Undertaking Child Impact Assessments in New Zealand Local Authorities:
Evidence, practice, ideas
August 2008
Authors: Nic Mason & Kirsten Hanna Institute of Public Policy AUT University AUCKLAND Aotearoa-New Zealand
0 Contents
1. Executive summary ...... 3 2. Rationale for research ...... 8 3. International and national literature on Child Impact Assessments ...... 10 International examples ...... 16 City of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada ...... 17 4. The New Zealand context: relevant New Zealand legislation ...... 18 Local Government Act 2002 ...... 18 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) ...... 18 5. Two case studies ...... 21 Overview ...... 21 Aims ...... 21 Methods ...... 21 Recruitment ...... 21 Case Study I: Auckland City Council ...... 23 Case Study II: Manukau City Council ...... 31 Councils that did not proceed ...... 36 6. Discussion ...... 38 Multi-skilled, motivated and cohesive group ...... 38 Supportive strategic and policy environment ...... 39 Council expertise well matched with external expertise ...... 39 Good quality information ...... 39 Adequate budget ...... 40 Early engagement in policy review processes ...... 40 Meaningful participation of children ...... 41 Acceptance of children’s views ...... 41 Participation of child-focused agencies ...... 42 Inter-departmental communication in councils ...... 42 Dedicated Child Advocate ...... 43 Exploratory approach ...... 43 Practical and user-friendly process ...... 44 Transparent process ...... 45 Sector transience ...... 45 Senior management and political commitment ...... 45 The family of impact assessments ...... 46 Affirmative framework ...... 47 7. Template for implementation ...... 48 8. Conclusions ...... 53 9. Bibliography ...... 57 Appendix I ...... 59 Appendix II ...... 64 Appendix III ...... 66 Child Impact Assessment Project Reference Group members ...... 66 Child Impact Assessment meeting ...... 66 Appendix IV ...... 69 International examples ...... 69 Swedish model ...... 69
1 Commissioner for Children initiatives in Scotland and Northern Ireland70 Finnish model ...... 70 City of London, England ...... 71 Appendix V ...... 71
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1. Executive summary
Child Impact Assessment involves assessing a proposed policy, decision or activity to determine its likely impact on children. It can be seen as one way in which signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child can fulfil their obligation under Article 3(1) to ensure the best interests of the child become a primary consideration in all actions affecting children, including actions undertaken by governmental bodies.
Although children and young people are a significant group in Aotearoa-New Zealand, with under-20-year-olds comprising nearly 30% of the total population (Statistics New Zealand, 2007), their interests are not routinely taken into account in governmental decision-making processes. Yet there are good reasons for systematically considering children’s best interests, including:
1. Children are citizens; 2. Children are largely excluded from decision-making processes; 3. Children make greater use of and have a greater dependence upon public services; 4. Child wellbeing is as vital to the nation’s future sustainability as a healthy environment, society and economy; 5. Children are more likely than any other sector to experience poverty; 6. Children are more vulnerable to adverse circumstances; 7. Children’s issues are not highly visible in government processes.
The importance of creating greater awareness of children’s strengths and needs when developing policies, allocating funding and delivering services is therefore crucial. The benefits of an enhanced understanding by decision-makers of children’s needs are potential cost savings where services and children’s needs are aligned. Child impact assessments are one mechanism that can raise awareness and facilitate action.
Child impact assessment is an emerging field of practice internationally and in New Zealand, with predominantly theoretical contributions dominating the discourse thus far. Where child impact assessments have been undertaken internationally, these have largely been at a state legislative level. The New Zealand Office of the Children's Commissioner was interested in testing the feasibility and effectiveness of child impact assessments locally, specifically at the local government level of democracy. The Commission contracted AUT University’s Local Government Centre to undertake child impact assessment projects in a sample of local councils and to report on the implementation processes and outcomes. UNICEF provided additional resourcing in supporting this venture, and an external Reference Group was assembled to support and guide the project. The age bracket identified for this research was children aged under 18 years.
As part of this work, a literature review was undertaken prior to the New Zealand-based implementation pilots. This review suggested that for child impact assessments to be
3 successfully integrated into an organisation (though not specifically into a council), it was preferable that a range of factors existed in situ. The literature suggested that successful development, implementation and evaluation of child impact assessment that focussed upon “the best interests of the child” needed:
¥ senior organisational and political commitment; ¥ an adequate budget; ¥ a supportive strategic and policy environment; ¥ a multi-skilled group of staff; ¥ clarity of purpose; ¥ transparent and replicable steps; ¥ a practical and user-friendly process; ¥ to be carried out early in the policy / review process; ¥ good quality local qualitative and quantitative data; ¥ the meaningful participation of children, as well as the participation of agencies that advance children’s interests; ¥ solutions and alternatives to be presented; ¥ to demonstrate how the assessment process was making a positive difference for the organisation; ¥ good communication of findings; ¥ monitoring of actual impacts for local children; and, ¥ to be an ongoing rather than a one-off process.
Child impact assessments were piloted in Auckland City and Manukau City Councils. These are both metropolitan-based councils serving populations of 401,000 and 335,000 people respectively. An AUT researcher worked alongside both Auckland and Manukau City child advocates to identify which council policy or project could most usefully be adopted for piloting a child impact assessment. Simultaneously, the pilot also advanced the advocates’ aspirations to promote the best interests of local children with their colleagues. Auckland City decided to canvass the opinions of children who lived in the Central Business District (CBD) so as to influence the council’s Victoria Quarter Plan of inner-city development; Manukau City wished to work with local children to better understand the continuous litter problem between dairies and schools within a broader waste management approach.
While neither council completed a full assessment cycle, from identifying the policy to producing an assessment report and monitoring, valuable lessons were learnt. These must, however, be seen as preliminary and therefore treated with some caution; this is not only due to the fact that the process was not completed in the pilots, but also because the two councils are not representative of local government generally in New Zealand. Furthermore, there are a range of tools available to support children’s issues and needs being placed at the centre of decision-making in local government; child impact assessment is one of those tools. However, by combining the lessons learned from the literature and with those learned from the pilots, we can identify some in situ factors which, if already present in the council, may help support the successful implementation of a child impact assessment. These include:
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¥ organisational and/or individual goodwill towards children’s views; ¥ good inter-departmental and external relationships; ¥ staff with responsibilities for children’s issues; ¥ adequate resourcing; ¥ experience with other types of impact assessment; ¥ good quality information; and, ¥ a supportive strategic and policy environment.
In terms of the child impact assessment process itself, factors which may help staff to develop a process which is more likely to be successful include:
¥ having an assessment framework that is affirming of children’s interests, rather than utilising a deficit or negative approach; ¥ using an exploratory project management approach that encourages trial and error; ¥ a practical and user-friendly process that focuses on the best interests of the child(ren); ¥ a multi-skilled, motivated and cohesive working group; and ¥ documenting the process to build organisational knowledge and skills.
Integrating what was learnt from the literature review with these subsequent implementation pilots, the researchers propose a six-step process for undertaking a child impact assessment in the local government environment:
1. Screening 2. Scoping 3. Information gathering and developing questions 4. Assessment 5. Reporting 6. Monitoring and evaluation
At the heart of this cycle are the two core purposes of local government in New Zealand, namely:
¥ To enable democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of, communities; and ¥ To promote the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of communities, in the present and for the future (Local Government Act 2002, Section 10), with the ‘best interests of the child’ as the watermark which sits behind these dual purposes.
Successfully implementing the first Child Impact Assessments into your council
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What? Child Impact Assessment involves assessing Why? UNCROC principles and local government a proposed policy, decision or activity with ’the best laws and policies mandate children’s meaningful interests of the child’ central to the assessment. It involvement in council business. The requirement links with existing impact assessments in New sends a signal to decision makers about the rights of Zealand which broadly encapsulate ‘environmental’ children; the process increases awareness of and ‘social’ issues. Child Impact Assessments children’s interests; which cumulatively may achieve present solutions and alternatives to the policy or a mainstreaming of children’s interests and needs activity being assessed. into policy and practice over time.
6. Monitor and 5. Report Evaluate Best interests of the child the of interests Best
Enable democratic local
4. decision-making and Sustainable engagement with children’s issues 1. Screen Assessment action, and promote social, economic, which facilitates positive environmental and wellbeing outcomes cultural wellbeing
3. Gather info & develop 2. Scope questions
Who? Motivated and cohesive team members When? Child Impact Assessments begin with who collectively understand relevant local and small, discreet projects, ideally at an early national policies and strategies; undertaking stage of the policy development cycle. The research and providing analysis; children’s issues, assessment needs to be framed affirmatively, and local government. Meaningful participation and use an exploratory approach. To succeed, takes time and children’s schedules of schooling, it requires supportive strategies & policies; recreation, cultural and family commitments do adequate resourcing; relationships; goodwill; a not easily allow for that indulgence. However user-friendly process; quality local data; and an children’s perspectives are beneficial to include in internal advocate. a child impact assessment, along with other child- specific knowledge-bases.
6 The assessment process will not necessarily be as linear as these steps suggest. However, every step supports every other step and collectively they can create a brief or comprehensive assessment. Each step is important, no step is redundant.
An important addendum is that this report explores the initiation of an inaugural child impact assessment process in metropolitan-based councils. The research timelines associated with this implementation work did not sufficiently allow for an analysis of the best mechanisms by which to sustainably continue child impact assessment processes in councils. Hence no practical evidence was acquired which can respond to this latter area of enquiry. Some tentative findings are presented in this report’s conclusions which offer factors that can possibly support local councils undertaking Child Impact Assessments sustainably.
7 2. Rationale for research
Child Impact Assessment involves assessing a proposed policy, decision or activity with ’the best interests of the child’ central to the assessment, rather than at the margins of decision making (Hanna et al 2006). It is an emerging field of practice in Aotearoa-New Zealand and internationally, with literature that has largely pursued arguments as to why it is important to give consideration to the needs of children in policy and decision- making processes, as opposed to detailing mechanisms by which to give effect to these considerations systemically. Where child impact assessments have been undertaken internationally, these have largely been at a state legislative level.
The Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC) and AUT’s Local Government Centre (LGC) wished to investigate how councils in New Zealand considered the impact of their activities on children. The aims of this project were:
¥ to identify issues for local government to consider when assessing the impact of a policy, decision or activity on children and young people aged 18 and under; ¥ to present effective methods for councils to identify their impacts on children and young people and to maximise positive impacts; ¥ to increase understanding of issues in implementing child impact assessment in councils; and, ¥ to undertake case studies on child impact assessment with councils.
