Engaging with children

This course introduces you to the concept of engaging children as partners in practice, as a foundation for responding to child mental health concerns.

It highlights some of the benefits that engaging children as a part of service provision offers children, their families and the community, as well as practitioners and services. It also identifies some of the broad challenges and dilemmas faced by practitioners in this area of work.

Through this course you will become familiar with the key values that underpin the concept of engaging children as partners in practice, and consider how these link with the values and practice ethics you bring to this area of your work.

You will also be introduced to the key shifts in position and perspective required to effectively engage children as partners in practice.

Download and print a summary of the course here.

This course has been developed for practitioners who work mostly with parents in relation to ‘adult problems’, and for whom working with children is not a regular focus but is within their scope of practice. This includes practitioners who:

• have limited scope to work with children and are interested in engaging with children to ensure their voice and perspective informs the work with their parents, as well as being directly beneficial to the child; and
• have scope to work with children in response to parent’s concerns about how the ‘adult problems’ they are facing are impacting on their children’s mental health and wellbeing.

This course is also for practitioners who already work with children, and aims to offer helpful understandings that can further support practice.

The course will take approximately one hour to complete, and includes readings, videos, and reflective activities.