Voice of the child

  1. Introduction and context
  2. Considerations and first steps
  3. Using the tools
  1. Example tools and approaches
  2. Further examples and links

4. Example tools and approaches

Child and young person's RADARs

The Early Help Assessment and Plan features a family radar. The child and young person's RADARs are optional tools that can be used to help workers to understand the child's lived experience and capture their voice to add into the Early Help Assessment.

The RADAR cards have been developed to give workers options of possible questions or prompts to ask the family, child or young person to give that holistic picture of what is happening currently within the family or for the child or young person.

Bold text (all ages)

One of the simplest methods of ensuring the voice of the child is clearly visible through any assessment is to highlight or use bold text to represent the child or young person’s views, thoughts and feelings within any assessment or report. 

Three houses / Three island exercise (6-11 age range)

Cheshire West and Chester - Three houses activity sheet

This takes the three assessment questions from the NSPCC signs of safety model – what are we worried about/what is working well/what needs to happen – and puts them in the three houses / islands drawn to engage children in filling in their worries/good things/dreams.  

My views (6-17 age range)

Cheshire West and Chester - my views activity sheet

This updated form can be used by workers to record a child or young person’s thoughts and feelings gathered through other methods or able to be used with older children and young people directly. This type of form has a number of direct questions that aim to identify the individual’s view of a current position and what they would like to see.

One page profiles (all ages)

A one page profile captures all the important information about a person on a single sheet of paper under three simple headings: what people appreciate about me, what’s important to me and how best to support me. One page profiles are deceptively simple, and in this simplicity is their strength. They help us to support people better by: helping us build better relationships  by truly understanding what really matters to the person in their life and the way they are supported to live it. Can be adapted to use with all ages and very useful when working with those with differences in their communication style.

You can find examples of one page profiles on Sheffkids and editable templates from Helen Sanderson Associates.

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Supporting children and families