The age bracket identified for this research was children aged under 18 years.
In formulating this investigation, UNICEF New Zealand lent financial support and credibility to this project, as these project aims concurred with their global Child Friendly Cities1 programme. Additionally, a Reference Group was convened, with representatives from local government, impact assessment, social development, the Families Commission, child advocacy, and academia. The group guided the review of literature, the potential child impact assessment implementation opportunities and challenges, and the subsequent pilot project reporting. This expert knowledge helped to steer the research and provided very useful contextual depth to the subsequent findings. The full review of their contributions is found in Appendix III.
In contextualising this project, a targeted and small scale literature review was undertaken, the condensed findings of which are outlined in Section Three. This review reflects the most up-to-date information about child impact assessment implementation processes internationally so as to facilitate the pilot project sites’ capacity to undertake child impact assessments here in New Zealand. A specific and analogous overview of a Canadian local councils’ work in this sphere has been included to help demonstrate the multifaceted approaches needed and utilised in such work.
It became apparent in scoping this entire project that there was a need to join the local government operating environment with the expression of children’s needs within that environment. Therefore, a model which connected the Local Government Act 2002 with
1 See http://www.childfriendlycities.org/pdf/cfc_booklet_eng.pdf
8 this child-orientated work was developed so as to facilitate councils to strategically place this work into their core operating business. This is outlined in Section Four. Within this model, the key international convention explicit to children, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC), needed to be acknowledged, as New Zealand is a signatory to this Convention and it frames much child-orientated policy in Aotearoa-New Zealand. A paramount principal of UNCROC, ‘in the best interests of the child’, became a watermark to this model. Around that watermark sit the two key purposes of New Zealand’s Local Government Act 2002: to enable democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of, communities; and, to promote the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of communities, in the present and for the future.
Section Five describes the two child impact assessment case studies undertaken in the selected councils. It includes the original research aims, and the anticipated methods and roles of each party engaged in the pilots. It then proceeds to outline the actual processes followed, as well as examining the outcomes to date.
The findings of the literature review are assessed alongside the findings of the pilots in Section Six. Eighteen inter-related themes are outlined which are deemed to affect the development and implementation of child impact assessments. These are contextualised with the project Reference Group’s predictions about the effective implementation of child impact assessments.
From the evidence and practice, a template has been developed and is detailed in Section Seven. “Successfully implementing the first Child Impact Assessment into your council” (see p.47) outlines the six steps needed when implementing a child impact assessment. Further detail pertinent to each of the six steps is also outlined so as to guide a council’s inaugural implementation process.
Final conclusions are reflected upon in Section Eight, which summarise the key factors when establishing a child impact assessment in a New Zealand council. Other factors which could support the sustainable delivery of a child impact assessment in councils are also proffered. A listing of research resources that have contributed to this project are acknowledged in Section Nine.
9 3. International and national literature on Child Impact Assessments
The project required an up-to-date analysis of relevant literature to support an effective implementation process of the pilot child impact assessment projects into councils. The data searched included assessment methods, content and processes which have been utilised for child impact assessment purposes. The complete literature review is available on the internet2.
Angus’ (2007) report notes that little material is available on the implementation of child impact assessments and believes that this “…reflects the fact that while child impact assessment has often been recommended, it has less often been implemented, and its impact on policy development and decision making has not been well evaluated” (p.4).
The literature expresses a range of reasons why assessing the impact upon children of existing or new policies, legislation, regulations, budgets, organisational or administrative structures, facilities, initiatives, decision-making processes, guidelines and/or proposals is a useful proposition to consider. The rationale behind child impact assessments, according to the literature includes:
1. Children are largely excluded from decision making processes, with no voting ability and limited advocacy power except through adults; 2. Their greater use of and dependence on public services, the high probability of adverse effects on children when these fail, and their poor access to complaints mechanisms and redress; 3. Child wellbeing is as vital to the nation as a healthy environment, society and economy, yet is rarely given the same level of priority. A positive impact on children today is an investment in the society of the future; 4. Children are more likely than any other sector to experience poverty and its effects3; 5. Children in New Zealand are not doing well on a number of measures, partly through policies that ignore impacts on children4; and 6. Government structures and processes tend to fail children, with responsibilities fragmented across agencies, a low level of visibility of children in government processes and frequent prioritising of more influential political agendas.
Hodgkin (1999) argues that children’s issues tend to get eclipsed by those of adults, and that for the six reasons outlined above, children should receive priority among the many target groups for which proposals should be vetted. The Swedish Children’s
2 See http://www.ipp.org.nz/localgovtresources.htm#impact 3 Ministry of Social Development (2007:61. Table EC3.1). This data demonstrates that children aged <18 years were the single largest age grouping living in low-income households. In 2004, 23% New Zealand children lived in low-income housing 4 UNICEF (2007) found that New Zealand children were 16th of 24 OECD countries for an aggregate measure of ‘material well-being' (based on pre-2006 figures). New Zealand children were 24th of 25 OECD countries for 'health and safety'; and 17th of 24 OECD countries for educational well-being. However, in some individual wellbeing measures New Zealand has done reasonably well.
10 Ombudsman emphasised this point when she succinctly noted: “democracy takes time, but we never discuss the time and resources needed for democracy for grown ups. This is democracy for children, and resources should not be a barrier” (All Party Parliamentary Group for Children, 2007, p.13).
Many different forms of impact assessment exist in New Zealand and internationally; these can be broadly encapsulated as being environmental and social. Environmentally- focused assessments have been present in New Zealand for some time due to legislative requirements in the Resource Management Act 1991 requiring councils to monitor impacts upon their local environment, for present and future management issues. Some of the sub-categories of environmental impact assessment include biodiversity, climate change, forestry, fisheries, disasters and conflict assessments5. The social assessment category has included family, indigenous, participation, gender and health impact assessments, which are receiving varying degrees of interest politically in New Zealand. For example, considerable resources and expertise have been applied to develop a Health Impact Assessment Unit within the Ministry of Health.
Opportunities exist for child impact assessment to integrate with other systems, such as health and family impact assessments. However, a number of councils have voiced resistance to becoming engaged in health impacts, as they see health as being beyond their sphere of responsibility (Child Impact Assessment Reference Group, 2008). New Zealand colleagues working in the impact assessments field would wish to broaden existing social impact assessment parameters to include children, rather than fracture the sector with another specific-population assessment tool. However, subsuming child impact assessments within broader impact assessment processes may not enhance children’s visibility in council (or social or environmental) policy and planning. Indeed it may render children invisible again. It is worthwhile noting the New Zealand Association of Impact Assessments’ (NZAIA) own Objectives and Ethical Guidelines, where neither children nor children’s needs are explicitly identified in their information pages6.
Table I (below) is adapted from Hanna et al (2006), and also utilizes the 2007 British All Party Parliamentary Group for Children discussions, and Corrigan’s (2006) work to describe potential benefits and drawbacks of child impact assessments. These benefits and drawbacks do not specifically relate to the New Zealand context or particularly to local government. However they do potentially offer indicative information that could be useful to the New Zealand council-based pilots and are included here so as to contextualise this work.
5 See: www.iaia.org 6 See: http://www.nzaia.org.nz/Info/Objectives.htm
11 Table I: Potential Benefits of Child Impact Potential Drawbacks of Child Impact Assessments Assessments Decisions are informed by knowledge of what Child impact reporting is not a panacea, and predicting all effects on contributes to and detracts from children’s children in all cases is impossible. Plus, children’s needs change. wellbeing and aspirations. However, any legislative or policy development process has this susceptibility. It can increase intersectoral collaboration in the Intersectoral collaboration is often difficult to build and maintain. pursuit of better outcomes, as good outcomes for The process used must work for all concerned, enhance the children fall across multiple organisations and decision making process and promote collaboration rather than sectors (i.e. health, housing, justice, education etc). mire organisational processes down. Could support more transparent policy and decision Being visible does not guarantee being heard, and children and making processes, and might improve child advocates may be (repeatedly) disappointed by this aspect of accountability. democracy. Can avoid preventable blunders that can arise when Practice can consist of a one-off assessment near the end of the children’s interests are overlooked. process, thus potentially missing earlier opportunities to effectively shape policy. Expertise and infrastructure to support child impact Child advocacy agencies have many existing responsibilities and assessments is developing in New Zealand e.g. roles. They cannot easily or quickly shift their focus to supporting Office of the Children’s Commissioner, academic Child Impact Assessments. centres, NGO’s, Ministry of Youth Development. Better coordination of efforts towards better Institutionalising the best interests of children means that the outcomes and quality of life for children and purpose can become obscured by the process. Checklists and/or families. implication statements can become little more than compliance reporting. Child impact assessments are complementary to the Child impact assessments create confusion for agencies where aspirations of health impact assessment and social other impact assessment tools are being considered, or already impact assessment tools being used A step-by-step assessment approach is particularly A lack of obligation on policy-makers to carry out Child Impact useful for upskilling policy and non-policy staff who Assessments exists, as does the lack of sanctions where these may not know how to assess the potential impact of assessments are not adhered to or not fully carried out. Quality of conceptual policy proposals. implementation can vary. The meaningful (vs. tokenistic) participation of Working with communities is far from easy; impact assessments children is important and desirable tend to be “top down” processes; community relationships take time to build and decisions are often needed faster than these processes allow (Hanna et al, 2006:5). Enabling informed participation from children (and other people) on what are often complex issues can be difficult, as is managing people’s expectations about their influence upon the eventual decisions. New and existing local child-specific data is sourced, There are often data issues and difficulties disaggregating data for consolidated and used. children, and difficulties identifying specific impacts for children, due to complexity or lack of information available.
While there are few published evaluations of child impact assessments, the literature nonetheless posits a number of key factors which are thought to increase the likelihood of child impact assessment processes being successfully implemented into an organisation. These factors are summarised below:
¥ senior organisational and political commitment; ¥ adequate budget; ¥ supportive strategic and policy environment; ¥ a multi-skilled group of staff; ¥ clarity of purpose; ¥ transparent and replicable steps;
12 ¥ a practical and user-friendly process; ¥ carried out early in the policy / review process; ¥ good quality local qualitative and quantitative data; ¥ the meaningful participation of children, as well as the participation of agencies that advance children’s interests; ¥ presenting solutions and alternatives; ¥ demonstrating how the assessment process was making a positive difference for council; ¥ good communication of findings; ¥ monitoring of actual impacts for local children; and, ¥ an ongoing rather than a one-off process.
