Developing a set of National Standards for Children and Young People’s Participation for Wales has been a priority for the Participation Unit, working in partnership with the Participation Consortium, the Welsh Assembly Government, practitioners and children and young people across Wales.
From commonly agreed ‘core principles’ of participation, the Children and Young People’s Participation Consortium and the Participation Unit have developed National Standards for Children and Young People’s Participation i.e. quality standards that can provide a means for inspecting and assessing participatory practice. There are seven National Standards.
The National Standards have been consulted upon and endorsed by young people in Funky Dragon, the Children and Young People’s Assembly for Wales. At their 2005 AGM, Funky Dragon voted overwhelmingly in favour of National Participation Standards. In 2006, they piloted them alongside five other groups of children and young people across Wales. The final Standards document was endorsed by all members of the Welsh Assembly Government’s Children and Young People’s Cabinet Sub Committee in November 2006.
The National Standards were launched by Jane Davidson, the then Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning, at the Participation Unit’s National Standards Seminar on January 25th 2007. The Seminar brought together adults and young people from local and national projects, all of whom have a stake in the development of National Standards. Sessions were run by young people who had been involved in piloting the Standards.
As a means of further developing good practice, the Participation Consortium and the Participation Unit want to explore quality assurance or kite-marking schemes with the aim of setting up a national kite-mark associated with the National Participation Standards. A kite-mark is a recognised symbol which guarantees that a certain set of standards have been reached, for example Investors in People or Basic Skills kite-marks.
Working towards a kite-mark means developing a national framework for implementing and assessing against the Standards. It also means piloting how this might work across Wales. The first step is to raise awareness of the Standards and to encourage organisations to use them for self-assessment of their current practice.
The National Children and Young People’s Participation Standards are available to download at the bottom of this page.