This resource was published in May 2025 as part of our project to support children and young people's voice in their epilepsy care and service - find out more about this programme and explore more resources in the related content box.
Creating a listening culture
Listening, understanding and actively engaging with the views, experiences and voice of children, young people and their families within your service brings many benefits. Children and young people feel more empowered and involved in their care, services can respond and improve the way they work and strategic decisions on funding and service delivery will be better informed.
We encourage you to develop a culture of listening and engagement within your service, embedding this practice in your day-to-day work, rather than as a one-off activity. This work can occur on three levels:
- Individual – Listening and engaging with children and young people about their personal care.
- Service - Listening and engaging to children and young people to improve your service delivery.
- Strategic - Listening and engaging to children and young people and families to inform strategic decisions about service delivery, resource allocation and standards.
Using a framework to help guide your engagement work can help steer your work and communicate your approach across your team. The Lundy model of participation (explained more below) can be a useful tool for this and is the one we used with epilepsy services through the programme.
Children’s rights
A child’s right to be listened to and these views to be taken seriously (individually and collectively) is underpinned by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). RCPCH takes a to listening and engaging with children and young people.
State 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.
State parties should also introduce measures enabling children to contribute their views and experiences to the planning and programming of services for their health and development. Their views should be sought on all aspects of health provision, including what services are needed, how and where they are best provided, discriminatory barriers to accessing services, quality and attitudes of health professionals, and how to promote children’s capacities to take increasing levels of responsibility for their own health and development.
About the Lundy model of participation
This model was developed by academic Laura Lundy, Professor of International Children's Rights at the School of Education at the Queen's University of Belfast. It provides a way of conceptualising a child's right to be listened to, as laid down in Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It can be a useful framework to help plan and reflect on your approach to engagement of children, young people and families in your service.
The Lundy model has been adopted by the Irish Government in their Framework for Children and Young People’s Participation in Decision-making and is increasingly being used across the UK and internationally. It is also used in our resources and will be referred to throughout.
There are four key dimensions:
- Space and Voice relate to children and young people’s right to express their views. This prompts us to think about how we can support children and young people to gather their thoughts, consider options and express themselves in a way that feels safe and comfortable.
- Audience and Influence prompt us to think about who needs to hear what children and young people are saying to make a difference and act on it.
These four dimensions are explored in greater detail on our programme pages: Space and voice and Audience and influence. You can download a useful visual that explains the Lundy model below.
Children, young people and parents looked at the Lundy model at an RCPCH Innovation lab and discussed what they wanted epilepsy services to consider or think about when using the Lundy Model as a framework. Here's what they said.
- Space – What makes you feel safe or comfortable to share your views?
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- I am worried about judgement
- Short appointments (especially on phone) make it hard to speak up
- Feeling pressured to know the doctor
- Good environment and a nice atmosphere helps
- Make it relaxing
- ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ – is my safe space
- Consistency - inviting and comfortable space
- Social point
- Space that is inviting
- Local to home
- Knowing the person
- Awkwardness
- My sibling / family
- Choice - in space, home, etc.
- Separate entrances/rooms for different ages
- Quiet, not crowded
- Chairs/armchairs - homey feel
- A fun and welcoming environment with accessible resources, toys and magazines (all age-appropriate) in the waiting area.
- Welcoming smiley staff who make children, young people and their families feel at home, and not on edge about any appointment or potential changes in their condition.
- We want to be able, as young people, to feel we can talk to anyone in confidence and want the staff to respond to us in an appropriate way
- Voice – What support do I need to share my views and how do I like to communicate?
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- Language used by staff needs to be appropriate and easy to understand
- Anonymous feedback forms
- Time and space to think
- Verbal information and visual flyers
- I need information - facts are needed to shape my opinion
- Visual, written - typed, verbal communication
- Voice, draw
- Writing or drawing
- Verbal and typed
- Audience – Who do I want to hear my views?
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- Doctors, as they can make a difference
- Nurses
- Specialists
- Teachers
- Carers and parents
- Influence – What do I want to happen next?
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- Be kept in loop and updated
- Actions taken to goal
- Next steps/improvements and to hear about them
- Impact, change
- Impact, can be seen through results
- Letters
- Assemblies
- Action plans
You can find out more about the Lundy model on the , where they have made a suite of resources available for professionals to use. These include how they have embedded into national policy, how to use it in practice and planning, evaluation and space checklists for workers, children and young people.