What the Methodology Is
Understanding the foundation and purpose of this approach
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The Nine Basic Requirements for Meaningful and Ethical Child Participation outline the core conditions needed for high‑quality participation. The requirements are: providing children with clear information, ensuring participation is voluntary, respecting their views and experiences, focusing on issues relevant to their lives, using child‑friendly approaches, ensuring inclusion, having skilled adult support, prioritizing safety, and being accountable to children by showing how their views influence decisions. These principles offer a way to check whether a participation process truly centers on children’s rights and agency.
How It Can Be Used
Practical applications and implementation guidance
Use the Nine Requirements as a quality check when planning, running or reviewing activities that involve children, such as consultations, workshops, advisory groups, research processes, program design, or advocacy. They help teams ensure that every step of the process provides the right information, offers real choices, adapts to children’s abilities, and follows safeguarding and accountability standards.
This makes the framework especially helpful at the start of project design and at key decision points where children’s influence needs to be clear and meaningful.
Focus on Inclusion
The core purpose of the Nine Basic Requirements is to ensure that participation is meaningful for every child. Inclusiveness is therefore central: children of all ages, genders, abilities, languages, and backgrounds must be able to take part in ways that genuinely work for them. By grounding participation in principles of accessibility, relevance, and respect, the Nine Requirements help ensure that even the most marginalized children can engage in participation processes safely, ethically, and with quality.
Contributors
Organizations and individuals who developed this methodology
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
The Nine Basic Requirements for Meaningful and Ethical Child Participation are rooted in the standards set out in the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment No. 12 on Article 12, which outlines the conditions necessary for children to express their views safely, freely, and effectively.
Building on these foundations, Save the Children initiated the development of the Nine Basic Requirements, drawing from the organization's long-standing global experience in children’s rights and participation. While the framework was originally shaped by Save the Children child participation specialists, it has since been enriched through contributions from practitioners, safeguarding experts, advocacy colleagues, and consultations with children themselves. This ongoing, collective refinement ensures that the Nine Requirements remain grounded in children’s lived realities and practical for staff applying them across programs, research, and advocacy.
Find the Nine Basic Requirements Here