From Participation to Power: Why Children’s Voices Matter

Want to know how you can influence the decisions that shape your life?

Arthur Templeman-Lily at 17 years old is a children’s rights consultant from Wales, who works to ensure young people’s voices are heard in decisions that affect their lives. He tells Alma and Lucinda about his experience in children participating in shaping law and policy, and why Cardiff is a leader in children’s rights.  Arthur explains how he became involved in children’s rights work and champion youth voices. We discuss:

·      How he went about producing the children-led book, ‘Pause, Play, Fast   Forward: The Journey of Children in Wales’

·      how the book is being used in schools and youth settings

·      why Wales became one of the first UK nations to criminalise smacking

·      the reasons and importance of voting at 16 years old

·      the age of criminal responsibility, comparing Wales with Scotland.

·      advice for children who want to learn more about their rights or get involved.

When Arthur was 10, he really enjoyed history and loved writing fan fiction about  the Lion King! 

If you've got any questions, ideas about a topic or someone to interview, get in touch, we'd love to hear from you!! You can email us at kidslaw@spark21.org, contact us through the website: www.kidslaw.info or through social media: Facebook, X and Instagram @KidsLawInfo

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See you soon in the next episode!

Transcript

Hi, I'm Alma Constance. And I'm Lucinda. And we're here on the Kids Law Podcast to talk about how law affects us all, especially kids and young people. Did you know that children as young as 10 can actually be held responsible for crimes and might even have to go to court? Plus kids have special rights given by the United Nations. That's why it's super important for young people to know a bit about the law and how it can help protect them and others. 

So, what are we going to look at in this episode, Alma? 

Well, we've talked about children and young people being consulted about the issues that they think are important with Bruce Adamson when he was a children and young People's Commissioner of Scotland. So, I'm interested to know more about how children's views can be gathered when their rights, are involved in new laws or new policy decisions.

To claim your rights, you must first understand what rights you have, and it's also very important that those creating those rights and related policies understand your views. 

17-year-old Arthur Templeman-Lily is a children's right consultant and has been involved with organisations such as UNICEF and the National Youth Agency to champion the voice of children and young people and has recently produced a book in Welsh and English called ‘Pause Play. Fast Forward The Journey of Children in Wales’.

 So, hello Arthur. Thank you so much for joining us today. Just to start off, can you explain what your role is as a children's rights consultant?

Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so my role is all about essentially advocating for the rights of children and young people under the UN convention on the rights of the child.

So after a good few years kind of volunteering within that sector, sharing my views as a young person, my kind of opinions on human rights, social justice, those kind of things, how we can update and change systems to promote children's rights. I kind of thought, well, I wanted to use all of those experiences to better support young people to be able to claim their rights, to have the best experience possible when they're sharing their views.

So that's why I transitioned into more of a consultancy role, supporting organisations to adopt a children's rights-based approach within their work. Setting up things like. Youth advisory boards and networks for organisations supporting their governance to be youth led or directed by the views of young people.

But essentially, I do lots of different projects from writing research papers, making resources, uh, doing proposals for organisations. I get to travel every so often to, to speak and give presentations on children's rights, which is really fun. So it's, it's a broad role and I do a lot of it freelance, so it's on my tombs, which is really great as well as I'm a, full-time student as well.

So yeah, it's just promoting children's rights with whoever Will, will take me and wants to put ON'S rights first within their work. 

So can you tell us about the background to you actually getting involved in this area? 

So it, it started quite a while ago. I started volunteering kind of fully within Sean's rights, within Cardiff where I'm based, when I was about 11, when I first joined my local youth council. And Cardiff is actually the UK's first UNICEF accredited chart friendly city, which I was very lucky to be a part of. The process of thinking about priorities and then actually looking at the changes we can implement , to see how Cardiff can really put kind of children's rights in the center of all of their work.

So that's really what introduced me to the concept of children's rights in the U-N-C-R-C and how we can embed that within a local authority and in a city perspective. So from there, I. Basically loved it. I saw the connections within like my school life, even just like family and friends and walking down the street.

