The Child's Voice & Lived Experience
1. Introduction
1.1 The importance of capturing a child’s voice and understanding their lived experience has been consistently highlighted in lessons learned from serious safeguarding cases and local and national reviews. Capturing the child’s voice means more than seeking their views, wishes, thoughts and feelings. When we use the term ‘the child’s voice’ we not only refer to what children say directly but also to many other aspects of their presentation. It means seeing their experiences from their point of view through the many different ways that children communicate with us, including both verbal and nonverbal communication.
1.2 The following toolkit provides professionals working across Tees with some examples of tools that can be used to assist in capturing the child’s voice and seeking to understand their lived experiences:
Toolkits: