DfES Statutory Guidance to Governing Bodies, “Supporting Looked After Learners” of 2006; the Education (Admission of Looked After Children) (England) Regulations of 2007; the Local Authority’s mandated tasks under Section 52 of the Children Act 2004 to efficiently enhance the education of LAC; and “Show Me How I Matter, a guide to the education of looked after children” LGA and IDEA publication 2006. Looked after Children and Young People are children under the good care of a Council, mandated by a Care Order that is made by a court or voluntary agreements with their parent(s) for a better accommodation and safer stay than these parents can offer to their children. Such children may be looked after in children’s home, by other family members, or by the foster groups of care. Children and young people are looked after or cared for in instances where their parents are unable to provide for their ongoing care in either a permanent or temporary capacity and hence, the local authorities or otherwise authorized bodies are entitled to take good care of them. In the UK, for instance, children can for some reasons be cared for because of a voluntary agreement between their parents and the institutions concerned or as a result of a care order. The main reasons for children care are threefold i.e., the parent may be in a position where he/she is unable to continue offering good care for them, the child may be at risk or harm and need to be moved to a safer place is recommended, and in case a parent is ill or may be in a condition that requires being hospitalized yet no other family members can offer good care of the child. According to MALAP (2007), there were other reasons too that led to the introduction of the Children Act in 1989, which include: If the Children or Young People are subjected to Emergency Protection Order, usually issued in situations of crisis caused by the child or young person’s need for immediate protection, hence allowing a local authority parental responsibility for the duration of the issued order (Section 44 of the Children Act 1989); and when the child is in the care of the local authority on a Care Order or an Interim Care Order where the Court has to make this order because the thresholds criteria are usefully met. Hence, it leads to shared parental responsibility between the child’s parents and the local authority concerned (Section 31 of the Children Act of 1989). Looked After Children in Secondary Schools are effectively supported by ensuring that the institutions they are in are in a position provide them with the things all other young people must do/ have by sufficiently balancing high levels of their support with the actual life challenges and situations. Each and every young individual being looked after in the secondary schools must also be skillfully linked with the key people with whom they are able to relate quite well with. It is prioritized in the Secondary Schools that such young people are well known and understood to assist in creating good, healthy and strong relationships; establishing strong partnerships with those who take care of them, local authorities and special agencies if any; ensuring that they can observe how things occur and consequently seeing them through; taking note that thing are consistent and flexible; extending the horizons for each and every young individual; and properly planning for their future transition as they mature to become adults. The institutions (Secondary Schools) further ensure that: young individuals are able to prioritize their personal, emotional and academic requirements; specific needs of each and every child within their supervision and control are monitored on the learning sequences and specific need and barriers to the learning process effectively identified, noted down in each one of their educational plan and their progress review regularly to counter check their conformances to the predetermined objectives; A good track record of every child’s or young individual’s progress is rigorously noted. This means therefore that very special attention is accorded to the all the looked after Children to see that they are always on track to attain their targets, or the best they are able to achieve. Further still, they ensure children are provided with consistent proactive support via their designated teacher and support staff. Such children are therefore expected to review their progress with their teachers to review their progress, and be given encouragement and any pieces of advice where necessary; and support the students to keep up and appropriately catch up with the gaps in their learning processes. In short, the teachers are able to implement various intervention strategies to properly address both their social and academic needs. The department of education for both the children and people in 2012 upgraded the legal framework for working with the looked after children as based on the Children Act of 1989. While trying as much as possible, it is necessary to monitor their emotional mental growth with an aim to help them to overcome the turbulent years of teenage and prevent such things from destroying them forever. In this regard, policy development with regard to looked after teenagers would be geared towards not just helping these young adults with material things but also with as much emotional help as possible. Experts argue that adolescents are more likely to recoil to traumatic experiences during these formative years if they don’t have a good source of emotional support to depend (Lanyado and Horne, 2009). 3. Analysis 3.1. Key issues in the chosen arena According to the Children Act of 1989 the key issues were to ensure an increased children’s rights in law, precisely what can be seen as a political rather than a welfare right (Freeman, 1999), namely the right to be heard. This Act complemented the United Nations Convention about the rights of the Child, requiring courts and social care staff to ascertain and provide consideration to the wishes and feelings of children and young people before making any decisions that directly or indirectly affected them. The Children Act of 2004 and the associated guidance and publications have been extensively extended in terms of requirements’ coverage to include the involvement of children and young people in policy and the planning, deliverer and evaluation of services (Kirby et al, 2003). According to Thomas (2002), the action of being listened to is one that is highly valued by children and young people. 