Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers - Platform C

Introduction

Platform Citizenship: Platform design for a child participatory decision-making culture in Flanders in times of crisis.

Project partners: Hogeschool Gent, Kenniscentrum Kinderrechten, Bataljong, Netwerk Jeugdvriendelijk, Stichting Lodewijk de Raet

Coordinator: Prof. dr. Lieve Bradt

Duration: 01/09/2022 – 31/08/2024

Project description

The policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic have made clear that despite the availability of different participation tools, for many policymakers, involving young people remains a challenge. Young people are not always seen as equal partners in the process of policy development. In this project, we therefore aim to experiment and analyse how, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic – with its potential for new ways of thinking and acting – we can create a mind and culture shift in relation to young people’s policy participation on both a local and regional level. To do so, we aim to use established actions and projects with young people during and in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), as a lever to increase young people’s involvement in local decision-making processes. Relying on an ecosystemic perspective and by using participatory action research as our central methodology, the main objective of Platform C is to enable a platform design process as a way to ensure mutual learning between researchers, policymakers, child professionals and young people. Throughout different phases of the project, young people will be involved in the decision-making process and in the responses to the Covid-19 measures and impact.

Objectives

These are the objectives of Platform C:

• Involving children and young people in thinking about and responding to local COVID-19 challenges
• Making visible the impact of a broadly supported reflex in the structural policy participation of children and young people (and concretize this within the context of the COVID-19 crisis)
• Investigating and visualising what influences the conviction and perception about children’s and young people’s policy participation and how we can respond to this

Role of Ghent University

Ghent University is the coordinator of this project

Website

To be announced

Contact

Prof. dr. Lieve Bradt
Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy
Phone number: +32 9 264 63 82
E-mail  

Funding info

Disclaimer
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the authority can be held responsible for them.