Gerison Lansdown on child-friendly governance and democracy

Gerison Lansdown, one of the leading thinkers around child rights, shares what brought her to work on child participation, and why she thinks child-friendly governance is central to the future of democracy.  

From social worker to international expert

Few people have contributed to the conceptual thinking around child participation as much as Gerison Lansdown has. She has lectured, written, and studied participation across different contexts since the late 1980s. During her career, she has contributed to several General Comments, impacted  on the conceptual thinking around child participation across a range of international child rights organizations, and, of course, worked with hundreds of children and young people. 

Originally trained as a social worker, Lansdown came to work with child participation when England and Wales introduced new legislation requiring the establishment of complaints mechanisms in the care system in 1989. Working with a local government at the time, Lansdown was put in charge of implementing  the law in the child protection sector. Consulting with children in the establishment of the mechanism was a clear goal for Lansdown, but she quickly came to realize how vulnerable children felt voicing their concerns about adult case workers, and how resistant adults were to letting children voice their concerns. 

These challenges were an eye-opener for Lansdown. At the time, tectonic shifts were taking place in the world of child rights with the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, and with it, the international recognition of children’s right to participate. A couple of years later, Lansdown was involved in setting up a UK-wide non-governmental organisation to promote the implementation of the Convention nationally, and later a child-led organisation similarly dedicated to child rights. This set Lansdown on a journey that has made her an internationally recognised champion and expert on child rights, with participation as a thread running through all her work. 

Building stronger systems

To Lansdown, the importance of child participation in building stronger governance systems is a ‘no-brainer’. Yet, we still often govern with the underlying assumption that adults know best, sometimes with catastrophic results.

“If we look back to the kinds of decisions that have been made on behalf of children, without any reference to what they have experienced, what they think about it, what they want, what their aspirations are, we make catastrophic mistakes over and over, and over again”, she says. 

We learn something every time we ask the beneficiaries we are delivering services for, Lansdown remarks. Luckily, a growing number of stakeholders is recognising that you strengthen outcomes, efficiency, and sustainability of governance systems by opening decision-making processes to the end users of services – including children. 

However, the creation of child-friendly governance systems should not stop at adding participatory processes on top of existing processes and structures. Child rights should be built in by design, which often requires a more comprehensive rethinking of the ways we are used to doing business: which children are we listening to, on what questions, and with what impact. It all comes down to thinking about how children’s voices come into the structures of the organisation, from decision-making processes to monitoring and evaluation systems, communications, recruitment, and strategy development. 

The transformative power of participation – but for whom?

Lansdown adds that we often unnecessarily restrict ourselves to consultative forms of participation instead of exploring more collaborative ways of working with children. She has witnessed herself the transformative power of collaborative participation when done right and recalls several encounters with children, particularly from vulnerable backgrounds, who have been completely transformed in terms of their sense of self-worth and self-confidence. It all comes down to the concept of dignity, Lansdown says – dignity of being listened to.

Yet, challenges in including particularly the most vulnerable children remain. Lansdown recalls a recent consultation with groups of children with disabilities on their experiences of using online spaces. 

“One of the most powerful messages that came back was that this was the first time anyone had asked what their views are on these issues”, she says.

Children are not a homogenous group and should not be treated as such. There needs to be spaces for children from different groups to come together to debate issues specific to their background or experiences, but also efforts to integrate them into mainstream participation structures. Working with vulnerable groups requires time and trust. This requires consistency in delivering what you committed to. 

“You can’t just listen but have to consistently report back, follow through, and be honest about what the barriers and limitations are so as not to raise expectations too far”, Lansdown says.

Strengthening democratic institutions

Feeling let down by participatory structures is not unique to children. Lansdown is concerned by the growing cynicism regarding democratic institutions, and the lack of belief that decision-makers have citizens’ best interests at heart. She fears that the empowering potential of the internet is going to be countered by algorithms driving both children and adults deeper into online echo chambers. 

Strengthening child-friendly governance systems is going to be central to restoring faith in democracy, and Lansdown sees the growing commitment of governments as a positive development. Attitudes have shifted significantly since the 1990s, when Lansdown first started conversing with parliamentarians in the UK. In addition to building participation into legislation and policy, she underlines the importance of equipping children with skills to navigate the ever-changing political and online landscapes. 

“We now have a huge job to get children to see that they can make a difference. It’s about empowering people to feel that they can, collectively or on their own, make things better.” 

Bio

Gerison Lansdown was the founder director, 1992-2000, of the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, and has since worked as an international consultant and advocate, publishing and lecturing widely on the subject of children’s rights. She has worked with the Committee on the Rights of the Child on several general comments and was involved in the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She is an adjunct professor at Carleton University Canada, as well as at University College Cork, has an Honorary Doctorate from the Open University, Carleton University and the University of East London, an Honorary Fellowship from the University of Central Lancashire, and is on the editorial advisory board of the Canadian Journal of Children’s Rights.