Child and youth participation resource guide
Involvement in research, analysis, planning, implementation, evaluation
Monitoring and evaluation
Ackermann, Lisanne, Thomas Feeny, Jason Hart and Jesse Norman, Understanding and Evaluating Children’s Participation: A review of contemporary literature, Plan UK, 2003.
This document examines current approaches to the evaluation of children’s participation in development. It focuses on children’s participation in local-level activities. Section one examines concepts and processes of children’s participation and assesses the factors that contribute to the
success and failure of participatory programmes. Section two considers four realms where children’s participation is having an impact: the individual, familial, communal and institutional. The document lists ethical concerns relating to the evaluation of children’s participation and reviews some approaches to evaluating children’s participation.
Ackermann, Lisanne, Jason Hart and Jesse Norman, Children Changing Their World: Understanding and evaluating children’s participation in development, PLAN International, ISBN 1 84187 0641, Woking, UK, 2004.
This report examines the positive and the negative impacts of children’s participation on children’s lives at personal, familial, communal and institutional levels.
Ambatchew, D. Michael, Global Meeting on Children’s Participation: Proceedings, Save the Children Alliance, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2003.
This report outlines the strategic direction for the work of Save the Children on children’s participation. It includes experiences and examples of good practices on children’s participation, a comparison of good-practice modules from the field and discussions on how children’s participation can be mainstreamed throughout Save the Children’s work.
van Beers, Henk, Vo Phi Chau, Judith Ennew, Pham Quoc Khan, Tran Thap Long, Brian Milne, Trieu Thi Anh Nguyet and Vu Thi Son, Creating an Enabling Environment. Capacity building in children’s participation, Save the Children Sweden, Viet Nam, 2000-2004, Save the ChildrenSweden, SEAP, Bangkok, 2006.
This report is an assessment of efforts to build capacities for children’s participation in Viet Nam, South-East Asia and elsewhere. It provides an overview of past experiences, describes successes and failures of the programme and builds the basis for planning future programmes to promote children’s participation. The assessment combined three simultaneous research processes carried out by three research teams. They include assessments of the Children-Friendly District in Ho Chi Minh City, national forums for children in Viet Nam and an assessment of the impact of the capacitybuilding programme in the South-East Asia and Pacific region and globally.
Black, Maggie, Opening Minds, Opening Opportunities: Children’s participation in action for working children, Save the Children, London, 2003.
This case study research was commissioned by the Save the Children Alliance Task Group on Children and Work to review the impact and lessons learned from working children’s participation in Bangladesh, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, India and Senegal. It illustrates a range of existing participatory initiatives with working children, analyses the impact of participation on their lives and provides recommendations for improving inclusive interventions with working children.
Checkoway, Barry and Katie Richards-Schuster, Youth Participation in Community Evaluation Research, Center for Community Change, School for Social Work, ISSN 1098-2140,University of Michigan, 2002.
The paper provides a rationale for youth participation, a typology of evaluation roles of youth and adults, an illustrative example and some questions for future work.
Ennew, Judith and Yuli Hastadewi, Seen and Heard: Participation of children and young people in Southeast, East Asia and Pacific in events and forums leading to and following up on the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children, May 2002, Save the Children, Bangkok, 2004.
This evaluation report looks at some specific experiences of Save the Children and its partners inSouth-East and East Asia and the Pacific related to the UN Special Session on Children. It recognizes successes and failings of that regional process and identifies a number of ways the outcomes could be better achieved.
Estrella, Marisol and John Gaventa, ‘Who Counts Reality? Participatory monitoring and evaluation: A literature review’, IDS Working Paper 70, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, 1997.
This is a literature review of experiences in participatory monitoring and evaluation. The paper introduces the key principles of participatory monitoring and evaluation and its applications for different purposes. It presents a number of participatory tools and methods, raises key challenges emerging from the literature and outlines potential areas for future research.
