Moving the participation agenda forward

This article sets the scene for the other papers in this Special Issue on children's and young people's participation, by outlining the nature of the ESRC Seminar Series from which all are derived and by developing the main themes discussed at the seminars. The focus of this Issue is participation by children and young people as this relates to differing notions of social exclusion and inclusion. This article critically examines participation in the contexts of policy, practice, research and theory. In many respects the environments in each of these domains is supportive of increased participation, yet there is also much evidence of limited impact by recent participative measures and of disillusionment by many young people who have been engaged in consultation and decision‐making. A way forward is suggested, which entails collaboration among all the key stakeholders including children and young people, connects participatory and social inclusion aims and mechanisms, and is committed to achieving tangible outcomes based on the wishes of children and young people.     

Children in Need? Listening to Children whose Parent or Carer is HIV Positive

Correspondence to Kay Tisdall, University of Edinburgh School of Social and Political Studies, Adam Ferguson Building, George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LL, UK. E-mail: K.Tisdall{at}ed.ac.uk Summary International attention is being brought to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. In contrast, HIV and AIDS risk being forgottenissues for those living in Scotland. Yet in 2002, numbers ofreported infections have begun to rise. Children and young peopleare even more likely to be affected by parental HIV now, asparents live longer and are able to have more children. Verylittle is known in Scotland about affected children and whethercurrent service provision meets their needs. This research projectsought to address certain of these gaps, by gathering quantitativedata from service providers and qualitative data from interviewing28 affected children and young people. The research found adearth in policies and services, and a failure to audit need.HIV education in schools did not acknowledge that pupils mightbe living with parents who had HIV illness. Children and youngpeople tended to be very involved in the health care of theirparent but none of them received direct support from healthworkers. On the whole the children and young people did notenjoy support from statutory social workers but appreciatedthe support and activities provided by workers in the voluntarysector.     

Why Not Consider Citizenship?: A Critique of Post-school Transitional Models for Young Disabled People

The transition from school to 'adulthood', for young disabled people, is generally considered difficult by the relevant literature and service providers in the field. The present transitional models, however, both lack a consensus on the criteria for a 'successful' transition and fail to incorporate the young people into the debate. The young people can be treated with little respect and given little control in transitional decisions, particularly as three negative statuses are typically attributed to them when they face transitional services: of being crisis-ridden adolescents, of being needy clients, and of being marginalized members of society. Instead, a transitional model based on citizenship is advocated, which would include re-locating the debate over 'successful' transition criteria with disabled people, altering the present 'transitional service' systems to revolve around the young people, and greater connections between disability advocacy organizations and young disabled people.     

Making a difference? Bringing children's and young people's views into policy‐making

As the participation of children and young people in policy decision‐making has spread in the UK, participation work is facing hard questions on its translation from principle to effective practice. The participation literature has been largely self‐referential in its consideration of policy influence. This paper considers the potential usefulness of the UK literature on policy networks, which categorises the relationships between government actors and other interests in policy‐making. A brief introduction is given to this literature. Then a participatory project is examined in light of certain key concepts within the policy network literature. The paper concludes by considering how both the participation and the policy networks literature might learn from each other in future conceptual and empirical work.     

Picking up the pieces: local government reorganisation and voluntary sector children's services

Between 1995 and 1998, most of British local government was reorganised, leading to the creation of more, generally smaller, local authorities. Although social services were then the direct responsibility of local government, the potential impact of reorganisation on social work departments and partner organisations was barely considered prior to reorganisation. This article explores the consequences of reorganisation for children's services provided by voluntary sector organisations in Scotland, England and Wales. Drawing on two separate but complementary studies, the paper reviews the impact on funding, boundary problems, changing structures and the fragmentation of local authorities. It concludes that although some advances may be stimulated in the medium term by reorganisation, the overall short‐term impact for projects and their users is likely to have been damaging. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seeing the Invisible Children and Young People Affected by Disability

This paper presents a brief review of literature relating to children in families with a disabled member, including the 'young carers' and disability studies literature, and relevant works from the social psychology and sociology of childhood. Key themes identified in the literature are then illustrated by findings from two exploratory research studies that sought to explore the experiences and service needs of children in families with a disabled member, within two Scottish areas. The authors suggest that, although young people affected by disability in the family, including young carers, face significant problems, particularly in socially disadvantaged areas, there are other issues that need to be addressed. Alternative conceptual frameworks are proposed, which challenge the dominance of the young carers research paradigm.     

Social support and children affected by parental HIV

While HIV and AIDS continue to decimate the population of sub-Saharan Africa, HIV remains an issue of major concern for those working with children and families throughout Europe. The combined impact of intravenous drug use by young adults and heterosexual transmission means that increasing numbers of children and young people in many countries in Europe are growing up in families where one or both parents is HIV positive (EuroHIV Report 2001 EuroHIV Report December 2001 www.eurohiv.org/AidsSurv/comments.htm  [Google Scholar]). This paper draws on findings of a recently completed qualitative study of children and young people in Scotland with a parent or carer with HIV. It is argued that social support is especially necessary and yet highly problematic for children and young people with a parent or carer with HIV.