Voice of the Child Legislation UK: What It Is and Why It Matters

The Voice of the Child is a principle embedded in various UK laws and policies. First addressed in the Children Act 1989, and reinforced by subsequent legislation, such as the Children and Families Act 2014, these laws mandate that children should be allowed to express their views and that these views must be considered in the decision-making about their welfare  

The UK's commitment to the voice of the child is evident in its legal framework. The Children Act 1989 was a groundbreaking piece of legislation that first introduced the principle that children have the right to be heard in legal matters affecting them. The Children and Families Act 2014 built on this foundation, introducing measures to ensure that children's voices are central to family justice processes. 

As a result, Working Together to Safeguard Children  2018 guides organisations working with children, emphasising the importance of listening to children as a key component of safeguarding. This guidance insists that children's voices must be heard, understood, and acted upon in all aspects of their care and protection. 

The benefits of ensuring the voice of the child being heard  

Listening to the child's voice is crucial for several reasons, particularly when decisions directly impact their lives.  

Actively listening to the voice of the child gives them a sense of empowerment and respect. Acknowledging children’s opinions and feelings is valuable. It can significantly increase their self-esteem and confidence, which is essential for their emotional and psychological development.  

Children are the most affected by decisions about their lives, yet they often have unique insights and perspectives that adults may overlook. By considering their input, decisions are more likely to be effective, relevant, and beneficial to the child’s wellbeing.  

When children feel heard, they are more likely to engage positively with the services and support provided to them. This leads to better outcomes in education, health, and overall wellbeing, as children are more likely to cooperate and invest in processes that they have had a say in.  

It’s important to note here, that listening to children’s voices is more than just listening to their views, it’s about enabling them to take active roles in decision making not only referring to what they say but equally what they do too.  

Capturing the voice of the child helps identify issues earlier on, such as bullying, abuse, or mental health concerns. Children are often the first to know when something is wrong and by paying attention to what they say and their actions, children and family services can intervene promptly and appropriately ensuring the right care and support is always provided at the right time.  

When children feel that adults listen to them, it fosters trust and strengthens relationships. This is vital in settings including family services, education, and healthcare, where a strong, trusting relationship between the child and the adult can greatly enhance the effectiveness of support.  

Listening to the voice of the child is not just a legal requirement, it’s a crucial component when delivering effective, comprehensive, and compassionate care promoting children and young people’s best interests. 

The key learnings from these examples demonstrated that professionals should seek to hear and facilitate the voice of the child by: 

To overcome challenges and prevent the implications of ignoring children’s voices, local authorities must adopt best practices to truly empower children and young people. 

Below are examples of some of the best ways to strengthen your local authorities’ services to capture the voice of the child: 

Here providing training for professionals enables better communication between stakeholders and the child, as well as their wider support network.  

Techniques such as visual aids, storytelling, and play-based approaches are all effective ways to ensure younger children's voices are heard or those with communication challenges.  

Another key practice is ensuring that children's voices are not only heard but also visibly influence outcomes. This can be achieved through feedback loops where children are informed about how their input has shaped decisions.  

Local governments should also establish clear policies and procedures that mandate the inclusion of children's voices at every stage of decision-making. 

Effective leadership and management are crucial in embedding the voice of the child within local government services. Leaders must prioritise this principle within their organisational culture, ensuring that it is reflected in policies, training programs, and everyday practices. Regular audits and reviews of how children's voices are captured and acted upon can help maintain a high standard of practice. 

Having stronger leadership also helps improve resource allocation by recognising the time, skill, and specialised tools needed to listen to the child. Investing in these areas is essential for genuinely upholding and maintaining the voice of the child over longer periods.  

In addition to legislation, several policies provide guidance in ensuring the voice of the child is heard. The Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance, for example, outlines specific expectations for professionals in various sectors.  

Local authorities should also have their policies and procedures to outline how children’s voices should be integrated into practice within their own local community to best adapt to their needs.  

Local governments can harness these tools to engage with children more effectively, particularly in reaching those who might be reluctant to speak in more traditional settings. 

Any technological solutions used should be designed with ethical concerns in mind, to provide a safe and supportive environment for children to share their views. 

Investing in Access Group's local government software, particularly Mosaic, Core+, and Synergy, enhances the ability of local authorities to deliver their responsibilities while significantly improving outcomes for children and families. 

Investing in Access Mosaic, a case management system, is designed to streamline social care processes, enabling professionals to efficiently capture and analyse the voice of the child throughout their interactions with services. This system ensures that children’s needs and perspectives are consistently considered in decision-making, leading to more personalised and effective support plans.

Access Core+ complements Mosaic by providing powerful analytics tools, which enable local authorities to monitor and assess the impact of their services in real-time. Its fully web-based single database solution for integrated youth support enables your local authorities to meet the specific needs of Children’s Services Departments and Organisations whilst capturing children’s voices. This data-driven approach ensures that interventions are tailored to the youth justice needs of each child and family, driving continuous improvement in service delivery.

Access Synergy, focusing on education and early years management, helps integrate education and social care information, providing a holistic view of a child’s needs. This integration is crucial for identifying early signs of need or risk, allowing for timely and coordinated responses from multiple services.

Together, these systems empower local authorities to fulfill their duties more effectively, ensuring that the voice of the child is central to their service provision, to lead to better outcomes for your children and family services across your community. 

Derbyshire County Council for example, have benefited from using a suite of our local government solutions across their children’s, adult social care, and youth services. 

Here they use Access Mosaic to digitsie records offering them an end-to-end solution for continuous access to client and family information, ensuring a single point view making it easier to access information when you need it. Their use of Access Synergy has enabled the digital delivery of Early Years and Education Management services with Access Core+ supporting young offenders and youth in achieving positive education and employment outcomes within a unified system to give them better opportunities in life. As a result, by investing in different solutions processes and workflows are more streamlined making it easier to capture children's voices and improve and adapt children's services to provide better effective, personalised, and compassionate care and support.