Opportunities for children and young people

Barnardo’s is fortunate to receive some amazing opportunities for children and young people we support.

For some opportunities, the intended audience will be clear and by extension the team or service in the organisation that needs to be involved; but others may be more generic or less clear about the intended audience or beneficiary.

This is why this new process has been developed.

There are usually two roles in the ‘opportunity process’:

1. The opportunity provider or facilitator – the person who “owns” the opportunity internally, or the person who receives it from an external provider.
2. The people who work directly with children and young people – usually colleagues in our children’s services.

The expectations and responsibilities for each of these roles is different, which we have clarified below:

1. Complete this opportunity form with as much detail as possible, with as much notice as possible.
2. Undertake appropriate due diligence checks:​​​

• safeguarding checks (e.g. criminal checks verification)
• insurance checks (e.g. public liability/indemnity)
• ethical checks (e.g. is a Barnardo’s Research Ethics Committee application required?)
• checks associated with corporate or reputational risk, data protection, finance and equality, diversity and inclusion.

3. Email the form to the relevant team or service – as outlined in the form.

Please note: these actions should not be undertaken by colleagues in children’s services.

1. Review the opportunity form provided, so as to assess relevant and appropriateness for children and young people you work with.
2. Determine whether it is something you have both capacity, resource and ability to support, informing the opportunity provider/facilitator of this. It may be appropriate to seek authorisation from a line manager, particularly where it may be considered outside of the scope of your role or service.
3. Identify or recruit children and young people who might wish to engage, through a transparent process where their right to choose is respected.
4. If you have children and young people who do wish to take part, complete a risk assessment for the activity based on the information provided and those who wish to take part in it – where required, this might involve liaison with the opportunity provider or facilitator.
5. Where required, directly support children and young people to take part.

Please note: these actions should not be expected to be undertaken by the opportunity provider or facilitator.

Not all opportunities are appropriate for children and young people we support, and on some occasions it would be right to politely decline or signpost to other organisations in our sector or partnerships.

Examples of reasons for declining an opportunity include:

• Children and young people could be considered as ‘exploited’ or used as ‘decoration’, or at worst, are put at risk of physical or emotional harm.
• The opportunity provider benefitting more from children and young people’s engagement than children and young people themselves.
• Significant reputational risk associated with the opportunity provider, including from an equality, diversity and inclusion perspective.
• Incongruent or non-aligned with our corporate strategy and objectives.

We should never just say “yes” to an opportunity without consideration of the input, time, resource or potential risk (as above) involved in supporting it.

Find out more information here.

This guidance has been put together by the UK Voice and Influence Team, in consultation with colleagues in our children’s services and a sample of corporate departments (predominantly those who regularly facilitate opportunities).

If you have questions, queries or comments, please email voiceandinfluence@barnardos.org.uk in the first instance.