These points reflect high-quality and generic project management requirements and techniques. The difference is that if ‘the best interests of the child’ are to become central to an organisations’ decision making in a sustainable future-thinking way, then it may be that significant organisational shifts will be needed on every one of these points. Each of these bulleted points is discussed in more detail in the ensuing pages.
There is a range of tools available to local government to place children more centrally in its decision-making processes. One sophisticated system is UNICEF’s Child Friendly Cities Toolkit7. Other child advocacy tools can also potentially increase the visibility and understanding of children’s rights and needs to local government decision makers, such as:
¥ Child Advocate roles at staff and political levels; ¥ a policy or strategy adopted by Council that sets out why and how the best interests of children will be taken into account; ¥ council reporting processes which require the impacts on particular population groups, including children, to be considered and addressed; ¥ particular processes that are triggered when decisions which are deemed to have a significant impact on children are being made; and, ¥ the resourcing of a community-based agency or external body to undertake child impact assessments on key issues or decisions or as part of the policy function (for example, the multi-agency Child Advocacy Group advises the Manukau City Council on children’s issues; their aim is to reduce child poverty and to promote an environment for children's health matters to be effectively addressed; another example is the United Kingdom’s National Children’s Bureau, which was funded to undertake child impact statements of selected legislative Bills in England8).
The literature suggests that child impact assessments may be more successfully implemented into an organisation with some of these advocacy tools in place. However, once the decision has been taken by an organisation to undertake a child impact assessment, the literature notes other preparatory work to be commenced; namely, to attract quality people into the process. In combining the necessary
7 See http://www.childfriendlycities.org/pdf/cfc_booklet_eng.pdf 8 See http://www.ncb.org.uk
13 knowledge-bases for an assessment team from Angus (2007) and Ministry of Health (2007), the following skills could be useful in a child impact assessment team:
¥ research and analysis skills; ¥ information about UNCROC and other relevant rights and outcome goals for children; ¥ an understanding of the position of children and their interests and needs in respect of the proposal being assessed; ¥ access to data relevant to the issue, including relevant local and national policies, legislation and strategies; and, ¥ knowledge of the evidence base for predictions of impact.
In a council context, the additional expertise of understanding how to navigate local government would be pertinent, including organisational consultation processes.
The first task for the assessment team would be to agree and follow an assessment process. Table II is a synopsis of the key features from existing international impact assessment models (Corrigan, 2006:44-45). These have been modified so as to apply to children’s issues.
Table II: Common Child Impact Assessment Steps (adapted from Corrigan, 2006)
Screening While it may be ideal to assess every policy, activity and decision, the resource and administrative burden makes this untenable. A screening or filtering process is common to most impact assessment procedures and contextualises the assessment environment e.g. identification of other organisational decision-making processes relevant to children. A clear and transparent method for screening is required so that it can be easily replicated and measured.
Scoping The decision is made as to whether a brief or full assessment will be undertaken at this step. Whichever depth is determined, it will be useful to document why it is the most appropriate tool to be used.
Core questions The development of a coherent set of questions that can be adapted to different contexts and which embrace a whole child perspective.
Assessment The analytical process of carrying out the impact assessment. The methods used should be clearly explained and justified. Many different methods (see Appendix V) exist by which to identify potential impacts and determine mitigating factors for children.
Consultation Almost all impact assessment processes recommend consultation with key stakeholders on significant or substantial policies. The active involvement of children in issues that affect their lives is desirable. Many of the assessment methods give emphasis to this.
(cont’d over)
14 Identify and/or develop alternatives In all impact assessments the identification of alternative options to the proposal being considered is raised. Therefore projected impacts and possible redress options need to be made clear.
Reporting All impact assessment mechanisms produce some form of report; a non-technical summary report is also desirable. The audience’s informational needs have to be matched with the content to facilitate uptake of the key messages from the child impact assessment.
Monitor and evaluate This is especially important in the early days of implementing child impact assessment when the effectiveness of the process itself needs to be scrutinised by the organisation, as well as monitoring the actual outcomes for local children.
The detail in each of these suggested process steps supplements many of the previously identified factors from the literature which were considered important in enabling a successful child impact assessment to occur. This table highlights the complex nature of a rigorous impact assessment, as well as the significant levels of resourcing required.
The supporting literature to this table’s content acknowledges the importance of avoiding bureaucratic burden in undertaking separate and discrete impact assessment processes for every possible major group and stakeholder served (or not served) by local government, such as children, migrants, older adults, disabled people, the environment etc. Therefore, a targeted and selective approach of selecting a policy to undertake a child impact assessment in and where the outcomes can positively affect children’s lives is important. The literature suggests that it will be useful to develop in-house criteria upon which to decide what council policy(s) to assess. Pragmatic considerations include timelines, staff availability including the necessary mix of professional skills, and financial resources. The policies or programmes selected need to sit within a broader strategic view, so that assessments do not become ‘knee-jerk’ exercises, but eventually, part of a longer-term commitment to a more child-friendly district, city or region. This correlates with a common theme in the literature which is that child impact assessment is a process not a one-off activity (Payne 2000:11), and that it should be undertaken at key stages in the policy, project, legislative or decision making process so as to maximise its effect. There is a balance though; becoming engaged too early in the decision making process may only allow for general input, whilst being involved too late may mean that the significant decisions have already been taken and children’s issues cannot be integrated.
In the Template for Implementation section (p.47), these process steps are condensed into six steps which take into account the lessons learnt from the pilot sites.
As with any new tool, it is important to demonstrate how it makes a positive difference for the designated population group(s), and for the institution. This is true for child impact assessments in councils. There is a catch in the monitoring of the assessment process and of the children’s outcomes; both are very difficult to evaluate meaningfully or quickly because changes in children’s lives happen slowly. Additionally, the child
15 population is transient, as they move from childhood to adolescence and into adulthood. This can mean that issues of importance in one generation of children may not be a priority for the following generation. However, a mechanism by which to track outcomes for local children, perhaps through indicators, is important. Similarly, reporting on the assessment process itself is important to different (internal) audiences and needs to be given consideration in the final documentation and communication. Ideally, the process will be sufficiently robust to allow for its future replication, thus building a local body of knowledge about local children.
On the following page, the example of Edmonton City, in Alberta, Canada demonstrates how senior organisational and political commitment has facilitated the pursuit of child- specific initiatives. Edmonton is sufficiently analogous with the New Zealand local government context, in its Westminster-based tradition of governance and government structures, and provides a contemporary working example of child impact assessment processes in local government. This example also demonstrates how political will has enabled budgets and publicity around children’s issues to ensue.
In summarising the literature review findings, the evidence is not equivocal; Corrigan notes that “there is currently a lack of concrete evidence that policy proofing or impact assessment in relation to children or other groups has demonstrably changed policy itself” (2006:46). However, she does note that child impact assessments have been found to result in benefits to an institution:
¥ the requirement sends a signal about the rights of children; ¥ the process increases awareness of children’s interests; and, ¥ over time these mechanisms may achieve a mainstreaming of consideration of children’s interests into policy and practice.
International examples
The UNICEF Child Friendly Cities provides very good guidance for councils and includes a range of case studies from across the globe. These examples are current to 2003/2004. Other specific examples sourced through the literature review from Sweden, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Finland gravitate towards a state-wide approach, and provide excellent frames of reference and detail for any legislative reviews. The Scottish example details both an “initial” (Generic Initial Screening Form) and, if warranted, a “full” impact analysis (Children’s Rights Impact assessment) to follow when assessing the best interests of children alongside a policy or activity9. The differentiation of “initial” and “full” is made because an initial scoping enables a brief child rights impact assessment of the chosen policy or activity to broadly examine positive and negative impacts for children. The full impact assessment template works through a series of more in-depth questions, about information, consultation, analysis, recommendations, publicity and monitoring of the policy or activity. The City of London, England (1995) example was also included because it is an extraordinarily comprehensive and progressive approach. Each of these five examples is found in Appendix IV, with fuller explanatory information offered in the project’s Literature Review. What the
9 Accessible at http://www.sccyp.org.uk
16 international examples consistently demonstrate is the need for a systemic approach based on core child-focused (most often UNCROC-derived) values. This focus may be because UNCROC is delivered primarily at the national level. Edmonton and London were the only documented (in English) examples of a local government-led Child Impact Assessment process, although the UNICEF Child Friendly Cities is also local government.
City of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
The City of Edmonton local authority in Alberta, Canada provides a contemporary council-based example where children’s needs and strengths are integrated into council outputs. It is sufficiently analogous with the New Zealand local government context and provides a working example of child impact assessment processes in local government. Edmonton’s local authority developed a Child Impact Assessment Tool through which the impact of programmes, policies and initiatives on children and youth could be examined. This tool was strongly linked with the overarching council departments’ Integrated Service Strategy document. This Child Impact Assessment process was required to be practical, simple to use, visible and visionary, with the goal of putting Edmonton at the leading edge of child-friendly cities (Yates 2005:372). The tool was designed to: ¥ educate various groups about children’s services; ¥ advocate for a child-friendly Edmonton; ¥ integrate child-focused efforts into the business planning processes of the City; ¥ focus on the key issues of importance to the children and youth of Edmonton. (ibid: 373).
The content of the tool was developed using the Council’s own strategic goals as well as utilising international child frameworks such as UNCROC and UNICEF’s Child Friendly Cities. Feedback from local children and young people also contributed to the tool’s content. It involved five steps: 1. programme selection – certain departmental programmes, policies, services and amenities were selected for assessment to pilot the tool; 2. template application – use of a standard form/template to comment on the impact of the programme on children and youth that could be easily used by staff. This is a collaborative process involving individual rating, group discussion and facilitated mediation; 3. improvements identified; 4. decision points – decisions made in terms of if and how changes can be made to the programme; 5. programmes enhanced – more child friendly outcomes and a more child friendly Edmonton.
However a political shift occurred which saw an adaptation to this approach with the subsequent Child Friendly Lens being less prescriptive and more user-friendly for council staff, with an eye to external businesses and community agencies’ future uptake. The Lens has five “views”: ¥ children have voice, influence, and understand responsibility to themselves and others; ¥ children feel safe and are protected; ¥ children join in and participate freely; ¥ children play, have fun, make friends and develop skills; and ¥ children feel welcome, respected, and have a sense of belonging.
