Engage Project
The Engage Project is an opportunity for children and young people (12-25) to get involved in the work of the National Centre. By taking part, you can share your insights and knowledge to help us think about the best ways to listen to children and keep them safe.
You do not need to have experienced sexual abuse to be part of it. It is for all young people who want to have a say about a topic that is important.
You do not need to have experienced sexual abuse to be part of it. It is for all young people who want to have a say about a topic that is important.
Phase 1 – research focus groups
Phase 2 – time to design
Phase 3 – online presentation
Phase 4 – final feedback
Click to learn more
Phase 1 – research focus groups
(Ethics approval: Southern Cross University)
We want to learn how we can best support the participation of children and young people in the work of the National Centre. To do this, we need to listen to the voices of children and young people themselves and hear about their experiences.
One 2-hour online group session (or a 1:1 if preferred) exploring what would make it possible, and/or what might hold young people like you back from participating in the ongoing activities of the National Centre.
PHASE 1 HAS NOW BEEN COMPLETED
Phase 2 – time to design
In this session, children and young people will have an opportunity to review the ideas from the previous group and begin to choose the approaches and solutions that they prefer. This will include developing preferences for the platforms, environments and ways of being engaged to support participation.
PHASE 2 HAS NOW BEEN COMPLETED
Phase 3 – online presentation
A 1-hour online feedback session will take place. This meeting will present the initial findings of the focus groups with children and young people to the National Centre advisory group for children and young people. A small number of young participants, who volunteer from focus groups, will help to present the findings in the groups.
Date to be finalised
Phase 4 – final feedback
In phase four, all children and young people who have been involved will be invited to attend a final, 1-hour online feedback session. The purpose of the final session would be for the adult Advisory Group to present back to the children and young person participants, showing that they had heard and understood their views and that the views were being taken into account and had been acted upon.
Participants will not be paid to be in the study; however, a gift voucher to thank them for their time will be offered.
Why It Matters
The National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse is an important national charity that is trying to help adults understand the truth, know more about how to make children safer and improve the ways to support anyone who has experienced child sexual abuse. If the National Centre is going to do its work properly, then it will need the help of children and young people to guide it. Your views and opinions are interesting and essential to our work.
Did you know?
In 1989, many countries of the world came together in a group called the United Nations General Assembly and agreed that all children and young people have an important set of rights that can never be taken away from them. These rights are called the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). They were ratified (which means the Government agreed to them, and they came into force) here in Australia the very next year.
This Convention includes rights to protection from harm from all forms of abuse, including child sexual abuse. It also says that children and young people have the right to meaningfully participate in decision-making that affects them.
Because of the Convention, it is important that adults support you to meaningfully participate, should you wish to. To do this properly they must:
- give you all the information you need so you can make up your own mind
- support you to say what you think, and
- provide a safe space and/or method for you to share your views
- make sure the people who are listening think seriously about what you say
- act on what you say and let you be part of the decision-making.
Your voice and views are essential to the work of the National Centre. We need young people to be our guide as we develop new resources and research, as we talk to Government about the risks and safety issues, and as we consider what it means to help protect children and young people from sexual abuse.
For more information, contact Lauren Thomas at lthomas@childhood.org.au
Registrations for the project are currently closed.
