Listening to the Voice of the Child

A child-centred approach is fundamental to safeguarding and promoting the

welfare of every child. Everyone working with children and families must seek the voice of the child and reflect and respond to it in order to understand the lived experience of the child. This requirement is rooted in legislation and good practice.

Children are clear about what they want from an effective safeguarding system:

Children have said that they need:

• Vigilance: to have adults notice when things are troubling them;
• Understanding and action: to understand what is happening; to be heard and understood; and to have that understanding acted upon;
• Stability: to be able to develop an ongoing stable relationship of trust with those helping them;
• Respect: to be treated with the expectation that they are competent rather than not;
• Information and engagement: to be informed about, and involved in procedures, decisions, concerns and plans;
• Explanation: to be informed of the outcome of assessments, and decisions and reasons when their views have not met with a positive response;
• Support: to be provided with support in their own right as well as a member of their family;
• Advocacy: to be provided with advocacy to assist them in putting forward their views;
• Protection: to be protected against all forms of abuse, exploitation, and discrimination, and the right to special protection and help if a refugee.

The practice of practitioners should address what children want.

Anyone working with children should:

• See and speak to the child;
• Listen to what they say;
• Observe their behaviour;
• Take their views seriously; and
• Work with them and their families and the people who know them well when deciding how to support their needs.

Practitioners should be aware that children may find it difficult to always speak about what they need, what is happening to them or what has happened to them.

Legal duties under the Equality Act 2010 [1] must be complied with, including putting special provision in place to support dialogue with children who may not be able to convey their wishes and feelings as they may want to. This might include, for example, those who have additional communication needs, unaccompanied children, refugees, those children who are victims of modern slavery and/or trafficking and those who do not speak English or for whom English is not their first language.

This approach sits within a whole-family culture in which the needs of all members of the family are explored as individuals and how their needs impact on one another is drawn out.

_{[1] www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents}

The professional requirement to keep records should be explained and the child should be supported to contribute to the content of records. This should be embedded in practice. Records should be updated regularly, particularly when circumstances change for the child or there is a change of plan. All records should be clear, separating fact, opinion and professional judgement, so that when a child becomes an adult and requests access to their records they should be able to understand how decisions were made about the services provided to them. They should be able to see any recording of their own contributions in a format of their choice.

The voice of the child should be recorded within documents and exemplars in the electronic records. They can also be attached or scanned into records where the child has written their own views, or tools have been used which are handwritten or completed by the child.

Each Safeguarding Partnership is required to publish arrangements on how the voice of children and families is gathered and used. These arrangements also contain details on how to escalate any concerns and how any disputes will be resolved, including whistleblowing procedures.

This child-centred approach is supported by:

• The Children Act 1989, which requires local authorities to give due consideration to a child’s wishes when determining what services to provide under section 17 and before making decisions about action to be taken to protect individual children under section 47. These duties complement requirements relating to the wishes and feelings of children who are, or may be, looked after (section 22(4)), including those who are provided with accommodation under section 20 and children taken into police protection (section 46(3)(d));
• The Equality Act 2010, which puts a responsibility on public authorities to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and promote equality of opportunity. This applies to the process of identification of need and risk faced by the individual child and the process of assessment. No child or group of children must be treated any less favourably than others in being able to access effective services which meet their particular needs. To comply with the Equality Act 2010, safeguarding partners must assess and where appropriate put in place measures ahead of time to support all children and families to access services, overcoming any barriers they may face due to a particular protected characteristic;
• The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) [1] which is an international agreement that protects the rights of children and provides a childcentred framework for the development of services to children. The UK Government ratified the UNCRC in 1991 and, by doing so, recognises children’s rights including to expression and receiving information;
• The Domestic Abuse Act 2021, section 3 [2] recognises that a child is a victim of domestic abuse in their own right if they see, hear or experience the effects of domestic abuse and are related to either victim or perpetrator of the abuse, or either the victim or perpetrator of the abuse has parental responsibility for that child;
• The Children’s Social Care National Framework [3], published in 2023, is statutory guidance that sets out the purpose of children’s social care as existing to support children and families, to protect children by intervening decisively when they are at risk of harm and to provide care for those who need it, so they grow up and thrive with safety, stability, and love.

_{[1] www.unicef.org.uk/what-we-do/un-convention-child-rights/
[2] www.gov.uk/government/publications/childrens-social-care-national-framework
[3] hwww.gov.uk/government/publications/childrens-social-care-national-framework}

Children's Commissioner Website