MY LIFE Growing up

How can knowledge from children help to develop good childhood services? Changefactory has been collecting knowledge from children since 2009 about what makes a safe childhood and what is important when dealing with schools, child welfare and mental health services. In 2018, surveys started with the youngest children. From 2019, children's rights to how they should be treated have also been the focus of the work. 

MITT LIV STORBY is a network for big cities in which Tromsø, Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger, Drammen and Oslo participate. Bærum and Sandnes have previously participated. Municipal leaders for kindergarten , school, child protection and mental health services are inspired by knowledge directly from children and children's rights in process. 

Municipalities can use knowledge from children and children's procedural rights for competence development, as input in the development of strategies for growing up, municipal action plans, guides and guidelines - and descriptions of good practice in kindergarten , school, child protection and mental health services.

Focus areas

Based on experiences from the interaction between knowledge from children and professionals in school and help systems, some focus areas have been selected that municipalities can choose to work with, and six concrete proposals for safe upbringing services.

  • Anchoring the common view of children and the values on which the upbringing services are based.
  • Information that children share with a service must be shared with parents or other services in a way that is perceived as safe for the child.
  • Children are invited to bring a "security person" with them in conversations and meetings.
  • Knowledge and awareness of how the focus on behavior and diagnoses affects children.
  • Initiation of systematic collection of feedback from children on how the service is experienced.
  • Development of routines for how professionals in the municipality cooperate with children who have experienced violence.

Six suggestions for safe upbringing services

  1. The municipality adopts a view of children and values , which applies to all upbringing services.
  2. What the child tells is only shared by agreement with the child.
  3. Adults look behind the behavior and think kindly about children and young people, they understand that children express pain in different ways.
  4. The municipality systematically provides all children with information about violence and sexual abuse.
  5. Knowledge from children is part of management documents such as strategies, upbringing plans and violence routines.
  6. Competence plans and initiatives, programs and methods include knowledge from children.

This is a direct input to growing up strategies.