Introduction

The title of this chapter, “If you want to help us, you need to hear us” (Scale-Up focus group, Site 7), are the words of a young person who participated in our research. While this sounds simple, the current child protection system is not set up in a way that prioritises youth voice and participation (Tidsall, 2017; Warrington and Larkins, 2019; Whittington, 2019).

Since 2019, researchers in the CS teams based at the University of Bedfordshire and Durham University have had the opportunity, within the limitations of COVID restrictions, to work with young people in nine council-level areas as part of the Scale-Up Project (see Chapter 1 for a project summary). This element of the project presented an opportunity to begin thinking about how services can work with young people as partners to inform and develop CS approaches. This work has taken place in the context of wider calls for children and young people to be included in co-designing, evaluating and being more proactively involved in service development and safeguarding (Tidsall, 2017; Warrington and Larkins, 2019; Whittington, 2019).

In this chapter, we present emergent findings from work undertaken with young people as part of the Scale-Up Project, including the Young Researcher's Advisory Panel (YRAP) at the University of Bedfordshire and their longer-standing work on participation as protection (Hamilton et al, 2019). In doing so, we highlight how young people's views align with the need for CS values, in particular collaboration, and how participatory practices can support this. We also offer insight into some of the methods we used as part of the Scale-Up Project to engage young people in critical conversations about safeguarding responses to EFH.

What do we mean by participation?

In this chapter, and in our practice as researchers, our understanding of ‘participation’ is grounded in children's rights. Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) advocates children's right to have their views taken into account in matters that affect them. In relation to this, the UNCRC make clear that ‘effective inclusion of children in protective measures requires that children be informed about their right to be heard and to grow up free from all forms of physical and psychological violence (UNCRC, 2009). Within the field of safeguarding, there is arguably a ‘false juxtaposition of participation and protection’ (Warrington and Larkins, 2019: 133).