Feinstein, Clare and Claire O’Kane, Strengthening Support to Child-Led Organisations and Initiatives, The Spider Tool: A self assessment and planning tool for child-led initiatives and organisations, Set of 3 publications: Lessons Learnt, The Spider Tool and The Facilitator’s Guide, Child Participation Working Group, Save the Children Alliance, UK, 2006.
This set of publications describes practical tools for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of child-led organizations. The publication includes a facilitator’s guide and a lessons-learned publication that describes processes and outcomes of piloting the spider tool in seven countries in Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa.
Email: ravikarkara@savethechildren.org.np or info@savethechildren.org.np
Friedman, Sara Ann, Bridging the Gap between Rhetoric and Reality, UNICEF, New York, 2001.
This report reviews the lessons learned from UNICEF-assisted programmes and projects seeking community participation.
Golombek, Silvia, What Works in Youth Participation: Case studies from around the world, International Youth Foundation, ‘What Works’ Series, 2002.
This document consists of nine case studies from around the world that include personal reflections on children’s participation, the nature of children’s participation in programmes and organizations, and the challenges of mainstreaming children’s participation. The paper looks at the diverse understandings of children’s participation in different cultures, processes and mechanisms of involving children in decision making and linkages between technology and children’s participation.
Hart, Roger A., Children’s Participation: From tokenism to citizenship, UNICEF International Child Development Centre (now Innocenti Research Centre), Florence, 1992.
This booklet introduces the ‘Ladder of Participation.’ The ladder explains a model of participation through eight levels, starting from manipulation and non-participation and moving up towards equal participation of adults and children. This is one of the first models to analyse the levels and quality of children’s participation.
IIED, Children’s Participation – Evaluating Effectiveness. PLA Notes 42, International Institute forEnvironment and Development, London, 2001.
This issue of PLA Notes examines children’s participation in community settings. The articles look at children’s perceptions on their participation, figuring out the best interest of the child in the participation process and ways governments and organizations can effectively support the most beneficial forms of participation.
Kirby, Perpetua and Sara Bryson, Measuring the Magic? Evaluating and researching young people’s participation in public decision-making, Carnegie Young People Initiative, London, 2002.
This evaluative research examines the evidence about young people’s participation in decision making, identifies gaps in the existing literature and recommends key issues and questions for further analysis.
Kirby, Perpetua, Claire Lanyon, Kathleen Cronin and Ruth Sinclair, Building a Culture of Participation: Involving children and young people in policy, service planning, delivery and evaluation, Research Report, Department for Education and Skills, ISBN 0-9546695-0-9, Nottingham, UK, 2003.
This report examines the practices and outcomes of children’s participation in 29 organizations. Because most of the organizations did not formally document the outcomes of children’s participation, the researchers relied on the perceptions of those involved.
Krauskopf, Dina and Ginet Vargas, Adolescent Participation Projects in Latin America and the Caribbean: Systematisation of Projects, UNICEF TACRO, Panama City, 2003.
This document is the result of a questionnaire and a regional workshop on experiences with adolescent participation. The paper maps out programmes with adolescents and analyses concepts, types and levels of participation in each sector. It provides a basis for discussions on the factors that contribute to the success and failure of interventions involving adolescents.
Email: tacro@unicef.org
Lansdown, Gerison, Regional Synthesis of Developments in Children and Young People’s Participation in South Asia: Implications for policy and practice, UNICEF ROSA, Kathmandu, 2003.
This report provides an analysis of the current state of development in children’s participation in South Asia. It draws out lessons learned and areas for future support.
Available for download: www.intranet.unicef.org (only accessible by UNICEF staff)
Lansdown, Gerison, Wheel of Change: Children and young people’s participation in South Asia, UNICEF ROSA, Kathmandu, 2004.
This report reviews the experiences and processes of children’s participation in South Asia and makes recommendations for strengthening these processes to make them more participatory, accountable and integrated.
Email: rosa@unicef.org
Rajbhandary, Jasmine, Roger A. Hart and Chandrika Khatiwada, The Children’s Clubs of Nepal: An assessment of a national experiment in children’s democratic development, Save the Children Norway and US, Kathmandu, 2002.
