This edited collection explores advancing understandings of child centred practice through the lens of childhood studies. Contributions from around the world offer a foundation to acknowledge and support the place that children’s voices must play in creating effective practice as we respond to seismic social change.
At a time of significant local, national and international change, in which children are already actively involved, it seems not only right but necessary that we should be seeking to further our knowledge and understanding of what informs and shapes meaningful and effective practice for and with children. Such research has implications across the spaces that children and adults share whether that is at school, at home, in the law courts, in health care through to local, national and international platforms for social action.
Establishing Child Centred Practice in a Changing World, Part A draws on contributions from around the world, as it highlights the possibilities for a more focused series of studies in this area, deepening the understanding of what informs effective practice with children, through demanding a greater applied awareness of terms such as voice, collaboration and change. It reflects on the realities of the dynamic global context and the way in which this is affecting children’s experiences at a national and local level. It demands a consideration of the way in which children are represented in society and the extent to which that impacts on the design of practices for children. However, as well as reflecting on the constraints that traditional images of the child hold, this work also highlights the opportunities that are created when practices are designed with children.
Chapter
1. Starting a Conversation: An Introduction; Sam Frankel
Chapter
2. Reproducing Power Asymmetries through Voice, Collaboration and
Change: Opportunities for Children to Re-shape Contemporary Global
Challenges; Grace Spencer and Jill Thompson
Chapter
3. Children as Change Makers: Exploring Childrens Meaningful
Participation in Participatory Action Research through a Project on
Helicopter Parenting; Mackenzie Mountford and Faye M. Vento
Chapter
4. No Laughing Matter: Exploring The Role of Comedy When Researching
Employment Barriers with Disabled Young People; Marie Caslin, Harry Georgiou,
Charlene Davies, and Sarah Spoor
Chapter
5. Participation at the Heart: Lessons from Child-centred Practice in
UK Healthcare during and Beyond COVID-19; Louca-Mai Brady, Lucy Bray, Emma
Beeden, Shelby Davies, Kath Evans, and Andy Feltham
Chapter
6. Young People Involved with Voluntary Youth Services Agreements in
Ontario; Rachel Birnbaum
Chapter
7. An Analysis of Child and Youth Participation in Practice: Lessons
Learned from Child and Youth Advocate Offices and the Aboriginal Youth Court;
Daniella Bendo, Christine Goodwin-De Faria, and Stefania Maggi
Chapter
8. From Rhetoric to Reality: Participation in Practice within Youth
Justice Systems; Hannah Smithsona, Thomas Langb, and Paul Gray
Chapter
9. Children and Climate Justice : A New Perspective on the Role of
Children as Leaders in a Worldwide Debate; Laurene Graziani
Chapter
10. Reflective Partnership Between an Adult and a Child in
Institutional Foster Care - In search of (the child's) Agency; Katarzyna
Ornacka
Chapter
11. Towards an Informed, Participative and Sustainable Approach of
Childrens Fashion and Clothing: IN2FROCC in Action; Aude Le Guennec, Clare
Rose, Laetitia Barbu, Anne-Charlotte Hartmann-Bragard, and Maija Nygren
Sam Frankel is Associate Professor at Kings University College, Canada, Visiting Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK and Adjunct Professor at Western University, Canada. Sam is the Director of the children's voice organisation EquippingKids (in the UK and Canada) and has spent over 20 years working with children in schools and community settings.