The document asks users to seek responses (on a scale 1-5) from a number of populations alongside a series of statements which are grouped with the five views (total = 40 statements). It may be that only one view is assessed, or any combination of views, depending on what proposal is being assessed. In this way, an overall assessment can be made as to the child-friendliness of a proposal. The responses can assist the self- directed evaluator to complete an “action” which is associated with each of the five views. There is no explicit monitoring or enforcement of lens assessment results by another party. The Child Friendly Lens sits within the overarching Child Friendly Edmonton Strategy (2006). This latter document has 3 goals and 7 objectives which cumulatively interact to build a city-wide community of practice whereby children’s issues, needs and strengths are integrated into core council business and beyond into other city agencies. A sample of actions within this wider Strategy includes:
¥ the delivery of a status report on Edmonton children and youth; ¥ advocacy, e.g., national child day, luncheon for community leaders to hear from child health advocates, external and internal partners with children’s agencies; ¥ training of City of Edmonton staff with leading international colleagues; ¥ the employment of a Child Friendly Edmonton Coordinator; and ¥ a cross-departmental committee to move forward this strategic agenda.
A menu of other approaches, and organisational building blocks, support the Lens’ utility, and vice versa, through the overall child-focussed strategic direction. Concurrently, the political will is very strong in Edmonton, with two of the twelve councillors nominated to support child- specific initiatives. Cumulatively, this creates huge and supportive momentum for child-focussed action and change across the city (Child Friendly Edmonton Coordinator, January 2008).
17 4. The New Zealand context: relevant New Zealand legislation
In New Zealand, previous attempts have been made to integrate children’s needs into local government processes. Most recently, this has been through the Agenda for Children Making it Happen Implementation Plan (Institute of Public Policy et al, 2002) which was developed by national agencies. In this document, one of the seven Action Areas identified seeks to “improve local government and community planning for children” (Ibid: 11-12). The subsequent seven action points associated with this Action Area encapsulate a good breadth of inclusive processes and possibilities, which some councils and agencies have acted upon e.g. the completion of the Toolkit for Child and Youth Participation (Local Government New Zealand, 2004).
To facilitate councils’ specific uptake of child impact assessment, this project sought guidance from the most pertinent New Zealand legislation affecting local government and affecting children, namely the Local Government Act 2002 (“LGA” or “the Act”) and the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (“UNCROC”).
New Zealand Local Government Act 2002
The purpose of the New Zealand Local Government Act 2002 (LGA), and its three amendments, is to provide for democratic and effective local government that recognises the diversity of New Zealand communities. Section 10 of the Act states the two specific purposes of local government as being:
¥ to enable democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of, communities; and ¥ to promote the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of communities, in the present and for the future.
The Act requires Councils to prepare annual plans and budgets in consultation with their communities and to report annually on these plans. Concurrently, Councils are explicitly required to take a sustainable development approach (Section 3.d). A core function towards achieving sustainable development is through consultation with local people. Part 6 of the Act comprehensively outlines the legal minimum for consultation and decision making provisions to be undertaken by Councils. These include specific mechanisms in which authorities should facilitate the involvement of Māori and other communities, as well as fostering the capacity for Māori to meaningfully participate. The capacity for consultation between Council and local communities and agencies is a greatly enhanced mechanism in this new Act compared with the previous legislation (Office of the Auditor General, 2006:40) and is a possible hook by which children and other citizens can exert their right to be involved in all council business and decisions.
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC)
Whilst general forms of impact assessment pertinent to children’s needs and rights may have existed in the late 20th century in various legislative fora internationally, UNCROC
18 brought child impact assessment processes into focus via the UN Committee overseeing the Convention’s implementation with member-states (Hanna et al, 2006). This Convention was ratified by New Zealand in March 1993, and is applicable to children aged under 18 years. The Ministry of Youth Development Te Manatū Whakahiato is the Crown agency responsible for reporting on New Zealand’s progress in implementing the Convention back to the United Nations.
There are 54 UNCROC articles in total, which are inter-connected. However, there are four general principles which are foundational to UNCROC, namely:
¥ all children have the right to protection from discrimination on any grounds; ¥ the best interests of the child should be the primary consideration in all matters affecting the child; ¥ children have the rights to life, survival and development; and, ¥ all children have the right to an opinion and for that opinion to be heard in all contexts (Ministry of Youth Development, 2007).
In connecting these dual UNCROC and LGA strands together into a child impact assessment framework, ‘the best interests of the child’ UNCROC principle is the imperative specifically focused upon in the council-based case studies. However, rarely does a United Nations convention filter into New Zealand’s local government sphere and so this leading principle has been interpreted in this project as existing as a watermark alongside the dominant local government legislative environment. This is not in any way to suggest that the ‘the best interests of the child’ principle is weaker or less visible than the two essential local government approaches; rather, that it is appropriate for the legislative imperatives of both the state sector and local government to co-exist.
As no prototype existed which drew these two legislative threads together, the beginnings of a model was developed (Diagram I, over) during the piloting process so as to demonstrate the strategic path forward for local councils when working meaningfully with local children, and equally, to assist and legitimate children’s navigation into council decision-making processes.
19 Diagram I: An early model connecting UNCROC and the New Zealand Local Government Act 2002 so as to facilitate Child Impact Assessments
Best interests of the child the of interests Best
Enable democratic local Sustainable engagement with decision-making and action, children’s issues which and promote social, facilitates positive wellbeing economic, environmental and outcomes cultural wellbeing
This simplistic model attempts to assimilate the compatible aspirations of UNCROC and the Local Government Act 2002. The model is further extended in the Template for Implementation (Diagram II, p.47).
It is worth noting that there are small pockets of strong research being undertaken around New Zealand in child-specific public policy: for example, Claire Freeman’s (University of Otago) excellent work in and around Dunedin pertaining to how children experience their urban environment was brought to light through the literature review. Penelope Carroll’s (Massey University) impending research about families living in Auckland’s inner-city was also identified and which has been connected with relevant council-based policy staff. Concurrently, Massey University wishes to incorporate these child impact assessment findings into their case frame of knowledge, and have exchanged their evidence base with AUT.
20 5. Two case studies
This section fully describes the case studies undertaken in two selected councils. It also identifies the outputs and outcomes achieved in each council to date.
Overview
The decision was taken to localise this research by focusing predominantly on councils based in the Auckland region where the researchers were based. This was primarily for financial and logistical reasons. Therefore, any of the eight councils in the Auckland region would be considered. These include four large metropolitan councils, three smaller district councils, and the singular overarching regional council. In drafting up the broad criteria by which to recruit councils, the decision was taken to recruit a smaller council from outside of the Auckland region as a comparative case study location. It was considered financially prudent to pursue a Te Tai Tokerau-Northland council.
Aims
This phase of research set out to increase understanding of the issues when implementing child impact assessment in local government in New Zealand. This ambitious objective was to be fulfilled through piloting child impact assessment case studies in councils.
Methods
It was important to fit this research method with the existing policy environment, so that the findings could be easily correlated into the New Zealand context. The idea was not to present a predetermined child impact assessment blueprint of delivery to each council, but rather to encourage each council to have an evolving and developmental approach when undertaking their inaugural child impact assessment. The research method chosen for these case studies was participation action research (PAR) which is a social research method that promotes the use of evolving research processes and back- and-forth action steps, rather than a tightly planned, linear ‘one-way’ research process (Massey University, 2004, p.3).
Recruitment
The researchers originally intended to develop ideal pilot site criteria derived from evidence, local knowledge and existing practice. Councils that fitted these criteria would then be contacted by AUT and invited to participate in this process. Initial discussions were held with a number of councils in the greater Auckland region as well in Te Tai Tokerau-Northland region.
Once the selection of ideal councils had been completed, it was anticipated that discussions would be held between the researcher, the council-based personnel with responsibilities that include children’s issues and their colleagues connected with policy or programme areas that could have a child impact assessment undertaken. These
21 meetings would be coordinated by the council-based Child Advocate and would initially be of a promotional and/or trouble-shooting nature. Once a baseline understanding of child impact assessments had been reached between all parties, further discussions would require the researcher to work alongside staff so that local information and pertinent literature research findings could be connected in the creation of a locally- relevant child impact assessment implementation framework. It was considered important to take the time necessary to ensure that this foundational and unique framework would be useful, appropriate, and that it strategically fitted with each council’s policy environment. The actual sphere and depth of discussions with councils was quite different to that anticipated in the planning stages of the project.
What actually happened was that the dedicated child-youth advocate staff members from Manukau, Waitakere, and Auckland Cities expressed an interest to the Office of the Children's Commission (OCC) and AUT University about the child impact assessment work. This was rather than the Commission or AUT proactively seeking expressions of interest, and occurred without virtually any formal communications about the proposed pilots. The child advocate’s expression was often because of their own previous exposure to these assessment ideals. AUT and OCC discussed the project in detail with each of the three councils, specifically discussing the project’s aspirations, the projected financial costs to be incurred by each council, timelines, tasks, and possible outcomes.
The next step saw the council-based advocate attaining a mandate from their immediate manager to proceed with a child impact assessment trial most often using the justification that the project would expand the networks of people across council who could understand and pursue child-friendly programmes, policy, and planning etc. Each of the three councils followed this under-the-radar path. Related to this pitch by the advocate was that the assessment results would be sufficiently useful for other councils and external colleagues to utilise. The researcher’s role in this buy-in process was negligible, as the advocates undertook most of this work internally. The small role played by the researcher in this phase was in providing a generic overview of what child impact assessments were (see Appendix II for exemplar), why the Office of the Children's Commission was interested in pursuing this work with local government, and some pointers about what kind of council policies or programmes that could be considered for selection towards an assessment, given the international evidence.
Two cities drafted and agreed a formal agreement with the Commission. At this point, Waitakere City Council withdrew from the project due to the child and youth advocate’s change of role at the council, and Manukau City Council and Auckland City Council committed to undertaking child impact assessment processes, as detailed below.
22 Case Study I: Auckland City Council
Overview
Auckland City is the largest city in New Zealand and sits within the greater Auckland region. Based on 2006 census figures, there are 76,000 children aged 0-14 years (18% population) within the total Auckland City population of 404,600 people. The sheer number of child inhabitants is larger than the total population of many New Zealand towns, and gives a sense of the incredible challenges faced by this city council. Twenty three percent of Auckland residents speak two or more languages; 35% of working-age residents earn under $20,000 per annum, whilst 22% of Aucklanders earn over $50,000.
Existing strategic, policy and personnel environment
At the onset of the project in September 2007, council staff had responsibilities for children’s issues and needs alongside the Child and Youth Advocate. The commitment to undertake a child impact assessment was built upon an existing body of council plans and policies pertaining to children, specifically Growing up Together – Auckland City Council’s Child and Family Policy (2005). The overall aim of this policy is to make Auckland a nurturing, exciting and safe city for all children and their families. The policy defines children as aged from birth to 12 years and focuses on children within the context of the family environment. This policy explicitly includes a commitment to child impact assessments within the 2007-08 Annual Plan; therefore a budget was already available to support this project’s implementation.
