Resources Library

What the Methodology Is

Understanding the foundation and purpose of this approach

  • These guidelines provide an introduction and practical roadmap for setting up a Children’s Advisory Board (CAB) with the purpose of integrating children’s views into the work of the Council of the Baltic Sea States. They are based on the recognition that children are rights‑holders under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and experts in their own lives, with much to contribute to effective and meaningful policymaking.  

    Importantly, the guidelines were created through a participatory process. Members of the Eurochild Children’s Council (11 children from 11 European countries) actively shaped the content. They contributed recommendations on safe environments, group dynamics, time allocation, and the qualities adults should embody when supporting the board. All their feedback was integrated into the final document, and they were informed of how their contributions were used. This makes the guidelines not only about child participation but developed through it, reflecting best practice in meaningful engagement.  

    The guidelines cover essential steps such as safeguarding, selection procedures, preparation, getting started with meetings, and ongoing follow‑up, monitoring, and evaluation, underlining that child participation is a continual learning process that evolves over time. 
     

How It Can Be Used

Practical applications and implementation guidance

These guidelines are designed for broad use. While written for the Council of the Baltic Sea States, they can be applied by any governmental or non‑governmental organization seeking to embed meaningful child participation into their structures, programs, or decision‑making processes.  

You can use the guidelines to:

  • Understand the foundational principles of meaningful child participation
  • Plan and establish a CAB tailored to your context
  • Build safe and child‑friendly procedures (from safeguarding to recruitment)
  • Support adults and staff working with children
  • Organize and facilitate effective meetings
  • Put systems in place for follow‑up, monitoring, and evaluation to ensure children’s input influences decisions

You can consult the document as a full methodology or use specific sections depending on your needs. The guidance promotes practical, safe, and sustainable engagement with children, helping organizations to ensure children’s voices are genuinely reflected in policies, programs, and outcomes. 

Focus on Inclusion

Inclusion within these guidelines is not approached as a single action or a discrete step. Rather, it is a foundational ethos woven through the entire methodology, grounded in the nine child participation principles that informed both the structure and the content of the document. These principles, reviewed and strengthened with feedback from the Eurochild Children’s Council, act as a conceptual and practical backbone, ensuring that inclusion is consistently operationalized, revisited, and reinforced at each phase of establishing and running a Children’s Advisory Board (CAB).

Because the guidelines were co‑created with children, they reflect a nuanced understanding of inclusion that goes beyond representation. The result is an approach to inclusion that is inherently multi-dimensional. It acknowledges that participation is shaped by intersecting factors: children’s backgrounds, identities, abilities, lived experiences, comfort levels, and prior exposure to participation settings. Instead of assuming that universal procedures are sufficient, the guidelines emphasize continuous reflection, adaptation, and responsiveness. Inclusion is treated as a dynamic process that must evolve as the CAB evolves, reinforced by monitoring, follow‑up, and collaborative evaluation with children themselves.  

Contributors

Organizations and individuals who developed this methodology

These guidelines were jointly developed by:

Their combined expertise ensured that both professional perspectives and children’s lived experiences shaped the methodology.