I think children's rights are really well, you know about them everywhere you look. So from there I went a bit more national, looking at children's rights in Wales. Started volunteering with young Wales, who were feeding into wash government decision making. Went on some residentials, which was really fun.

Got to do like, , climbing walls and high ropes and all of those things that I would never have done otherwise., I was really lucky to be given lots of different opportunities, within kind of an advisory board setting, both within Cardiff, within Wales and then so in the UK as well. Until I just yeah, kind of kept doing it and then decided this is something I really wanna do, not just as a young person, but hopefully for a long time to come. 

So how have you worked with organisations to really champion the voices of young people, and what were your roles? 

I'm just thinking which ones are the best ones to highlight.

I'll definitely shout out, the UNICEF UK Youth Advisory Board. So essentially that was my first kind of UK wide role, along with seven other young people.

And that was all about young people. Having an opportunity to feed into how UNICEF operates. So things like, campaigns, looking at internal decisions. Their youth engagement strategy, for example, things like fundraising and soccer aid, which is like an annual fundraising event that they run. Thinking, how can we make sure that this is something young people want to engage with, that it actually centre their rights, puts that first. we looked a lot about like social media and how to, make sure young people can find out about their rights.

Um, another organization I'll shout out briefly is, uh, the Diana Award, who I worked with for three years. , And that was all about. Putting in place kind of stronger youth voice. Throughout the organization. We provided recommendations to senior leadership, we made resources for young people we did workshops to get young people involved in setting the policy priorities and then in the final year, we did some peer research as well, looking at, young people and how they feel their views are represented in politics in the UK which is really interesting.

And then we got to create a youth voice charter where we put everything that we learned about youth voice, into kind of concise documents with 

key principles about what we want the Diana Award. And similar organisations to do when they're thinking about youth engagements.

And I was able to apply that to the Lundy Mortal of Participation, which is one of my favourites. And, we’re definitely encouraging other organisations to adopt either our charter or one that's specific to their organisations as well.

 So, Arthur, could you please tell us more about the Lundy model and how it works for professionals and young people?

Yeah, definitely. So, the Lundy model created by the very cool professor Laura Lundy, it breaks down the right to be who and listened to into four key areas, which are space, voice, audience, and influence. So, space is all about making sure young people feel comfortable. They're able to participate in a way that works for them, they have what they need. Maybe it's internet connection that's able to be provided if needed, or they're able to have.

Travel facilitated if they need to go somewhere, like given that kind of support to be able to engage. Voice is about the actual action of sharing that view, sharing their opinion. So given the space to speak, or if they prefer to write something down or share something after the session, that option's available.

Audience is connecting them with the right people. So locally within organisations and a government level, there are decision makers and people who actually make the changes. So, it's connecting them with them, making sure the right people relevant to that topic hears their ideas and takes it on board.

Then influence is where the change actually happens. So based on what young people have said, what's going to change, something will happen. It will go somewhere. And if that happens. Young people should be told, they should be informed about what happened to their v their views. . And in that case, young people should be told why and in a timely manner as well. And a lot of organisations now have adopted the Lundy model as a kind of basis for their participation work. I think it can be really used to like underpin and build up a program, but maybe it's a good evaluation tool as well.

And I definitely use it when I'm planning sessions as a facilitator, but also when I'm recommending kind of strategy or youth voice approaches to organisations, that's the first thing I always recommend. They use and I think it's beneficial for young people as well, I really see the Lundy model as a really great, landmark in children's rights, history and participation. 

 So please do tell us more about your involvement in the book. Pause Play, fast Forward, the Journey or Children in Wales and why it was really created. 

So that project started a good few year ago now. We were actually on a trip for a similar project about, the implementation of the UNCRC, and we were chatting about children in Wales, the organization who sent us there were all about championing children's rights within, legislation and policy in Wales. So, we were with them and they were, this organization is our 30th anniversary this year. What we're going to do, we want to celebrate, we want to make an impact for something that we do.’  And it was always one of my ambitions for life to write a book. And obviously I love children's rights, so we were brainstorming and suggested that we merge those two and write a book about children's rights. So I was like in my notebook writing down all these ideas. And, I was 14, maybe 15 at the time. So I think it was a bit of a, an out there idea for, somebody of my age to come in and write a book for them.

