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Voice of the Child DVD Training Resource , Greater Manchester Safeguarding Partnership, Cheadle, 2013, Film and training notes available: http://www.gmsafeguardingchildren.co.uk/usefulresources/vocdvd

2014; Wiley; Volume: 23; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/car.2341

1099-0852

Carolyne Willow,

Healthcare innovation and challenges

‘If they don't listen, then they won't know why we are unhappy’, explains a young man in a new training DVD released by the Greater Manchester Safeguarding Partnership. Its aim is to help professionals develop their skills in working with children and young people. Made by teenagers with extensive experience of adult workers in a variety of settings – education, health, social care and youth work are all mentioned – this thought-provoking film takes us through seven areas of learning, powerfully opening with a child's face on screen hearing a combination of deeply violent and sensitive adult voices. This instantly takes the viewer into the child's world, and it's where we stay throughout. The film ends just as effectively with young people holding notices which, one by one, sum up what they need: the list includes to be respected, understood and trusted, as well as having the time, information and help to solve problems. The last poster contains just three words – ‘care for me’. Another implores, ‘be equal with me’. ‘Made by teenagers with extensive experience of adult workers in a variety of settings’ This year is the 25th anniversary of the United Nations (1989) adopting the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the film shows what happens when workers respect and believe in children and young people. A form tutor took the time to listen to a young woman who had been through tough times in her previous school. The result: ‘He made me feel like I could do anything I wanted to.’ A young man trusted his workers because, among other things, they let him be heard and talked to him like an adult. The result: he took advice and started making plans for his future. A psychiatric nurse didn't look down on or patronise a young woman, and recognised progress, however small. The result: the young woman's panic attacks reduced. The effects of not listening are cleverly depicted through a cartoon strip telephone discussion where a young person is left feeling dejected and the worker also feels dissatisfied. Both parties are asked to reflect on how they might improve the interaction, a theme revisited in the accompanying worksheets. ‘The effects of not listening are cleverly depicted through a cartoon strip telephone discussion’ One of the film's many motivating stories is the young care leaver who feels she has ‘just been picked up out of the children's home and shoved in a bin and I'm just going further and further into the bin [and] just all this rubbish is piling on top of me basically’. Despite this dire situation, the young woman plans to become a social worker and pledges, ‘I'll listen more to the children, you know.’ Listening and respecting are portrayed as the means of working successfully with children and young people. As one young man explained, ‘I think it's important for people to listen cos [if they don't] they won't know what sort of problems you have or what kind of person you are.’ Another stressed, ‘The only way [workers] can find out what is best for young people is by speaking to young people.’ Professor Eileen Munro (2011) concluded much the same in her review of child protection. A number of domestic laws, as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, back up what the young people in the film so skilfully advocate. Furthermore, statutory guidance for directors of children's services (Department for Education, 2013) requires them to have regard to the Convention's general principles (which include the right to be heard) and to ensure that children and young people are involved in the development and delivery of services. The DVD does not mention any of this, quite rightly in my view. References to law and policy could have disrupted the rich flow of human stories and diverted attention away from the young people. (One of the many impressive features of the film is that it was made unscripted.) The ideal place for this information would have been in the accompanying worksheets (prepared by multiagency trainers); a much greater selection of young people's quotes from the film (only one is included) would have also been welcome. ‘One of the many impressive features of the film is that it was made unscripted’ The useful references/links in the worksheets could be enhanced by adding young people-led organisations such as A National Voice (run by and for care-experienced young people) and signposting other resources made by and for children and young people. This would contextualise the DVD as belonging to an ever-growing family of materials seeking to promote and protect the rights of children and young people. The Greater Manchester Safeguarding Partnership is to be commended for funding this excellent resource, though the real credit belongs to the young people who made it. We can all play a part in ensuring that it brings results. ‘We can all play a part in ensuring that it brings results’