[Bulgaria] Conclusions from the National Conference "Children's participation - a prerequisite for a successful and independent life"

The national conference Children's Participation - Prerequisite for a Successful and Independent Life was held on November 26 on the Zoom platform. It was organized by the Know-How Center for the Alternative Care for Children, NBU, and Childhub. The conference was attended by young people, representatives of universities, alternative care specialists and social workerse, NGOs, government institutions, the State Agency for Child Protection and students. The participants shared experiences, exchanged views, made suggestions on how to invite children and young people from residential care in a similar format and to create a space in which they would be encouraged to share their positions more freely.

The right of children to be heard applies to every area of ​​their lives. Through children's participation, children develop a sense of responsibility and skills to be part of a team. Children's participation helps them learn to solve problems, negotiate skillfully and defend their point of view and opinion. Such skills lead to a positive result in terms of the exercise of their rights and their future role in public life.

We all have a responsibility to ensure that children have the right to be heard. When we apply the principle of children's participation in our work, we create the conditions for this to happen. Children can exercise their right to participate in decision-making in different ways. From a practical point of view, we can divide the participation into three approaches, namely:

•     a counseling process in which children counsel adults
•     a collaborative process in which children and adults work together and
•     a process in which children lead and adults assist them

It is important to note that all three processes are valid and may be appropriate in our work, depending on the context, nature and objectives of the specific initiative or program.

Some of the conclusions and opinions we heard at the conference were:

•  We need to be better friends with children, to build relationships of trust.
•  We need to learn to hear children better in our daily lives, not to underestimate them, to let them guide us, even if it sometimes makes us feel uncomfortable.
•  Also, we must learn that we must be prepared to tell them the truth, because they have the right to hear it. Difficult information needs to be presented in an appropriate way, but it needs to be available.
•  From the point of view of improving the curricula in universities, we should make more efforts to shape the attitudes of professionals in a way that ensures understanding and better implementation of children's participation.