Screening
It was important to ensure that this foundational and unique child impact assessment framework would strategically fit with the council’s policy environment, as this project was being established in the new (post-local body elections) environment. A screening assessment was conducted to determine which new or existing non-stereotypically child-focussed policy, process or programming option(s) would be suitable to undertake a child impact assessment. This followed international and local evidence which suggested that a non-stereotypical focus had more organisational benefits because new people who may not have encountered this approach could be upskilled about children’s issues. A number of projects or policies were considered by the Child and Youth Advocate for this pilot programme including road, footpath, and bicycle policies. However, the issue of intensive, high-density housing in the Central Business District (CBD) was an area where a child impact assessment could be carried out relatively easily and where the results would have the potential to shape and contribute to the provision of services for residents in the CBD.
Therefore, a review of who was living in apartments and their needs within ACC’s Victoria Quarter Plan (2006) and the wider CBD, using a child impact assessment process was considered a very good option as:
23 ¥ the assessment aligned with the Child and Family Policy Action Plan and with needs identified in the Auckland’s CBD Into the Future Strategy10 Action Plan Review; ¥ an existing relationship existed between the Social Policy team and the staff responsible for this Victoria Quarter and wider CBD output; ¥ it was not a stereotypical child-specific field of work; and ¥ a stipulated output in the Victoria Quarter Plan was for statutory guideline documents to be developed which answered “what family needs are in higher density living environments” (p.15).
Auckland City Council staff identified that the potential for further residential development in the Victoria Quarter Plan highlighted gaps in council information that a child impact assessment could address. Specifically, apartment developments are proposed near the two universities with some apartments being designed for single parents, so as to promote their tertiary study opportunities. Therefore canvassing opinions and perspectives about what is important for children is extremely timely for this forthcoming building project. Staff also saw this child impact assessment work as reflecting necessary best practice in their sector.
Council staff working on Central Business District (CBD) upgrades were very interested in the concept of child impact assessments. These staff were familiar with the 2006 census data that revealed that Auckland’s CBD is one of the fastest growing residential areas in the region and New Zealand. Specifically, of the nearly 18,000 CBD residents, 2499 are children: this is double the number of children resident since the 2001 census. Of this group, 603 were aged under 14 years. A recent council CBD-focussed workshop had noted an increase in new babies living in the CBD as well as a number of emerging issues for children and families living in apartments. The child impact assessment project was timely and linked with a range of strategies:
¥ Auckland’s CBD Into the Future Strategy: o The CBD redevelopment programme aims to enhance the CBD as a place to work, live, visit and do business. It will achieve this by providing a high- quality urban environment, promoting the competitive advantages of the CBD as a business location and promoting the CBD as a place for high- quality education, research and development (Annual Plan, 2007:82)11; ¥ District Plan – Central area section: The central area covers the part of downtown Auckland bounded by the motorway network, Stanley Street in Parnell and the waterfront; ¥ Victoria Quarter Plan12
10 The vision for Auckland’s CBD into the Future Strategy is that ‘in the next ten years Auckland’s CBD grow and consolidate its international reputation as one of the world’s most vibrant and dynamic business and cultural centres. 11 http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/documents/annualplan/plan2007/docs/annualplan2007.pdf 12 http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/documents/central/pdfs/part1410.pdf
24 Implementation
Within one month of discussions starting between AUT and Auckland City Council, the inaugural (internal council staff only) meeting was held in October 2007. At this meeting a synopsis of processes and key questions which would facilitate council’s engagement was shared between staff, the content of which had been largely developed by AUT. This information was extremely useful for council staff in progressing their thinking and in their ability to involve their colleagues. The meeting sketched out what child impact assessment was and how the CBD and Victoria Quarter work could benefit through being engaged in this work. Identified benefits included:
¥ the opportunity to use the results of this pilot project to improve programmes; ¥ greater opportunity to consider the needs of children in implementing their long term plans under the Local Government Act 2002; ¥ the capacity to better understand the strengths and needs of families in order to promote their social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing; and ¥ the potential to lead the way in developing best practice in child impact assessments.
A cross-council team including council’s Manager of City Planning; the CBD Transport Programme Manager; the CBD Community Advisor; and Social Policy team members worked collaboratively with AUT’s Local Government Centre Manager to design and operationalise the child impact assessment process. There was a constant outward looking approach in this team which sought to identify council staff who could support, benefit or otherwise link to this work. Subsequent meetings talked through a range of planning questions, perimeters and ideas:
¥ Who should be involved in the project - from council? Any other external partners need to be involved? ¥ Who will undertake the assessment? Write it up? Carry out analysis? ¥ Agree on assessment perimeters – which children are being considered and included? ¥ Agree on a framework: are there any kinds of measurable indicators? Is there a particular kind of information that will be useful now or in the future? ¥ Can children be involved in developing the scope of the assessment in any way? ¥ Who will develop the research methods?
Each of these issues was addressed with tasks being allocated to each contributing member.
25 Information gathering and question development
A priority was to identify existing reports and data, which could contribute to this work with a range of accessible and existing data being sourced both within council and through the university:
¥ maps (Auckland City Council); ¥ statistical analysis (Auckland City Council); ¥ New Zealand and international literature about children and metropolitan urban design issues as well as broader impact assessment literature (AUT); and ¥ listing of local childcare centres and schools [private and public] (Auckland City Council).
Additionally, the possibility of the informational areas to pursue with children was explored from each council officer’s perspective according to their immediate and future work outputs and the following core research question was agreed:
What is it like for children to live in Auckland’s CBD?
With this information in hand, the council’s Social Policy team authored the scoping and justification paper, which secured both the financial support and engagement across council. To investigate the research question further, New Zealand research (Witten et al, 2006) was sourced to help substantiate and shape questions. In this research, parents of young children who were asked to identify the range of services and amenities important to them in their caregiving roles. Parent’s top six domains were:
¥ sport and recreational facilities (included beaches, parks, libraries, clubrooms); ¥ public transport and communication (bus, train, ferry, public telephones, high- speed broadband); ¥ shopping facilities (dairies, cafés, banks, supermarkets, service stations); ¥ educational facilities (pre-school - tertiary options); ¥ health facilities (GP clinics, Plunket, pharmacies, hospitals); and ¥ social and cultural facilities (community centres, marae, churches, Citizen Advice Bureaux).
Other possible questions were discussed, promoted and rejected around the meeting table. Additional to this content-driven conversation were discussions about the research’s structure, whereby enquiry would progressively move from the micro “what children liked and didn’t like about their immediate home environment” towards the macro “what children liked and didn’t like about the entire building’s external (public and private) spaces”.
Research methods So as to hear directly from children, a range of qualitative methods were considered: focus groups; children’s Christmas party; and talking with visiting school students were all ideas that were canvassed. The research method chosen for the assessment was kanohi ki te kanohi (face-to-face) interviews with children. This was seen as an effective way to hear from children directly, because they could just talk and their responses
26 would not be reliant on their written comprehension. The interviews with children were carried out by the council’s youth cadet (herself aged 16 years) who received interview training and who was supported on-site by project team members during the interviews. This approach was seen by council as being both ethical and safe when talking with its youngest citizens.
The consultation approach was to “go to where the kids were”, and so in the months of January and February 2008, school holiday programmes and the library were the selected CBD-based interview locations. Children aged 12 years of age and under who lived in the CBD were interviewed. Twenty questions traversing children’s perceptions and experiences related to their home, relationships (kin, pets, friends), recreation, and transport were asked of each participant. Participant selection was informal, with the interviewer being mindful and inclusive of age, gender and ethnicity representation. Free zoo passes were given as thank-yous to the participants. Forty-four children participated in the interviews (7.3% of under 14 year old CBD residents).
A full outline of the qualitative research findings with the children is found in Appendix I. The leading issues identified by the 44 children included:
¥ their need for more space inside of their home (76% respondents) and outside of their home (43%); ¥ 60% of the children not liking the noise made by people, traffic, construction, music, ships, with some children speaking spontaneously about the resultant difficulty they had in getting sleep; ¥ 57% had friends nearby, although 68% respondent did not have extended family members nearby; ¥ Virtually no children had a pet (92%); ¥ 64% of the children had friendly neighbours, although 25% felt that their neighbours were only sometimes friendly, or were not friendly towards them; ¥ during their holiday period [of sustained sunny weather], 16% of the children had not played outside in the bush, climbing trees, or been at the park, whilst 43% had done so within the previous week; ¥ the majority of children (68%) lived with their mum and dad, or in a single-adult household (27%); and ¥ Almost all of the children had a parent who worked nearby (77%).
Hence, there were clearly positive opportunities as well as challenging issues which CBD-living children experienced, and these issues may well translate to other specific populations’ experiences of inner-city living. The identification of strengths, needs and issues for apartment-living people is a relatively new field of enquiry in New Zealand. The research question: “What is it like for children to live in Auckland’s CBD” was answered through the dual approaches of new information identified through the interviews and existing literature. However, there was a scarcity of literature from which to substantiate children’s urban living experiences, with the predominate literature focused upon adults’ experiences. This brought into sharp relief the value of the information gleaned through the qualitative phase of research.
27 The assessment of the accumulated evidence of children’s issues alongside the Victoria Quarter Plan did not specifically occur within the timeline of the research; however the Council’s Manager of City Planning was aware of and interested in the project’s findings.
Dissemination of Information
The Auckland City staff recognised the value of the information elicited for their own Victoria Quarter Plan review as being applicable beyond this work and towards other council projects. The research team identified a range of key council departments as being important to share these findings with:
¥ CBD Board; ¥ City Planning; ¥ Library/Art gallery; and ¥ Urban Design.
External agencies were also identified as being important to report to:
¥ Youthtown, YMCA, Central Library, Art Gallery (sites of holiday programmes); ¥ Auckland City Mission (sponsor of significant inner-city apartment development); and ¥ Children and their whanau-families.
The majority of departments and agencies had been contacted with a summary of the findings by the time of this report’s completion, with further connections being made with different elected member and officials’ committees.
Additionally there were conversations held about the possibility of extending the research by facilitating focus groups with children and parents/carers. These could be hosted through the Central Library and the schools identified in the survey. This research extension has yet to be actioned.
