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Thematic Area: Children participation and design

Involving children in the design process can bring a wealth of advantages to built environment projects, empowering the children and creating a sense of ownership. While adults may build places for children such as playgrounds, these places may not meet children’s needs. Children should therefore be actively involved in designing and planning spaces that are meant for children.

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Children’s Participation in the Context of Forced Migration

This paper highlights the challenges of involving children in the context of forced migration. Carrying out participatory research in refugee camps is extremely difficult for a huge range of reasons, but involving children can be particularly problematical. This paper outlines the reasons for this, but also highlights why it is so important to involve people…
  • Publication year: 2001
  • Content Type: Academic paper
Recommended

Making Spaces for Children. Planning for Post-Disaster Reconstruction with Children and Their Families

This report explains why is important – in contest of crisis – to involve children and families in the planning of their physical living environment, and how to do it. This handbook aims at contributing to disaster response reconstruction programmes that not only rebuild the physical living environment but that strengthen the capacity of communities…
  • Publication year: 2006
  • Content Type: Report
Recommended

Places for Children – Children’s Places

This article highlights the difference between places created by adults for children (places for children) and spaces that children themselves consider to be play spaces (children’s places). This is an important concept to keep in mind when co-designing social infrastructures with and for children. In their everyday lives, children largely stay within and relate to…
  • Publication year: 2004
  • Content Type: Academic paper
Recommended

The Benefits of Participatory Evaluation for Children and Youth

This study shows how involving young people in participatory projects has a profound impact on the projects and on the children involved. This paper looks at four different projects working with children in the USA, and the results and information that was gathered as a result of young peoples participatory evaluation of the programmes.
  • Publication year: 2001
  • Content Type: Academic paper

Adolescent Girls in Crisis: Voices from Beirut

The report focuses on the voices of adolescent girls (10-19) living in Beirut and its suburbs (Burj Hammoud, Burj al Barajne, Shatila) in order to understand how girls navigate public spaces in these areas and the barriers that stand in their way or the mechanisms that are in place to support them, and to find…
  • Publication year: 2019
  • Content Type: Report

General Comment No. 17 (2013) on the Right of the Child to Rest, Leisure, Play, Recreational Activities, Cultural Life and The Arts (Art. 31), 17 April 2013, Crc/C/Gc/17

The Committee is concerned by the poor recognition given by States to the rights contained in article 31. The Committee is particularly concerned about the difficulties faced by particular categories of children in relation to enjoyment and conditions of equality of the rights defined in article 31, especially girls, poor children, children with disabilities, indigenous…
  • Publication year: 2013
  • Content Type: Other document

We Are Here. A Child Participation Toolbox

This Toolbox is designed to support children and adults who advocate for the rights and well-being of children, through children’s participation. It contains tools and exercises that can help children and adults prepare for their roles in a very practical way.
  • Publication year: 2020
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Shaping Urbanization for Children: A Handbook on Child-Responsive Urban Planning

Shaping urbanization for children, a handbook on child-responsive urban planning, presents concepts, evidence and technical strategies to bring children to the foreground of urban planning. By focusing on children, this publication provides guidance on the central role that urban planning should play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), from a global perspective to a…
  • Publication year: 2018
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Block by Block

Block by Block is a global initiative that uses the popular video game Minecraft to involve youth in the planning process in urban areas by giving them the opportunity to show planners and decision makers how they would like to see their cities in the future. The project is a collaboration between Mojang, the creators…
  • Publication year: 2012
  • Content Type: Other document

Growing Up in an Urbanizing World

Growing Up in an Urbanising World summarizes the results of an eight-nation UNESCO project that explores these questions and others across a spectrum of low-income neighbourhoods in the industrialized and developing worlds. Building on the pioneering ideas of the Growing Up in Cities project of the 1970s (a four-country effort directed by the influential urban…
  • Publication year: 2001
  • Content Type: Book

Children’s Participation in Urban Planning. A Comparative Study of Vienna, Copenhagen and Madrid

The first part of this thesis begins by outlining the historical development of pre-sociological and social concepts of childhood. The second part then examines the relation between children and space starting from their private home, child related institutions and in public space. The third part introduces the discourse about the participation of children in urban…
  • Publication year: 2010
  • Content Type: Academic paper

Manual on Children’s Participation

This guide provides brief guidance, promising practice examples, useful reading references, and links to practical tools (in the annex) on how to implement children’s participation in: 1) research, 2) programming, 3) advocacy, 4) communications, and 5) fundraising.
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Visioning as Participatory Planning Tool: Learning from Kosovo Practices

