‘Listen, engage, have fun’ is a user-friendly guide to involving children in child rights impact assessment (CRIA) and child rights impact evaluation (CRIE).
Table of contents
What are CRIA and CRIE and why do they matter?
Scotland is set to incorporate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into domestic law with the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill. This is a huge opportunity to ensure all children’s human rights are respected, protected and fulfilled. Such incorporation requires a human rights approach to policies, services and practices.
Child rights impact assessment (CRIA) examines the potential impacts on children and young people arising from laws, policies, budget decisions, programmes and services as they are being developed.
Carrying out a CRIA will help identify ways to avoid or mitigate any negative impacts. This is done before a decision or action is set in place.
Child rights impact evaluation (CRIE) provides an opportunity to consider the intended or unintended effect of legislative changes, budget decisions, policies, programmes, or services on children and young people’s rights.
Working through a CRIE can identify what changes would be needed to ensure the measure respects children’s rights and complies with the UNCRC. This is done after a decision has been made or action has been taken.
The importance of involving children and young people
Children have the right to have their views heard and be taken seriously.
Involving children in CRIA and CRIE increases the possibility of their perspectives, ideas and everyday experience informing policy development and decision-making.
We have produced a guide which outlines how and when to do this, with helpful suggestions on how to engage with children and young people.
The guide is supported by a case study that highlights children’s views and ideas on involving children in decision-making processes and a report on the wider considerations necessary to ensure meaningful and effective participation of children with CRIA and CRIE.
Children’s involvement in CRIA and CRIE must be planned early in the process so that their participation is meaningful, enjoyable and informs each stage of the work.
The resources focus on involving children aged around eight to 13 and are grounded in a children’s human rights based approach.
Resources
Below are our resources to help you better understand CRIA and CRIE. We produced these in partnership with the Children’s Parliament, Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights) and the Observatory of Children’s Human Rights Scotland.
The full range of resources available for download include:
The Observatory’s work was facilitated by the Impact Acceleration Grant from the ESRC Impact Acceleration Grant awarded to the University of Edinburgh (grant reference ES/T50189X/1)
‘Listen, engage, have fun’ PDF worksheets
We also provide separate parts of ‘Listen, engage, have fun’, including templates and activities, for download and printing. These provide a quick reference when engaging with children and young people.