Outcomes of the process to date
The exit interviews with staff engaged in this project identified some clear operational outputs and strategic outcomes which emerged through the child impact assessment process. This phase of the child impact assessment process yielded useful information from council staff. For example, Auckland City Council invests heavily in staff training and collaboration is valued and supported by council management. Also, council clearly values research, hence their embracing of the project, of new information and knowledge and its potentially beneficial effects in council work programmes. Therefore knowledge was shared virally amongst staff and this project certainly provided an excellent forum for staff to become immersed in a new field of enquiry. The project profited significantly from the youth cadet’s involvement, and simultaneously, she acquired new skills and confidence through her training and facilitation of interviews with children. This was a very valuable contribution. The connection and engagement with the new Massey University research about families living in the CBD was made
28 through this child impact assessment work and was considered sufficiently important for council to have already identified a manager to liaise with Massey University.
Another key operational success noted by council staff was the availability of AUT expertise to coordinate and be continuously engaged in the research project, whilst significant staff turn-over occurred at the council. The working arrangements between council units and with AUT were also very strong and effective. In the future, council envisaged a specialist agency to train, support, mentor and facilitate other council’s into this work, and AUT’s Local Government Centre may well be the agency to do this. Additionally, more council-based staff have been exposed to child impact assessments, so when future assessments are undertaken, institutional knowledge exists to support their implementation in council groups not traditionally affiliated with explicitly incorporating children’s perspectives. All staff involved in the project noted their enthusiasm and interest in hearing directly from children, and of gaining an understanding of children’s issues and perspectives. Finally, the input of a 9 year old into the CBD resident’s newsletter was brought about through this project’s existence as staff who coordinated the CBD newsletter were triggered about the possibility of seeking a child’s perspective in that media. There has been positive feedback about the girl’s article and perspectives from the public.
In terms of evaluating the assessment process outcomes for local children, the challenge will be to maintain the momentum. The findings are now being conveyed through the council’s CBD Board, the Community Services Committee, the City Mission Development work, and the urban design team, with a view to influencing the District Planning processes. A Child Friendly Cities forum was coordinated by council, where AUT spoke about child impact assessment with council planners. A connection with Massey University has been established. Further, council’s communications and marketing team have already received calls from external agencies wishing to know more about this work. These each reflect a residual or flow-on effect from the initial child impact assessment process.
The visibility of children’s perspectives was considerably enhanced because of the consultation with children that occurred as part of this project, with a number of specific success factors identified by the staff involved:
¥ the identification of strategic and operational targets in which to direct the project; ¥ picking the right venue and time(s) to talk with children; ¥ having a younger person lead the consultations; ¥ having a constant contact person on the project who was visible, useful and available (from AUT in this instance); ¥ budget availability; ¥ partnership working arrangements between council units; ¥ partnership working arrangements between council and AUT; ¥ personal engagement and enjoyment in meeting and talking with diverse children, and of the impact assessment work; and ¥ exposure to childrens’ perspectives as a mechanism to test policy.
29 Auckland City Council Child Impact Assessment process timeline Item Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May 07 08 Recruit √ Brief (council colleagues) √ √ Screen (find a policy) √ √ Information gathering √ √ √ √ √ Assessment - - Reporting - - Monitor and evaluate - - Dissemination of √ √ information
The next step for Auckland City Council will be to identify channels through which to influence the Victoria Quarter Plan.
Conclusions
During the project, a restructure of council’s Community Development Services took place. At the end of the child impact assessment process, a number of council staff who were originally involved with the assessment had left council. The Community Programme Manager - Population now has responsibilities for the Child and Family Policy Action Plan within her broader community programme responsibilities. However, good hand-over has occurred by departing staff to remaining staff, with clear lines of communication and responsibility being articulated. Importantly, a diversity of council staff trialling a child impact assessment process augers well for local children because of the relatively wide communication of the consultation findings at a political and official level, as well as the staff’s enjoyment of the process.
The information gathered did not assess the Victoria Quarter Plan’s responsiveness to the best interests of Auckland children. However, the information was placed before the CBD Board; decision-makers who can affect the Victoria Quarter Plan direction. Importantly, the information is still being used by staff in other applicable fora.
The council research team were a key success factor in Auckland’s City’s Child Impact Assessment project: they worked well together; they understood what could be achieved and why; they were research-savvy; they were motivated; and they wanted to learn about their youngest citizen’s needs and issues so as to improve the city’s services and facilities. The project was successful in so many unexpected and positive ways and the capability of the council to replicate the process is strong.
30 Case Study II: Manukau City Council
Overview
Manukau City sits within the greater Auckland region and has a very diverse community with a range of needs and strengths. With a population of approximately 329,000, Manukau is New Zealand's third largest city, and the fastest growing. It is home to more than 165 different ethnic groups, with the largest Māori and Pacific communities in New Zealand. Twenty eight percent of Manukau residents speak two or more languages, with Samoan being the most widely spoken language after English13. Manukau is also a very young city with 26% of its population (86,000) aged under 15 years of age. Thirty seven percent of residents aged 15+ years earn under $20,000, whilst 14% earn over $50,000 (quoting 2006 census figures).
Existing strategic, policy and personnel environment
Manukau City Council’s (MCC) Senior Policy Advisor Children, Young People and Families (‘Advisor’) was familiar with the concept of child impact assessments through his previous employment in youth-orientated work in the United Kingdom. As he was new in his council role, the advisor also saw great benefit in being able to connect with staff across the organisation through utilising a child impact assessment process and therefore enabling colleagues to better understand the needs and strengths of Manukau children and young people in their work.
The timing of the initial conversation about child impact assessments was early in the new business year for the council, with departmental workplans having already been signed off for that year. This meant that this new piece of work needed to be informally added to the work schedule.
Some specific policies existed at MCC that acknowledged and met the needs of local children, including:
¥ Child Poverty Action Plan (completed at this time); ¥ Youth Policy and Action Plan - 2004 (being reviewed in 2008-09); ¥ Education Strategy – (currently being reviewed); and ¥ Tomorrows Manukau: Manukau Apopo- A vision for Manukau into the future 2006 -2016 which includes children and young people in all key themes.
Additionally, some MCC staff had specific responsibilities for children’s and young people’s issues and needs alongside the Advisor. These people were:-
¥ Child and Youth Services Manager; an operationally-focused position managing youth specific posts such as Youth Worker Coordinator; ¥ Community Advisor with a lead responsibility for young people;
13 http://www.manukau.govt.nz/default.aspx?page=about_manukau
31 ¥ Te Ora o Manukau - Manukau the Healthy City, Child Advocacy Group14 Coordinator; and ¥ Education and Employment Planner.
Also, a small budget was made available to support this child impact assessment project’s implementation.
Development process and screening
With the researcher’s guidance, the council’s Advisor selected a non-stereotypical and discreet sphere of council business which could significantly impact upon local children: the Waste Management Plan 2005-201015 review.
A growing population and increasing amounts of packaging and waste material are creating an ongoing challenge in Manukau’s waste management. Manukau estimates that it sends nearly 300,000 tonnes of solid waste to landfill each year. Roughly 30 per cent of that total is generated by the city’s households and is waste that is directly managed by Manukau City Council. The remainder, over 70 per cent, is generated by the city’s businesses or by construction activities and is managed privately (Waste Management Plan 2005-2010, p.7). This Plan makes significant mention of schools, including the development of a Regional School Education Programme; Waste Wise Schools, Enviroschools, Waste Education Programme Strategy, and “Come On: Be a Tidy Kiwi” litter campaign. This Plan has two objectives:
¥ to promote effective and efficient waste management in Manukau; and ¥ to minimise the quantity of waste being generated and disposed of in order to promote the sustainable use of natural and physical resources.
The Advisor met with members of the City Environment Waste team (‘Waste team’) who were enthusiastic about the child impact assessment idea. Through discussions, it was established that the Waste team would find it valuable to better understand the significant waste that continues to be dropped between dairies and schools: why it happens and what can be done to reduce it. The Waste team saw that consulting children and understanding children’s perspectives would significantly advance their own understanding of the issues and identification of possible solutions. A child impact assessment process could usefully review this specific aspect of the Waste Management Plan. The Community Litter Education Strategy (2005) sits within the broader Plan and was chosen as the framework through which to address the issue of litter and littering in public areas.
14 Born from the Healthy Cities initiative, it is a multi-agency group of Healthy City charter signatories who are working to reduce child poverty and to promote an environment for children's health matters to be effectively addressed, and enabling positive outcomes for children in Manukau. 15 http://www.manukau.govt.nz/uploadedFiles/manukaugovtnz/Environment/Waste/Waste_Management_Plan/mcc- waste-plan-05-10.pdf)
32 The key objectives of this strategy are:
¥ to provide an assessment of litter and littering behaviour in the City; ¥ to raise the level of awareness and profile of litter as an issue within Council and the wider community; and ¥ to focus on litter in public areas that is managed by Council.
The child impact assessment project then took a different turn: the Advisor’s involvement stopped soon after the initial discussions with the Waste team for a variety of reasons, though primarily because he was seconded across council into a strategic role. Fundamentally, this meant that he had less time to be available to support the child impact assessment work.
Information gathering
The Waste staff therefore needed to find their own path in assessing children’s waste issues as well as reviewing their current engagement with children. This revealed interesting and new information, little of which was previously known to the Advisor as it was disconnected from other child and youth services delivered by council. Indeed, the Waste team undertake a lot of child-specific environmental and waste minimisation work in the city:
¥ the Waste team are familiar with evidence that suggests a strong correlation with educating young people about waste, and consequent waste reduction practices by children and their families; ¥ the Waste team already has a range of resources for children through school- based resources and through the “Be a tidy kiwi” campaign which is targeted into schools.
Other existing and relevant information included:
¥ the Howick Youth forum having already identified that waste was one of a range of significant issues which they wished to address amongst their own youth networks in east Manukau; ¥ in December 2007, The Mayor of Manukau wrote to schools asking the opinions of pupils about their likes and what they would like to see improved. There were over 400 replies of which a good percentage mentioned litter and making Manukau tidier.
Whilst children have not yet been involved in the specific child impact assessment proposal, their views are coming through channels such as the previously mentioned examples, and through initiatives already being undertaken by the Waste team. However an important aspect of any child impact assessment, children’s perspectives upon the issue, had not yet been achieved in terms of the review.
