Welcome to the web site for "Warwickshire Award for Involvement"
Children and young people are central to our work therefore it is only right that we should listen to and involve them in as many aspects of the life of our organisations as possible.
This award has been developed following consultation with the voluntary sector and small groups and is based from the national "Hear by Rights" Framework. The framework and associated standards were launched in 2004 to assist organisations to address some of the new ways of working anticipated in the "Every Child Matters" Green paper that gave rise to subsequent Acts of Parliament.
Children and Young People's participation is seen as being central to many of the developments arising from Every Child Matters and the framework aims to measure the involvement of children and young people in the operation of each agency.
In Warwickshire it has been recognised that the Hear by Right framework requires intensive work and is likely to be an expectation too many on significant groups within the voluntary sector and many smaller groups. It was decided to attempt to see if it were possible to simplify the framework whilst maintaining is value. We believe that this Award has achieved that outcome and I recommend it for your consideration.
Special thanks to Joanne Casey, Warwickshire Children's Fund for all of her work in drafting the Award and piloting early frameworks. Also to Mike Bunn, WCVYS (Warwickshire Council for Voluntary Youth Service) for ensuring the framework met the needs of the representative organisations.
Peter Hatcher
Chair, County participation group