Introduction

The aim of this learning guide is to help you develop a critical understanding of the values, skills, and methods associated with children’s participation. You will be encouraged to reflect upon and creatively apply the experiences of children and practitioners to new participatory contexts. There are six activities in this course:

• Activity 1: Introductory reading on children’s participation (allow 6 hours)
• Activity 2: Shared values for children's participation: access online participation standards (allow 1 hour)
• Activity 3: Skills for participation: listen to audio accounts to help construct a list of participatory skills (allow 1 hour)
• Activity 4: Methods of participation: undertake online activity simulating a participatory activity (allow 1 hour)
• Activity 5: Adapting participatory methods: adapting participatory activity in response to a case study (allow 45 minutes)
• Activity 6: Participation in practice: adapting participatory activity for your own practice (allow 1 hour 30 minutes).

In this course, Children's participation, theory, practice guidelines, and practitioner accounts are used to help the learner reflect on values and develop knowledge and skills for effective engagement and communication with groups of children in different contexts.

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• Understand the principles underlying rights and participation approach to childhood issues and how these may be applied to a variety of situations within different contexts
• Develop communication and engagement skills that can be applied to work with children.