33 Outcomes of the process to date
Manukau City Council didn’t implement the process fully in the time available, although they did increase engagement with children’s issues in some council departments. Further positive child-specific outcomes may transpire as a result of MCC being introduced to child impact assessments. For example, council’s Advisor and the Child Advocacy Group Coordinator agreed to discuss with managers the inclusion of a new clause into the Child Advocacy Coordinator’s job description which enabled the facilitation of child impact assessments throughout council. The timing of this conversation (May 2008) was beneficial; it meant that council’s next annual workplan (currently in development) could include references to child impact assessments.
These two staff also agreed that the identification and celebration of what was already happening in council for local children’s wellbeing would be a beneficial activity. This information could be identified through using an appreciative enquiry approach with council staff. This activity could also support the branding of child-specific outputs by council. This would also help significantly increase these outputs as part of the MCC’s implementation of the UN’s First Call for Children (FCFC), which it signed over a decade earlier. FCFC currently provides the operational framework for the Child Advocacy Group. The branding could highlight the range and depth of child-specific activities which are being undertaken across council and into Manukau City.
The Youth Strategy is being reviewed in 2008/09, and a child impact assessment approach will be included in the review’s Terms of Reference. Another conclusion from the implementation was that there was an existing platform of child-specific information and data from which the Advisor and the Waste team could build upon: that is, some existing work by the Waste team and by local youth groups existed which connected the two spheres of waste and children together.
Additionally, more council-based staff have been exposed to child impact assessment possibilities, namely the Waste team members, as well as the Child Advocacy Group’s eighteen member (external) agencies. However it is unclear as to what service delivery or strategic advancements have occurred for children in waste management.
Lessons learnt
The balancing of competing roles, political realities, personal expectations and required (workplan) outputs is very difficult to sustain, especially where the child impact assessment is not stated within an existing workplan. Getting child impact assessments into a departments’ workplan is vital to enabling its conception and continuance.
Proactively providing input and fresh ideas into other council teams’ workplans about considering and/or advancing children’s needs is often positively received: the team may already be quietly giving consideration to children’s issues, and undertaking service delivery to that effect. Therefore, getting an informed picture of what other departments are doing specifically pertaining to children can be pleasantly surprising and valuable.
34 A collaborative approach in-house has to be adopted to establish a child impact assessment project. Additionally, there are a huge number of existing formal and incidental engagement opportunities with local children which could be better utilised by council staff in seeking children’s opinions and in providing children with information about what their city is currently providing for and with children.
Finally, it is important for the Advisor to facilitate child impact assessments with council teams, rather than undertaking them alone. This team-based approach leaves assessment skills, child-specific knowledge and useful research techniques with staff across the organisation for future utility. This approach also means that where a single staff member is removed from the project for whatever reason, that other colleagues will have the skills to continue on, and therefore, the process is less vulnerable to defaulting.
Conclusions
There is as much opportunity to learn from actions which do not go according to plan as those that do. In this case attention from the prime focus was lost due to competing demands. These are part of organisational life; what is important is why the assessment was not retained as a priority. There are three main reasons for this:
¥ individual priorities compete with organisational priorities; ¥ child impact assessment reporting mechanisms and milestones were relaxed and moveable, and as a result they where shifted to account for more immediate demands; and ¥ under estimation of interest and support within the organisation for progressing the case study.
The introduction of a child impact assessment tool started to look at what was in the best interest of Manukau children in relation to educational, health and cultural interests with waste minimisation. The possibility that the council utilised this contemporary approach towards waste minimisation augers well for local children.
Once it became clear that the implementation timetable was slipping beyond the timeframe allocated for the study, offers of support were received from the Child Advocacy Group to progress the initiative. This indicates that there was potential earlier in the process to reach across the organisation and seek a collaborative approach with staff who were able to support this project such as Child and Youth Services and Child Advocacy Group colleagues. Had this collaborative approach occurred, the Waste team may have further advanced the engagement of children, and considered how better to deliver services more effectively towards local children’s needs.
Interestingly, the Advisor felt that whilst Manukau City Council has good child-specific policies, budgets, and some staff with responsibilities pertinent to this field of work, it does not have structures which easily and readily involve children and young people. Additionally, the council, like many big organisations, has areas of specialisation and activity located within departments which occur under the radar. Therefore, reaching across the organisation to find like-minded colleagues is possible, but relatively
35 untapped perhaps because of the invisibility of child-focussed work and because of the size of the organisation. In fact, when contact with various council departments has been made by the Child Advocacy Group Coordinator, council colleagues have usually been helpful and interested in this focus, and have often volunteered new information about their child-specific work. However, this work is disconnected from other council- based child and youth services, and hence the conundrum of seeming invisibility and actual disconnection.
Manukau City Council Child Impact Assessment process timeline Item Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May 07 08 Recruit √ Brief (council colleagues) √ √ Screen (find a policy) √ √ Information gathering √ √ √ √ √ Assessment - - Reporting - - Monitor and evaluation - -
Over the duration of the research, Manukau City did not implement the process fully for a variety of reasons. In the time available however, the council did increase engagement with children’s issues with the Waste team and improve systems to enable child impact assessment to occur in future council business.
Councils that did not proceed
There were a small number of councils who were invited to participate in the child impact assessments but who did not proceed in their involvement. After a protracted series of contacts into Northland, a connection was made between AUT University and the Community Advisor at Whangarei District Council, with information forwarded to him about the child impact assessment project, at his request. Although the idea was well received by his Community Development colleagues, Whangarei District did not pursue the project because the Advisor had a series of other community-based responsibilities. Even within his child and youth portfolio, the focus was primarily absorbed with ‘constraining’ youth gangs and addressing youth tagging. Children did not feature in his outputs because of the politically-driven imperatives he worked to.
A proactive contact was made to AUT University regarding this work from Ngati Whatua Nga Rima o Kaipara. The Chief Executive had been forwarded a copy of an email relating to child impact assessments and discussed it with her Chairwoman. This iwi has a Memorandum of Understanding with Rodney District Council, and were involved with a South Kaipara Emergent Leadership programme for rangatahi-youth. The iwi also kept a ‘watching-brief’ over Rodney’s planning work, including work that affected tamariki- children. The iwi was interested to speak further on this project and a meeting was scheduled in Helensville in October 2007 for this purpose. The possibilities of an indigenous connection into this child impact assessment work and in working with
36 Rodney District Council were very encouraging. Unfortunately, the meeting was postponed, and follow-up calls could not enable a new meeting to be scheduled within the available timeframe.
A further proactive call was received at AUT University from a Napier youth worker who was very interested to pursue a child impact assessment with his local council. However, the high travel costs and significant support logistics meant that this offer was not pursued. Hence, a council outside of the Auckland region was not secured for this project.
37 6. Discussion
This section consolidates the findings from the pilot project implementation with the desk-based literature review. At this point, it has also been useful to integrate ideas and knowledge from the Reference Group which provided advice and guidance for this project.
An overview of the implementation benefits and challenges inherent in these child impact assessment processes are outlined. There were sufficient variations between these three significant informational sources throughout the lifetime of this research to warrant attention. This disparity is unfortunately a common hallmark when implementing policy. It may be attributable to the fact that these were inaugural child impact assessments in councils, where establishment techniques and mechanisms were necessary to get the project off the ground. A more sustainable approach was discussed amongst colleagues involved in the respective council processes, but achieving early implementation objectives was deemed to be very important before any longer-term perspective could be planned for.
Therefore, what is important to note is that this discussion section focuses upon the delivery of an inaugural child impact assessment undertaken in a local council. This discussion does not endeavour to espouse how to successfully sustain a child impact assessment process within a council, as this was not attempted in the piloting processes. Also, it is too early to suggest whether continuity could be achieved as a result of these pilot projects.
Multi-skilled, motivated and cohesive group
It has been previously noted in the literature that child impact assessments are unlikely to be successful in a local authority without the necessary personnel expertise being in place, such as knowledge about the impact assessment evidence base; research skills; information about UNCROC; an understanding of children’s interests and needs; local government understanding; and access to relevant data. The two case studies occurred without some of these skills being present at the time of each pilot project’s initiation, yet the assessments still occurred albeit in a reduced capacity. For example, neither case study had previously undertaken an impact assessment but one case study research team had very motivated staff. Indeed, the overriding and most critical factor which enabled the child impact assessment process to develop as far as it did in the Auckland City Council pilot was the involvement of a motivated team of staff. This strength remained constant even as the membership moved and shifted as colleagues entered and left the team over the duration of AUT’s engagement with them. Each member saw the value of eliciting children’s perspectives about their inner-city living experiences in terms of their own immediate and future work outputs. Each member drew from their existing and diverse sources of data and contributed this information over the duration of the project when needed. Additionally, staff contributed their time, networks, and, in some instances, budgets to the project, and continue to do so. Whilst the literature alluded to the importance of quality staff engagement in the process who need to possess a diversity of skills and knowledge, this strong-and-cohesive-team aspect did
38 not draw particular attention in the literature, and was clearly a central and successful variable in Auckland’s process. This team quality existed despite there not being a consistent council-based coordinator of the child impact assessment work, and is a credit to the people involved, and the council in supporting this collaborative approach.
A new addendum to these necessary personnel skills for the assessment team therefore has to be the involvement of motivated staff, the presence of which can compensate for the absence of other skills.
Supportive strategic and policy environment
Some success variables identified through the literature review did transpire to be useful. The ready and supportive policy environment of both councils, where child- focussed policies and strategies pre-existed the assessment’s onset may have facilitated the assessment’s credibility in the organisation. The council’s Child and/or Youth Strategies were used as a lever by child advocates in promoting the acceptance of the child impact assessment proposal internally. Certainly the language to describe and contextualise children’s place in the two cities, and the justifications supporting local children’s place in council business had already been created and mandated by elected members. There may be a different communication task in massaging a child impact assessment into a council where these policies do not exist; that variable was not tested in these two case studies. Interestingly, the Manukau Advisor believed that a child impact assessment would be entirely feasible without council authored child-specific policies being in place; a lack of policy was not a reason not to proceed.
Council expertise well matched with external expertise
An implementation success was around the actual sphere and depth of early discussions between AUT and council staff being quite different from that anticipated in the planning stages of the project. In actuality, the council-based staff led all of these initial discussions, as they were already familiar with the concepts, and were best placed to progress discussions and shared understandings internally. This meant that where questions arose from the prospective council department to undertake an assessment, they could be immediately and informally answered in-house, rather than deferring to an external agent such as AUT.
