Children’s Recommendations on Good Practice: For Professionals and Decision-Makers

Abstract Changefactory (Forandringsfabrikken) has for many years asked children in schools, help services, and judicial systems how these systems can feel safe and useful to them. The most common response has been that adults need to collaborate with them and take them seriously when decisions are made. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child grants children the right to express themselves and be taken seriously in decisions in all matters affecting them, which assigns decision-makers a duty to both individual children and children as groups. In this article, we address this duty by presenting children’s perspectives on what is important for developing effective public systems and how listening to and incorporating these perspectives can help create better societies for children. At the same time we hope the article can function as a practitioner guide for policymakers, educators, and child welfare professionals.