3.2. Critical analysis to listening Creating room for the voice of the children and young people to be heard is confirmed as more difficult than it appears on spoken words. These difficulties therefore make effective communication quite difficult and to lack sequential flow. In some instances, some children may not be able to raise their voices or share their feelings. It is critically necessary that these children are in a position to receive an advocacy service, which helps to make them certain that their views are heard and acted upon appropriately. Each and every child, whatever their ages or abilities, is proficient for self-expression. In between their ages, children’s imaginations, ideas, opinions, feelings, needs and worries can be demonstrated in a number of ways, i.e., through words for those children and young people who are in a position to talk or sign, as well as physical movements and body language, non-verbal sounds, or creative expression like plays, dances, music and art works. Those who are in charge of reforming children’s services have to embrace the clear message that children’s voices must be heard, listened to, understood, and their wishes acted upon. 3.3. Dominating voices This research topic was fundamental in the investigation and analysis of the impacts of listening to the looked-after children and young people. In the analysis, it was observable that children are effectively protect in the Children Act of 1986 and provided with the privileges to be listened to as they are also part of our very special society. The dominating voices in this respect included the looked-after children and young people and those responsible or their wellbeing in terms of health, socialization, education, and provision of their basic needs. 3.4. Analysis conclusion Listening is an expression of rights that have very important roles to play in the lives of the children and young people, and an expression of an ethical practice. Besides, listening to such group of people is an ethics of encounter and an expression of democratic practice. The main idea of the ethics of an encounter is the importance of relating well to others, in this case accepting the looked-after children and young people and giving then a listening hear to their views, feelings, opinions e.t.c. 4. Implications for practitioners Practitioners have the mandate, through the use of their skills and consistent approach to children, to listen to children and young people through being; good listeners, aware of the requirements of good listening, genuine listeners, demonstrating values of listening, supporting children in the making/ creation of links, providing children with the suitable environments to allow for their interactions, e.t.c. As an implication for practice, effective integration of children’s perspectives into the setting’s approach helps in the improvement of quality listening. The requirements are that the depth of understanding of children’s perspective to develop the overall pedagogical approach, leadership skills to enhance common understanding of children’s perspectives among the staff, properly linking children’s perspectives with the learning and developmental stages in the early years foundation stages to create a phased program to support children’s acquisition of the necessary skills, and the capacity to properly deal with conflicts and any tensions between children’s, colleagues’ and parents’ understanding of effective listening to children and young people. 4.1. What need to change As provided in the Children’s Act of 1989 and reviewed in 2004, the very key and fundamental issues that are beneficial and applicable to all children and young people are taken into considerations. However, the aspect of listening requires deeper involvement more than a teacher-child/learner relationships. Besides being taken to school, the looked-after children should be raised in environments away from school just like other children who commute to school from home. The main argument for this is to avoid the casual relationships between teachers and the pupils, where pupils may actually not be free as he/she would in case the persona was the parent. This environment causes stigmatization and irregular development of the children and the young ones. The ratio of teacher to pupils is in some cases also too high for effective listening, hence the ratio much always be checked and changed if possible. References Berridge, D. (2006) Theory and explanation in child welfare: education and looked-after children, Child and Family Social Work, 12(1): pp. 1-10 Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2009). General Comment No. 12 (2009): The right of the child to be heard, United Nations. Commissioner for Children and Young People WA. (2009). Involving Children and Young People: Participation Guidelines, Perth, Western Australia. Department of Health (1995) Looking-After Children: Planning and Review Forms and Assessment and Action records (Revised). HMSO, London. Freeman, M. (1999). ‘The right to be heard’, Adoption & Fostering 22:4, pp 50–59 Kirby, P., Lanyon, C., Cronin, K. and Sinclair, R. (2003) Building a Culture of Participation: Involving children and young people in policy, service planning, delivery and evaluation, Handbook, London: Department for Education and Skills. Lanyado, M. H. (2009). The Handbook of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy: Psychoanalytic Approaches. London: Rutledge. Lusting, M. and Koester J. (2006). Intercultural competence: Interpersonal communication across cultures. New York: Pearson. SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE. (2005). Health for All Children 4: Guidance on Implementation. SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE. (2007). Delivering a Healthy Future; Action Framework for Children and Young People’s Health. SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT. (2008a). A Guide to Getting It Right For Every Child, Edinburgh, The Scottish Government. SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT. (2008b). The Early Years Framework. SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT. (2008c). Equally Well: Ministerial Report on Task Force on Health Inequalities. SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT. (2009a). Better Health, Better Care, National Delivery Plans for Young People and Children’s Special Services. SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT. (2009). The Education Acts of 2004 & 2005: Consultation on Alterations to the Secondary Legislation and Supporting Children’s Learning Code of Practice. SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT. (2010d). A Guide on Implementing Getting it Right For Every Child. Thomas, N. (2002). Children, Family and the State, The decision-making and child participation, Bristol: Policy Press. Read More