CHILDREN'S REPRESENTATIVE FORUMS...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

"We are scared at night". She could not have been older than 11. Small, blonde and the junior member of the Children's Representative Forum. "At night we put dolls and teddy-bears on the window-sill to make people think that there is someone there" The window was situated above a lean-to roof. They were right. It was an easy entry.

'It's a matter of safety. Children come here to be protected and to feel safe.The window must be fitted with bars immediately." says I.
"We are waiting for an external funder"
"Not good enough. Safety and protection first".

As the independent chairperson of the Children's Representative Forum (CRF) at that facility, by invitation, I was removed by it's Board of Management and a Board Member appointed to replace me. I was not "developmental".

This was not the first time a small child in a CRF had spoken out on a facility's  services which quite rightly needed to be changed. I'm not saying they were making demands. I'm saying that they drew attention honestly and justifiably to their rights and to principles foundational to Child and Youth Care practice. Issues like disregard of culture, not enough hot water, unacceptable discipline (punishment)...always issues of food.

The child's voice must be heard. Put coldly, the client must be heard. And again, the service recipient must be heard...Ha! The children and young people must be heard.

The question in social media was, "Does your facility/ programme have a Children's Representative Forum?" .. No replies or comments were made.

Firstly, it is a regulatory, standard  practice requirement in the same way as a facility or programme will have a child and youth care worker's forum.

Experience in undertaking Quality Assurance (QA) in 43 Child and Youth Care organisations showed a huge number of facilities without either, or without a Children's Representative Forum.

I frequently quote Thom Garfat"s doctoral thesis. If not an exact quote he says in essence "An intervention is only as effective as it is experienced as effective". It means obviously that we have to hear what the children and young people are experiencing. And to do so maturely and professionally 

The regulated requirement for Children's Representative Forums in the programmes or facilities is the first in a much wider system in which the voice of children and young people is to be heard. 

 The National Association of Child and Youth Care Workers has a governance system designed to hear the voice of child and youth care workers. South Africa has 9 Provinces each with a Provincial Representative Executive Committee (REC). Some provinces are very large geographically, so "regional committees" are formed liaising with and  represented on the Provincial REC. The chairperson of each Provincial REC forms the National Executive which is the management body for the membership Association and which advises on child and youth care worker issues in the country. It all starts with the child and youth care workers forums in the facilities.

 The NACCW established a policy in which it is set out by agreement that the same structure as it is applied to allow child and youth care workers to be heard is to be formed for the children and young people in care. It follows a favourite dictum of Masud Hoghughi "What is good for the goose is good for the gander".

It means that in the facilities and programmes, the Children's Representative forums elect from among themselves, a Regional, then a Provincial and National Young People's Forum (Committee) with it's own National Chairperson.     

At every Biennial Conference of the NACCW there is a parallel Youth Conference. At a point in the programme the young people take their voices to the child and youth care worker's Conference ..Loud and clear. The system is at work, but for me, the absence or reluctance to have in-house Children's Forums is disappointing.

At one time there was a Child and Youth Care organisation in South Africa established by refugees from the Central Republic of the Congo for Congolese refugee children and young people in a high density refugee area in Johannesburg. It was community and school based and funded by the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Parallel to their Child and Youth Care organisation was a linked partner constituted to form a children and youth in programmes' Parliament with a special portfolio for refugee children. This was also funded by the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. 

In my time associated with the Central Republic of the Congo refugee children's project, the Parliament idea never got off the ground. 

It however got me going.

A shadow Cabinet and Parliament of young people and children in care liaising and represented in Parliament made sense to me. "What is good for the goose is good for the gander"

I remember being advised, "Let's get our National young people's model working before we talk of a children in care parliament. It seems that now, through the NACCW, the young people'structure is sufficiently organised . But again, to hear the voices really close to the ground, there has to be a strong contingent of young people's voices being heard from the Children's Representative Forums in the facilities and programmes... residential, community and school based.

It starts with getting Child and Youth Care organisations to accept and set up Children's Representative Forums without the adult prejudice of children and young people seen as undeserving of social equality. Furthe, the CPR should not be limited in its agenda to in-house issues. Young people want to talk about the bigger picture, the social ills and injustices that brought them into care in the first place. "What can you do? What can be done to reduce and stop young people and children having to be placed here? More importantly "What can we as young people do?" Hear us as we speak.

It's a challenge because that's what young people developmentally are designed to do...to challenge systems and practices. They know they inherit the world we make or allow to be made.

In one of the Provinces in South Africa, I as the NACCW provincial chairperson, I had the responsibility of getting the Children's Representative Forum structure going and maintained. A start was made in the facility in which I was giving training at the time. There was no CRF there. Requested, the staff selected two young people to meet me and the Regional NACCW Mentor to form a steering committee. First meeting, trust building and explaining the purpose and to plan. Second meeting. "OK. Tell us what is good and what can be improved"...a dry run on a small scale with 2 staff-selected young people to let them get an experience of what could become an agenda. It all came tumbling out. With what the unheard heart full is, the mouth runneth over!  Third meeting...refused by the facility's management.They couldn't make the young people available for various reasons. Bottom line..the Children's Representative Forum there never got off the ground. I can't but think that as child and youth care workers and as management we may well have a fears of being evaluated by the very persons we serve. A fear of having to put the young people's needs and voice as the centre of our 'programme planning and having to fit in. After all, it's much easier and more comfortable for us to expect the young people to fit our programme than  the other way round. Perhaps we find it even more scary to have young people contributing to policy in-house, Regionally, Provincially and Nationally

I would like to to hear the voice of young people in care eventually at Parliamentary Committee level and to hear a child in care speaking to parliament. 

Let it happen in our life-time.