We currently work in the UK and overseas, researching new ways of listening to the voices of children. Whilst also working with schools, sports clubs and nurseries, we specialise with children in difficult circumstances, who tell us what they need to help break the cycle of exclusion and improve their future opportunities. 

In response to what they tell us, we offer a series of programmes alongside our partners. This involves supporting education, sports, health and therapeutic services for children living in poverty and refuge. 

We advocate for other organisations serving children to recognise that it is only through listening to children that we can truly understand and respond to their needs. As part of this, we support organisations to conduct child-centred evaluations of existing services.

A series of academic and practical research projects investigate how we can best listen to children’s voices

Children, especially those living in refuge or poverty, too often have aid or services designed on their behalf based on adult assumptions about their needs. No matter what the professional qualifications of the adult may be, we believe children remain the only experts in their own experiences and that their voice is the most crucial insight of all. Services may operate for many years, without ever directly asking children about they are having on them. Our research shows that at best this can cause inefficiencies and, at worst, it allows inadvertent harms to go unreported.

We recognise the challenges with communicating with children, particularly those with a history of distrust, delayed development or poor literacy skills. We recognise the time and resource constraints most services for children battle with. However, we also believe no barrier is too big to overcome in communicating with children and improving outcomes for them.

Case study: For many years volunteering in orphanages overseas has been seen as controversial and accused of causing harm to children by some psychologists, NGO workers, academics and beyond. The children themselves are rarely asked about their views on this and the impact it has on them, and yet the practice continues. We are currently working alongside the Centre for International Development at Northumbria University and Western Sydney University to research innovative methods of communicating with children living in orphanages regarding their interactions with international aid and volunteer services. By designing methods of expression that link to play, creativity and movement, these children feel comfortable and confident to communicate their experiences, both positive and negative. Understanding the true impact enables us to advise international aid and volunteer services on how to protect children from harm whilst also meeting their needs and empowering them to overcome challenges independently in the future.

Our research is used for two purposes: It acts as an evidence base to advocate to and equip other organisations to place children’s voices at the heart of their work. It also enables us to design our own programmes of support in response to truly understanding children’s needs.

If you are interested in our research or wish to support our mission, please get in touch.

Our programmes are the actions we take in response to listening to children’s voices

Through our research, we get a true understanding of children’s needs and are able to design new services to cater to them. Children’s unique insights and dreams lead us to diverse and unexplored paths. We always work alongside and fund experienced and professional partners who share our values of learning together and safeguarding the sustainability of children’s services. Our current programmes primarily respond to the voices of children living in extreme poverty or refuge and they are continually monitored with children at their heart.

La escuelita: Children in overcrowded, insufficient public schools in Mexico are expected to complete the majority of their education at home. Those living in extreme poverty told us they were struggling due to a lack of stable housing, educated adults or resources. In collaboration with our local partners, we offer a free and professional education community for over 100 children. Ongoing listening to the children has helped us to understand that for this programme to be effective it also needed to incorporate nutritious meals, community education and wellbeing support.

Football leagues: Homeless children and those who live in refuge in East London and overseas told us that football gave them the unique opportunity to achieve social integration, confidence, equality and health goals. By creating and sponsoring local football leagues with coaches, resources and necessary training over 200 children are able to access this programme every week.

Scholarships: Children often tell us that children’s charities fall short of recognising their individuality, often offering a one-size fits all solution to finding a route out of poverty or crime. We responded by celebrating unique talents, offering children scholarships to pursue their dreams in sports and vocations beyond the barriers they face in their community.

We also advocate for other organisations working with children to help them adopt a child-centred approach to programming to improve their services.

If you wish to find out more about our programmes or want to support us, please get in touch.

In our advocacy work, we share our experience and help others to put children’s voices into action

Children show us every time that they can improve an organisation’s effectivity and efficiency when their voices are at the heart of service design and evaluation.

Through our research, we have equipped ourselves with the skills and experience to deliver bespoke toolkits and training workshops to other organisations that serve children. We provide everything needed to enable an organisation to evaluate existing services or design new ones through the eyes of the children they aim to support. We understand that every child and every service has a unique culture and challenges. Our work is designed to use this as a strength.

In enabling organisations to focus on children’s insights, we provide simple ways to improve their work. We also help organisations uncover new, positive effects of their work, which the adults simply did not anticipate or recognise before.

We have worked both in the UK and overseas alongside children’s orphanages, schools, volunteer companies and large education NGOs.

Case study: Volcanes Education Project (VCEP) had for 8 years been assuming the benefits of its additional schooling to 400 children living in the excluded and often impoverished community that it served. Whilst regularly holding staff, parents and donor meetings, children had never systematically had the opportunity to report on their own experiences with VCEP. We designed a series of games and practical tasks through which children aged 7-14 could comfortably express their emotions and associations with the project as well as their ideas of how it could be improved. Results provided new insights that, alongside meeting VCEP’s intended goal of inspiring children to dream and achieve in school, the service also gave the children a place to feel safe within their ‘unsafe’ community. The children also requested access to drinking water, guidance on careers and improved access to football leagues. These requests were responded to and we were able to support with funding.

Once we have worked alongside an organisation, we will do all we can to help them respond to the voices of children by supporting new or improved programming.