Progressing children's rights and participation: Utilising rights-informed resources to guide policy and practice

Social policy in Australia and internationally, that is focused on improving children's safety and well-being, increasingly makes implicit or explicit reference to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Concomitantly, children and young people's participation is more widely acknowledged as being key to ensuring policies, programmes and services reflect their views and lived experience. The non-government sector, along with statutory bodies like the National and State-based Children's Commissions in Australia, have led the way in advocating for children's participation, including the development of resources to assist in facilitating this. Little is known, however, about the nature, scope and extent of such resources nor the evidence informing them. This article reports the findings of a scoping review of rights-informed resources and academic articles that provide a sound rationale and "good practice" information, education and/or professional learning about children's participation rights, in particular. The findings highlight some of the tensions and possibilities between the rhetorical aspirations of participation and existing practice. The analysis is intended to support the efforts of organisations endeavouring to improve their understanding and approaches to embedding children's rights, including participation in decision making and other matters of interest or concern to them.