But I was really lucky that the organization were very enthusiastic about it. Wanting to. Really be led by young people's voices. So essentially the book is structured, in three sections. So, the Pause, the Play, and the Fast Forwards. So the history of children's rights broadly, but then focusing on Wales and the organization and then children's rights in the present. What do children's rights mean? What are duty bearers and rights holders? Who's responsible for making sure that children have their rights? And then the future was looking at, well, what do young people want to see changed in regards to children's rights? What's children in Wales' strategy moving forward about promoting them? And we've got some like games, like we've got like spot the difference. We've got some word searches, some quizzes in the back as well. It's quite like a colourful pop out kind of book. Um, so we want it to be an illustrated history as well as something informing young people about their rights in quite an easy to understand, digestible way.

And hopefully empowering them to actually think about their rights within their daily lives. Advocate for the rights, their own rights, and the rights of those around them. And then maybe to get involved in participation opportunities and things like that, maybe with Young Whale or another organization that was in of interest then. It was that mix of education and celebration. I really wanted to make sure that it wasn't just my voice that was included in that. So I was the project manager and the author of the book. So I needed to make sure that we had young people there who were knowledgeable and informed but also could tell me when I was going a bit too far and could edit things to make sure it's actually understandable.

Actually, it makes sense. And I know I was trying to put jokes in there and they were just like, Arthur, you're not funny. You need to cut and change the jokes. So it was really great to have them and, their input as well within both the design, the illustrations, and also the content, the editing, how we wanted to market the book as well. I was the one, maybe putting pen to paper most of the time, but it was loads of young people who fed in at different stages. That was the crux of it really.

One of the things I was wondering, how was it that you chose your volunteers to join in to make sure that they represented the most diverse views of people who, uh, living in Wales? 

Yeah, that's a really good question. So, young Wales has a volunteer pool, I think around the time they had about a hundred and a lot of them have joined because they're interested in the subject. But also quite a few of them are from [00:12:00] partner organisations representing groups that we, we haven't got as represented within children in Wales as a whole. I think our first meeting was at a residential, and we were lucky that, there was a lot of kind of diversity within that residential already that we were able to channel that into the book project.

 The other question, was do you think that your school had a particularly, forward thinking, approach?  Did you have people talking at school saying who wants to be a volunteer? Or was it something you read 

Yeah, I'll go into a little bit of detail about my school life because I think it's slightly interesting to this. So yeah, my primary school were very active. They did the right respect in school awards and they just started that. So that was my very first introduction. And it was from there that I learned about Cardiff Youth Council that I was able to join. So it was great that they were promoting that they went to a few of their kind of symposium events. And then when I went to high school, my high school weren't that big on children's rights. It was a point of conflict. I was say between me and them quite a lot. I think now they've embraced it a little bit. But, um, they did give me the space to share about the youth council work. And I had some teachers who were really supportive and, facilitated focus groups that I could run, things like that to get my school a little bit more involved. But at the end of year nine, I, actually went to an online school. Um, I was very lucky to receive a scholarship. It was a new school at the time and it's all about sustainable development goals, learning through doing action, creating change in the world as young people, which was something that was very important to me. You know, I never really liked waiting to be old enough to do something. And that school were very encouraging of that. So I was able to go there, for two years, which was fantastic. That was where I was whilst I was writing the book. And they actually let me do that as my project for the term, which was really fantastic. It allowed me to think about kind of those skills from more of that curriculum sense. So, for the book, I had to do the, the funding proposal and things like that. So I was able to put that towards like my financial literacy credits and things, which was very beneficial. And it meant that I could spend the time I needed to make sure I was developing the skills I needed, that I was, learning new things about the world, whilst also being able to create this deliverable as well. But yeah, I think like school and children's rights in Wales or in Cardiff at least, we've made quite significant progress with getting primary schools at least on board, but maybe there's still a bit of a, a battle ahead with getting high schools to embrace the UNCRC.

