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Rights and participation service

Listening to you is really important to us. Our rights and participation team work to support and empower young people to be involved in and shape decisions that affect their lives. This includes how we plan, deliver and evaluate services for children, young people and parents.

What is participation?

Participation is about giving young people the opportunity to have their voices heard and to support them to make decisions for themselves.

For children and young people there are very clear laws which say they should have a right to participate. Article 12 of The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child  says every young person has the right to express their views, feelings and wishes in all matters affecting them and to have those views considered and taken seriously

How we can help

We help children and young people aged between 5 to 25. By listening to your opinions, concerns and views, we aim to ensure that we provide services that meet your needs and improve the way we work.

We do this by providing a range of services which include:

  • Supporting children and young people who are part of child protection processes or who are looked after by the local authority to have their voices heard in meetings held about them.
  • Providing support through our participation groups.
  • Supporting children and young people who are looked after by the local authority to make a complaint about a service they receive through our Children’s Rights offer.

Our participation groups

We support you to help shape services through a number of different participation groups:


How will you hear me?
Young people don't feel listened to. We've done award-winning work to ensure your views are heard by those that make decisions. We have a collection of short films written by young people exploring their experiences with professionals and how they felt they were treated and listened to.
Watch on YouTube now

Support for parents

We also support parents who attend Early Help services to have a say on provision and to support other parents, this is delivered through our parent champion programme.

Get in touch

Bez Martin - Rights & Participation Service Manager