See Me, listen to me! Children's perspectives

Abstract

INTRODUCTION States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child. (Article 12.1 Convention on the rights of the child. U.N. General Assembly,1989) The rationale of this study is directly related to the overall objective of the whole project; that of seeking to address the various concerns that youngsters with challenging behaviour present. In this section, the views of the youngsters themselves on this topic are being privileged. 1.1 Aims of the study The aims of the study are three-fold. • To find out what the children’s understanding is about why and how they have ended up in a service designed for youngsters with challenging behaviour • To elicit the children’s experience of the service they are in. • To gather the children’s suggestions and ideas about what they feel would be helpful 2. RESEARCH DESIGN The methodology chosen for this study was a qualitative one where a total of 19 children were interviewed individually. The interviews were conducted by 8 interviewers who attended and participated in the discussion of the research design and the tools to be used in the study.