So how do you hope the book will be used and have you had any feedback, especially from young people or children?

Yeah, when the book was released, it's been just over a year now. It was all about. Young people reading it, young people being able to take it home, read it in class, read it with an organization, maybe even like a library. Got it. Through kind of the event we were able to do and things and just be able to, take something away about children's rights. If, they walk past a park on the way to school and they go on the swings and they're like, maybe I'm accessing my right to play here. That's a win for me. Or if they, do a consultation in school about the after-school clubs that they want, or the school meals that they want, and they're like, oh, this is, the right to be heard. I actually have the right to share my views here. Then that's certainly a win. And we've been lucky to hear from the organisations that are kind of members of children in Wales, that a lot of them have taken it on board. They've utilized it within sessions that they're running. So it was fantastic to see organisations continuing to spread the word about it. The Children's Commissioner for Wales. Has got a, a copy in her office as well, which was great, And, I believe every member of the government at the time were given a copy. And I really wanted it to be a bit of a call to action for them. A big one for me was about incorporating the UNCRC into Welsh Law, following that Scotland, did last year, I believe. But another aim for it was a time capsule. It was that moment in time, that 30th anniversary. So maybe in 10 years. Children in Wales will, will go back to it and see, the ideas that the young people shared in the book, what have we met and what do we still need to work on, what do we still need to achieve?

So hopefully we can use it to hold the decision makers to account as well.But something, if I was to do it again, or if I was to do part two a few years down the line, I would love for it to be a more holistic history. Drawing on particular stories and experiences from other organisations maybe 20, 25 years ago who played a role in children's rights, from a perspective of a different organization who were there at the time.

What do you think about the government extending the vote to 16 across the UK? 

Yeah. So for me that was definitely a win, certainly for the right to be heard, articles 12 of the UNCRC definitely my personal favourite, and I think that is a great way to put that into action. It's getting young people involved in showing their views, getting young people engaged in democracy at an earlier age I only see that kind of as a positive really. And, hopefully if they have the habit of voting, of researching the parties or the candidates for their areas when they're younger. Hopefully that'll, set that as a habit. Then going into later life, which I think is a really great way to strengthen democracy in Wales. We've had votes at 16 in local and in Senate elections for a few years now, and I think it's definitely started those conversations about the topics that matter to young people, which is great. There are definitely things we can learn about how we can actually implement that better in the sense of, I did that report about youth voicing politics and, political education in Wales isn't the best., The tune out maybe isn't great currently, but you've got to start somewhere. And I think lowering the voting age is definitely an incentive for schools, colleges to teach about, how voting works, legal systems, political systems, things like that. And hopefully as well it will encourage governments and those in power, those standing for elections to prioritize young people's issues as they're able to vote even, things that affect young people., hopefully that will be a bit of an incentive for them to maybe make some progress on children's rights as well. 

So we know that Wales criminalized smacking in 2022.  So Wales as a country appears to be quite forward thinking in promoting children's rights. And why do you think that is? 

Yeah,  the smacking band that was a big highlight of the book. Wales has made some, some very good moves in terms of children's rights, but it was a long battle I think for them to really get that passed. I definitely think the commitment of organisations, like children in Wales, they're a membership body. Maybe even over 200 organisations are members of children in Wales. And they were set up for the purpose speaking under one voice and organisations with different expertise in different areas of children's lives to come together. To promote and campaign for specific kind of policy and legislative changes. And I think that was a great example of where that approach really worked. And we've also got in Wales, the children and young person’s measure, which is all about government ministers having a legal duty to consider children's rights in the decisions they make, which we've had now since 2011. So it's, yeah, it's been quite a long time and I think now people are really starting to understand what that means and how they can hold the government accountable under that law. It is an obvious point that where you've got organisations coming together under one banner, so that seems to be a good lesson to learn for, creating change and obviously one that you understand very well.

