{"id":3263,"date":"2018-03-21T15:37:07","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T14:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/?p=3263"},"modified":"2018-03-21T15:37:07","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T14:37:07","slug":"stcuk-children-voice-in-emergencies-gr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/2018\/03\/21\/stcuk-children-voice-in-emergencies-gr\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving UK Children a Voice in Emergencies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kelsey Smith, a member of the project team from our partner Save the Children UK, writes about the charity’s involvement in the CUIDAR Project. This blog originally appeared on the Save the Children website.<\/em><\/p>\n

2017 was a year with headlines dominated by disasters in the UK. The devastating fire at Grenfell tower; attacks at Manchester Arena, Westminster, Finsbury Park and London Bridge; major flooding and storm Brian all rocked the country.<\/p>\n

Save the Children is clear that the conversation about how we respond to such emergencies must include marginalised and vulnerable communities and, crucially, we must do more to listen to one of the most excluded and under-estimated voices \u2013 the voice of children.<\/p>\n

Largely, when thinking of children caught in disasters we think of their vulnerability and immediate actions we can take to keep them safe. Less often do we dig deeper and consider children\u2019s unique perspectives, needs, opinions and experience of disasters. Very rarely do we consider their competencies, and their ability to actively contribute to planning, provision and recovery.<\/p>\n

Save the Children is involved in a pan-European project which aims to rectify this.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Giving Children a Voice<\/strong><\/h3>\n

CUIDAR (Take Care) is a project which makes sure children are prepared for emergencies. Working across five EU countries it aims to build their knowledge, resilience and make sure their voices are heard in emergency planning and response.<\/p>\n

In the UK Save the Children worked with primary school children aged 9-11 years to influence local and national decision-makers to make sure children\u2019s perspectives are considered in disasters.<\/p>\n

Through workshops, community learning events and a high-level national conference, our group of nearly 200 children have learned about emergencies and have shared their thoughts and opinions with local and national decision-makers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learnt that us children should be heard in our own opinion and adults should take it seriously… Children need to know what is going on in the situation so the children are not scared.\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

Lilly, Student from England<\/em><\/p>\n

The core ethos of this work is active and meaningful participation: engaging children who are impacted by decisions and policies, and ensuring they themselves can help shape those plans. Through CUIDAR (Take Care), children have built their knowledge about safe practices, whilst advising adults about how they feel and what they might need in an emergency. This has helped professionals to realise the value of children\u2019s knowledge and the potential of giving them more agency in emergencies.<\/p>\n

In 2018, we will work with the consortium to launch an advisory framework that incorporates the learning from all partners and contributes to EU-wide best practice in this field.<\/p>\n

As a starting point, we have produced a\u00a0downloadable\u00a0toolkit<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0annex<\/a>\u00a0which outlines the project and guides providers through how to deliver it effectively.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Value of a Different Perspective<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Our work with children must recognise them as experts in their own right. Children have a unique ability to see things differently and not only identify gaps in existing provisions, but also contribute to innovative solutions. Through projects like CUIDAR (Take Care), we can bring together traditional \u201cteaching\u201d about preparedness and prevention along with a more empowering, child-led, two-way learning process. This helps increase awareness and resilience amongst children, but also amongst emergency planners and communities too.<\/p>\n

With appropriate safeguards, we must trust in children\u2019s capabilities. Children can be powerful communicators within their family, peer group, and wider community. In our project, children helped to spread learning across schools and communities, including taking vital safety messages home to parents.<\/p>\n

We know that if you involve and respect children in emergency preparedness and response, their readiness and resilience grows. Preparing them not only keeps children safer from risks but helps prepare future generations too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kelsey Smith, a member of the project team from our partner Save the Children UK, writes about the charity’s involvement in the CUIDAR Project. This blog originally appeared on the Save the Children website. 2017 was a year with headlines dominated by disasters in the UK. The devastating fire at Grenfell tower; attacks at Manchester[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized-el"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/12-cropped.jpg?fit=2201%2C2217&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p70rsT-QD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3264,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3263\/revisions\/3264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}