This sourcebook draws from the experience of several successive programmes implemented by UN-Habitat in Kosovo, which used visioning as a participatory planning tool. The toolkit explains a) the role of visioning in participatory planning; b) the methodology of visioning; and c) learning from the experiences in Kosovo. The goal is to explore ideas and tools…
  • Publication year: 2012
  • Content Type: Toolkit

So You Want to Consult with Children? A Toolkit of Good Practice

This toolkit is mainly aimed at governments, international agencies and NGOs who want to involve or consult with children in a meaningful way. It is designed to help create a participatory environment in which such children can express their views and take part in policy debates and discussions. It is not a detailed resource of…
  • Publication year: 2003
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Bridging the Gap. Save the Children’s transitional Housing Project after the Tsunami in Ampara district, Sri Lanka

The publication documents the shelter construction process in Ampara district, Sri Lanka, following the 2004 tsunami. Under this project, the first 100 houses were declared by UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) to be the best among the thirty kinds of transitional shelter constructed in Ampara district. Save the Children’s shelters met international criteria…
  • Publication year: 2007
  • Content Type: Report

Children’s Participation Toolkit for Social Workers and Early Help Practitioners

This booklet is intended to support social workers as they involve children in safeguarding in a positive, supportive and enabling way. The importance of a child’s voice in child protection practice cannot be underestimated. Children and young people have a clear right to express their views and to be involved in decisions made about them.…
  • Publication year: 2018
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Operational Guidelines on Community-Based Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Humanitarian Settings: Three-Tiered Support for Children and Families

The guidelines offer practical information and tools to implement a range of MHPSS interventions to rapidly address the protection and psychosocial support needs of children and families, in parallel with tailored mental health interventions for those most in need. They are intended for UNICEF staff, partners and other agencies in humanitarian settings to help effectively…
  • Publication year: 2018
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Using Minecraft for Youth Participation in Urban Design and Governance

The purpose of this paper is to outline UN-Habitat’s approach to using information and communication technology (ICT) as an enabler to encourage youth participation in urban design and governance. In 2012 UN-Habitat started working with Mojang, the makers of the popular computer game Minecraft. Through the partnership with Mojang, Block by Block, UN-Habitat uses Minecraft…
  • Publication year: 2015
  • Content Type: Toolkit

So You Want to Involve Children in Research? A Toolkit Supporting Children’s Meaningful and Ethical Participation in Research Relating to Violence Against Children

A toolkit supporting children’s meaningful and ethical participation in research relating to violence against children. Discusses why child participation is important, how children, research and society benefit from child participation in research, ethical considerations, and provides information on how to involve children in research, methods to use, research techniques, and considerations for choosing methods.
  • Publication year: 2004
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Can You Hear Me? The Right of Young Children to Participate in Decisions Affecting Them

It is rooted in recognition that children are entitled to be involved in decisions that affect their lives. This differs significantly from the predominant approach in early years, which focuses on promoting children’s development rather than respecting and protecting their rights. This paper explores what this means in practice for children under the age of…
  • Publication year: 2005
  • Content Type: Academic paper

Hack Our Play

Hack Our Play (HOP) is Singapore’s first participatory, community-built play space. It is an initiative that lets children, educators, and parents co-create their very own play space, from start to finish. Together, they will be able to conceive, create and curate a safe and unique play experience while also fostering stronger bonds, greater community investment…
  • Publication year: 2020
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Children’s Participation: From Tokenism to Citizenship

With the growth of children’s rights we are beginning to see an increasing recognition of children’s abilities to speak for themselves. Regrettably, while children’s and youths’ participation does occur in different degrees around the world, it is often exploitative or frivolous. This Essay is designed to stimulate a dialogue on this important topic. Hart addresses…
  • Publication year: 1992
  • Content Type: Academic paper

Participatory Design with Marginalized People in Developing Countries: Challenges and Opportunities Experienced in a Field Study in Cambodia

In this article is presented a field study where participatory design tools and techniques were used in Cambodia to develop ideas for a device that enables children who use prosthetic legs to walk in mud. The study also identifies and describes examples of differentiating circumstances across four categories: human; social, cultural and religious; financial and…
  • Publication year: 2012
  • Content Type: Academic paper

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DeCID: Co-designing social infrastructure with children affected by displacement is a project led by The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (UCL) and CatalyticAction, and funded by UKRI through the Global Challenges Research Fund.

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