I have a question if you could expand on the rights to be considered [00:20:00] since 2011. What was that?

Sure. So I, I believe the name is the Rights of Children and Young Persons Measure 2011 Wales so it was about kind of the best interests principle of the UNCRC. So when the Welsh government are considering making a new change or implementing a new strategy or policy. They have to complete a children's rights impact assessment or something that fulfils the same purpose. And they have say, one of the first things that we thought about when making this decision was how it's going to affect children's rights. How will it help them to access their rights? Is there anything here that could prevent them from accessing their rights as well?And it's a legal duty. So if they don't do that. There is a mechanism for them to be like, legally held accountable for that. Now, that I believe has only happened once or twice so far. I think after lockdown with the free school meals, they took that away and there was a case brought about how, that will have affected children's access to their rights. And the watch government said, okay, we recognize we didn't carry out our duty here. We didn't consider children's rights in the best way.But I think the weakness maybe of that particular law is that they didn't have to change their stance. They just had to acknowledge that they didn't do everything correctly. That's, I think, why full incorporation for us is the next step. When people know it's there, it's a really great tool for accountability and I think it's a stepping stone on that journey from ratifying the UNCRC as the UK in 1991, I believe, to hopefully having incorporation, in the next few years. It's all about considering children's rights. And as well, an interesting thing about that measure is it should be in all decisions. So when thinking about stuff like building new roads as well, like how is that gonna affect children? It really encourages ministers and officials who kind of work for them to think about how every decision could potentially affect John's rights and hopefully act in a way that aligns with the UNCRC.

I have a question about, the age of criminal responsibility. Scotland recently changed the age of criminal responsibility up to 12. So how do you feel about it still being 10 in Wales? 

Yeah, I I think that is definitely something as well that we want to get with Scotland on. Um, when I went and was involved in the periodic review for the U-N-C-R-C for the UK that was highlighted, so many times as one of the things that it's just so bizarre for us, , as Wales as well, where we've made good progress and this seems just like something that is such an obvious next step, but has certainly been neglected a little bit thus far within our kind of fight for implementation and incorporation of the UNCRC. But I know, the Children's Legal Centre in Royals are huge advocates for raising the age of criminal responsibility. So I'm sure in the next few years, maybe with them leading, the charge we'll, we should hopefully see that coming in as well.

So at the moment, are you working on any projects

Yeah. I'm actually a sessional worker now with children in Wales. And I've been running their big conversation, which is an annual consultation and this year it's all about to what extent do young people feel they can access their rights. So helping to educate them that you have rights, but what are the areas where you actually feel you can use these, you can claim them and enjoy them in everyday life. And what are the areas where progress still needs to be made? We're working on art installation for that young people have been contributing to at focus groups, festivals, different things. A cool project is that I've been involved with is creating standards for child participation in global events. And we had an event with about a hundred young people and professionals from, again, all over the world, so yeah, they're the three big things really that I'm working on at the moment. 

So for a fun question, a question that we ask all of our guests is, what were you like at 10, which is not too long ago for you, and did you have any ideas about what you wanted to be when you grew up? Yeah, I love that question. That is a great one. Yeah. So at 10, I think before children's rights, I really loved history. I was big, a big fan of the tutors. Henry VII, father of Henry VIII was Welsh, so he was my favourite. So I really wanted to be like a historical fiction author that was like the dream. I was very much the person who would write like, fan fiction about like the Lion King and, also loved writing and it's cool that I've, technically achieved that in, in some way with writing Pause Play, Fast Forward, it's get kind of the history challenge writes, and I also to be able to call myself an author on my business cards, which I enjoy.

 Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Do you have any final advice to other children who want to know more about this topic? 