This report reviews the growing popularity of children’s clubs in Nepal. It explains the use of participatory methods of monitoring and evaluation that were developed by children.
Email: post@2savechildren-norway.org.np
Working Group on Child Labour, Working Children’s Participation in Actions Against the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Asia: Report on rapid assessment conducted April–June 2000, RWG-CL, Bangkok, 2001.
This report shares the findings of a rapid assessment conducted to explore working children’s participation in services and interventions. The assessment provides baseline data and an overview of working children’s participation in the Asia-Pacific region.
Sabo, Kim, ‘A Vygotskian Perspective on Youth Participatory Evaluation’ in Youth Participatory Evaluation: A field in the making, New Directions for Evaluation, Vol. 98, Jossey-Bass, 2003.
Through five case studies, this chapter presents youth participatory evaluation as both a developmental and performance-based issue.
Sabo, Kim (ed.), Youth Participatory Evaluation: A field in the making, New Directions for Evaluation, No. 98, Jossey-Bass, 2003.
Youth participatory evaluation combines a commitment to stakeholder empowerment with positive youth development, which emphasizes young people as community resources rather than as a source of social problems. This volume shares the field experience of researchers and evaluators who are working with this new orientation. In producing this collection, the authors hope to inform and inspire others with perspectives on how, when and why to include young people in research and evaluation, and to make suggestions about how this work can advance the broader field of participatory evaluation.
Sabo, Kim, Roger Hart and Selim Iltus, Participatory Approaches to Programme and Project Evaluation with Children, Children’s Environment Research Group, New York, 1995.
Save the Children, Toolkits: A practical guide to assessment, monitoring, review and evaluation, Development Manual 5, Save the Children UK, London, 1995.
A practical guide that provides information about tools for conducting research with and about children.
Starling, Simon, Marta Foresti and Helen Banos Smith, Global Impact Monitoring: Save the Children UK’s Experience of Impact Assessment, Save the Children, UK, 2004.
In 2001, Save the Children UK began developing a new approach to assess the impact of its work within a rights-based framework. The aim was to improve the organization’s accountability and learn from its work to maximize impact. This paper documents some of SC UK’s experiences in developing the framework and compares it with other agencies (UNICEF, Oxfam, Plan and CARE) that have also adopted rights-based approaches.
Theis, Joachim, ‘Evaluating Children’s Participation’ in Promoting Rights-Based Approaches, Experiences and ideas from Asia and the Pacific, Save the Children Sweden, ISBN 974-91891-3-2, Bangkok, 2004.
This chapter provides an overview of evaluating children’s participation. It defines children’s participation, explains the various purposes of evaluating children’s participation, discusses ways to measure the impact of children’s participation and to assess the quality and levels of the
participation process. It includes a number of examples that illustrate what has worked in different contexts.
Tolman, Joel and Karen Pittman, Youth Acts, Community Impacts: Stories of youth engagement with real results, Community and Youth Development Series, Vol. 7, The Forum for Youth Investment, International Youth Foundation, MD, 2001.
This publication addresses some of the fundamental questions on youth engagement and the relationship between youth action and meaningful community change. It also explores why it is so difficult in some countries and communities for young people to find the space needed for community change. Through a series of case studies on successful youth participation, it draws out lessons learned and identifies how and why some youth actions yield positive community impacts.
UNICEF, Adolescents: Profiles in Empowerment, UNICEF, UNFPA, WHO, 2003.
‘Meeting the Development and Participation Rights of Adolescent Girls’ is a global pilot initiative to realize the rights of adolescent girls and boys. This publication includes experiences that demonstrate the project’s impact in 12 countries.
UNICEF, Young People’s Participation in the CEE/CIS and the Baltics Region: A formative evaluation, UNICEF, Geneva, 2005.
This report reviews the understanding and practice of young people’s participation in Eastern Europe.Recommendations from the report are useful for UN agencies, NGOs and governments interested in fostering governance processes that include young people.