Yes. So one, one piece of advice that is something that I've really learned from being a volunteer and being a young person on advisory boards and things like that. This is your right to be heard, your right to be listened to. Whenever you kind of have an opinion, an idea, you have the right to share that. And professionals, the adults that you work with, should be, allowing that view to have influence. Whether a change is made or maybe that's not possible, that should be fed back and you should know why that wasn't able to happen. But that having that space to be able to share your views is so important. And, whether that be within your home family dynamic within school or maybe on a city, regional or national level, you have the right to share your views. Now I have definitely learned, that you should get something out of it too. Whether that be a really fun experience or skill development training, maybe financial remuneration if that's possible and of course, the main one is. You have 42 rights under the UNCRC these rights are for you. They're to help you as you as you grow up, to have the best childhood and then the best possible start in life. There are people around you, the children's commissioners, people in organisations and charities who want to help you do that. But yeah, you have rights. I would definitely encourage any young people to use these rights, stand up for them and advocate for yourself and others.

 So of those 42 rights that you mentioned, would you say that there's one or a few of them which are the most effective in sort of bringing about other rights?

That, that's a great question actually. So all of the rights are equally important. There isn't really, there isn't a hierarchy in terms of the importance of them, but there are six general principles which are used as, I guess the four core themes in the book. Actually. There's like a concept map, which I created to explore the interconnectedness of the rights. But the general principles are non-discrimination, so treating all young people fairly, there's diversity, representation, things like that, best interest. Then six, which is life, survival and development. So things like health, and then we've got the right to be who and listen to article 12 participation. Um, and , other rights as well about kind of information expression, freedom of thought, belief and religion. And there's specific rights for young people who have maybe been in contact with a justice system or have a disability or refugees or asylum seekers. I would also highlight probably Article 42, which is the rights to know about your rights. I think that's such a crucial one because without kind of action or without young people knowing about and understanding these rights, they don't have the impact that the UN or governments want 'them to have. So for me, I think Article 42 and Article 12 for me were certainly the doors into the world of children's rights. The launch pad, for children's rights. But yeah, and there's definitely ones that are young people's favourites as well. Like in the big conversation, like, everybody loves the right to play. That's always a big one. The right to life is always a big one. Health education, of course. Think, people have different ones that resonate with them.

Thank you so much you much. It was amazing. 

Thanks for inviting me like it's been great to meet you. Love the podcast. So yeah. Thanks again. Thank you. Bye bye-Bye bye.  Well, Alma, what do you think about what Arthur told us?

I really agreed with what he was saying because I think the entire point of the podcast is exactly the points he was making. What he was explaining is exactly what we're trying to educate children about. The fact that we're trying to evolve in terms of law and policies is definitely something that I'm constantly thinking about. So it was really interesting to hear ' cause he had the same ideology basically. So, yeah, I think he's really inspirational. Arthur has been involved with many organisations and is still setting up projects aimed at teaching children about their rights and encouraging governments to take children's rights into account when making policies or new legislation. We also learned that Wales incorporated the rights of children and young persons measure, which means the wealth government has to complete a children's impact assessment to understand how the new policy would impact young people's lives. Other beliefs that there are four core principles in children's rights, non-discrimination, best interest of the child, life, survival, and health, and obviously the right to be had, but also the right to know your rights. These are all vital to young people's lives and understanding of the world around them, especially before they legally become adults. When I was listening to him, the critical element seems to be a school's involvement. So they have a role in educating children and young people about their rights and also encouraging children to participate in children's rights groups. Arthur talked about how rights are to be implemented into the new Welsh curriculum by incorporating human rights, law, and politics into all the subjects. You can find his book online and we'll give you the link together with other resources in the show notes, and we will be really interested to know about your views on this topic. We hope that our podcast will help you understand how laws are made, how the legal justice system works, and so helps you understand your rights and responsibilities. And this knowledge will help you make informed decisions not only about your life, but also about when you're able to vote for an MP who will represent you in Parliament and make the laws always remember it's important to stay safe and reach out to a trusted adult or teacher. If you ever have worries or questions, they're there to help you too. For more information, you can always visit the Kids Law Info website. Please follow like, and subscribe and don't forget to share with your friends. See you soon in the next episodes.

Bye