Good quality information
What supplemented the early implementation phase of the process was the immediate availability of good information about child impact assessment, and then subsequently, supporting research and data about the policy field chosen by the respective localities. In the generic overview information developed by AUT for councils about what child impact assessments were, no specific mention was made of UNCROC. This was because initial conversations with council colleagues quickly diminished the Convention’s relevance in local government, even when these conversations were with council staff who were informed about UNCROC. Their perspective was that United Nations’ documents did not figure highly in council business plans. It was considered prudent
39 therefore to treat the UNCROC ‘best interests of the child’ message as a watermark rather than as a central platform in the local government context of implementing child impact assessments. This was not to diminish children’s visibility but rather so as not to scare council colleagues off with global-sized concerns. The intent of placing children at the centre of decision-making was not contested by the staff involved in the two processes. Instead, the generic information focused upon pragmatic details such as common process steps and typical questions asked during a child impact process, which is what the staff initially needed to persuade their managers and subsequently, their colleagues.
AUT was quickly able to identify current national and international research pertinent to inner-city living, urban design issues and children, and about waste minimisation, littering and children, and to match that with the existing in-house data sourced. Additionally, AUT was able to guide the Auckland City staff in their developmental research with children, thus building the council’s institutional knowledge of research design, and of seeking child-specific information. Thus, some externally-derived research shaped their initial thinking about their core research question: what is it like for children to live in Auckland’s CBD? as well as internally-derived data and analysis to sharpen the research focus and process.
Adequate budget
The availability of a budget to affix to the project was useful, and again, these pilots did not test the hypothesis seriously as to whether the unavailability of monies would hamper success. Ordinarily however, council policies with no budget rarely attain organisational traction, as implementation costs such as marketing, communication, materials, staff time, and other start-up costings exist.
Early engagement in policy review processes
Both of the councils’ child impact assessments were positioned within policy review frameworks. At Manukau City, the Waste Review had just been established; the possibility of affecting a discreet component of this review, litter between dairies and schools, through a child impact assessment was good. The Manukau City assessment did not proceed beyond the information gathering phase and therefore the specific output was not fully explored through a best interest of the child lens. Conversely, the Auckland City Victoria Quarter Plan had been published in 2006, but within the Plan, a specific social and cultural output was to “establish and promote awareness of family needs in higher density living environments” (p.15). This output had not been formulated and was due to be completed by 2009. The child impact assessment was seen as a perfect vehicle through which to begin to explore this output. Hence, the assessment did not occur at the very beginning of the entire Victoria Quarter Plan’s development, but it did initiate work which already needed to be done, and which could therefore be framed through a children’s lens. What might be inferred from these two case studies is that the question of timing may depend on the nature of the policy or review under consideration. In these case studies, the assessments were undertaken at the beginning
40 and middle of review processes, but not at the end. It seems likely that assessments done at the end of a review process might have limited influence upon policy.
Meaningful participation of children
Neither case study was able to achieve this outcome of meaningfully involving children, as children did not have control over the research’s design, content, delivery or eventual communication of findings. For example, the decision as to which policy was to be assessed was substantially led by the child advocate; a pragmatic and expedient decision in getting the project happening. The child advocates did note that the top- down nature of this approach was not sustainable and that a better process for future assessments would be to focus upon policies that impact on issues identified by children. This aspect of child impact assessment processes will require significant support from an external agency, as councils are ordinarily an organisation that facilitates public engagement, and yet there is still some distance to travel in empowering children in their civic engagement opportunities.
Ethical child-focused consultation processes need to be more widely understood as some adults in the case studies expressed ‘fear’ of talking with children directly in their professional capacity. Appropriate consultation processes will enable the capacity for free and frank exchanges between children and (predominantly adult) decision-makers about children’s issues. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the adults to create an environment whereby children clearly understand what the purpose and meaning of the discussions are, and that children can participate (and exit) on their own terms. Importantly, these processes need to enable both adults and children to feel safe and valued, with intergenerational power and control issues needing to be acknowledged. For example, many adults engage with children in a paternalistic sense, thus informing children of ‘what’s happening next’ rather than inviting children to determine what they would like to happen. This former consultation style is not appropriate when meaningful consultation with children is being undertaken.
Acceptance of children’s views
The Reference Group identified short turn-around consultation and advice processes as being a possible barrier to children’s direct involvement in a child impact assessment. This perspective reinforces the Swedish Children’s Ombudsman point that time is made available for adults’ input into policies, though a country’s youngest citizens cannot often receive this same acknowledgement. Infact, it was interesting and refreshing to note that in both case studies, consulting with children was seen as beneficial, and was welcomed by some council staff. In the Auckland City case study, the direct integration of children’s ideas was easily enabled, and the findings are now being used strategically and opportunistically with a variety of decision makers. In Manukau City, whilst children were not engaged directly in the process, it was noted how many opportunities exist to communicate with children for future projects.
41 Whilst the Reference Group cited a lack of appreciation of children’s perspectives as being a potential barrier, this also was not encountered at either of the pilot sites. As previously noted, there was a willingness to hear from children, and be guided by their ideas and experiences for the respective councils’ future service delivery. Staff spoke of their personal engagement and enjoyment in meeting and talking with diverse children, and being exposed to children’s perspectives as a mechanism to test policy. Councils are mandated by the Local Government Act 2002 to consult widely and diversely; hearing from children gives effect to this legislated requirement. As the Reference Group identified, listening to children is an important mechanism for councils to identify and meet local needs. The Reference Group also noted how some councils might get stuck on traditional council business – rats, roads and rubbish – and issue displacement: “it’s central government’s responsibility” when a child impact assessment is proposed, and that these could be barriers to implementation. These inferences were not encountered in either of the pilot projects, although this is not to say that these attitudes may not prevail in other departments within these councils or in other councils across New Zealand.
This acceptance of children’s views is an excellent platform to build upon with other councils; it may be that individual and/or institutional goodwill towards children’s perspectives could exist.
Participation of child-focused agencies
It may be more applicable to invoke the Reference Group’s concerns regarding short turn-around consultation processes here, as child-focussed agencies’ participation was not secured in either of the child impact assessment processes which was disappointing. An inaugural assessment process is a multi-dimensional process with many different facets and relationships to instigate and vitalise; future processes would benefit from external agencies’ engagement with the councils because of the different focus, information and relationships they bring. This initial inability to include external agencies may be more related to the councils’ difficulties in working with outside agencies on quick-turnaround projects, than on the child-focused messages which these agencies would advance. However, there is no evidence to verify either of these hypotheses.
Inter-departmental communication in councils
Another barrier predicted by the Reference Group pertained to council department silos; in both councils departmental colleagues were contacted relatively easily. In smaller councils it is assumed that silos would represent less of an issue due to the greater likelihood of staff knowing one another and respective spheres of work overlapping. However, this assumption may not be accurate, as smaller councils may have less staff and a smaller district population to work with, but the staff must still give effect to the same legislated responsibilities. Where contact was made with staff from a smaller council who had responsibilities pertaining to children, it was found that she or he also had a myriad of other community or population-specific priorities, which ‘competed’ for their attention. Adding a new child impact assessment work output into
42 the mix, even with the offer of professional and ongoing support, was not a feasible option for them to pursue. This may also reflect that these community-orientated advisors were not familiar with child impact assessment, nor familiar with the researcher’s previous experience in this sphere of work. They were perhaps predictably reluctant to take on an unknown facet of work which could become unwieldy, with an unknown colleague, towards an uncertain (and unplanned for) outcome at that time. Anecdotally, the pressure for staff at smaller councils is very high because of the wide and encompassing responsibilities held by small numbers of staff. Face-to-face discussions and time can normally overcome these initial challenges, but these options were not readily available in the early stages of this research. As the case studies were undertaken in large councils, they do not offer a point of reference for inter- departmental connectivity at the district-level of local government.
Dedicated Child Advocate
The issue of inter-departmental communication does introduce a different though related question; one fundamental success variable that was not identified in the literature was the employment of a dedicated staff member with responsibilities for child-specific outcomes across the council. This finding was manifest most explicitly where contact was attempted with smaller district councils within and outside of the Auckland region to discuss the possibility of undertaking a child impact assessment. As discussed in the previous point, dedicated child advocates do not exist in most district councils. This implementation challenge is important in the eventual development of an inaugural child impact assessment in any council and may assist the case for greater support being available for district councils who wish to establish such processes. Identifying the ‘correct’ staff member to discuss a child impact assessment with is an important dynamic in the development of an inaugural child impact assessment in any council; the importance being that it is only the beginning of a long conversation with councils about this sphere of work. An internal advocate of a child impact assessment is vital to the process’ uptake.
Exploratory approach
In the literature, the nub of the conundrum about implementation for decision-makers, child advocates and policy advisors alike is this: do you build child-related impact assessment into existing and projected council policy and practice in an integrated and holistic way, or is it better to adopt a piecemeal approach whereby a child focus is introduced into policies and programmes as and when possible. The pilots adopted the latter exploratory approach for their inaugural assessment. This is logical as this was new terrain for all parties involved. A fuller more holistic process can be worked towards by a council as a future outcome once an initial child impact assessment has been undertaken, with improvements made through the exploratory experiences.
From the researcher’s experience, it is known that policy review timelines are prone to stretching, most often due to a range of external influences. Although staff from the pilot projects would enquire about the research timeline imperatives, it was important to be relaxed about what was realistic, so as not to lose the entire project’s momentum
43 and goodwill. Each council had different policies, systems, imperatives and personalities to draw together into a project, and which affected the establishment and delivery timelines, meaning the capacity to work organically was important. These timelines were beyond the control of AUT as council-based staff were best placed to muster their fellow colleagues. This in itself may enable a more sustainable approach as council staff themselves identified how best to achieve the cohesion necessary for their child impact assessment processes.
Furthermore, as there was little precedent for this child-specific impact assessment work, and certainly none in New Zealand to follow, the approach the researcher adopted was to be supportive, to listen and to be practically helpful for council colleagues. Again, if the project was to be sustainable, it would be council staff not university staff who would accomplish the council-based assessments: a relatively organic communication approach was therefore necessary. The researcher purposefully positioned herself as an outside, though benevolent, researcher: she took direction from council colleagues, and if there was sustained silence, she would make contact and offer support in whatever capacity was of potential use, most often an offer to meet and/or to provide particular information pertinent at that time. As communication is a two-way mechanism, this relatively unstructured support role will have affected the two assessment processes which followed, and may therefore need further scrutiny in any future child impact assessment implementation as the two assessments had very different outcomes. It may be that a more proactive communication approach could enable more beneficial outputs. This would need to be tempered however with the very real time pressures council staff experience in meeting all of their other existing (and unexpected) work outputs.
Positive outcomes from this relaxed project management approach meant that new information became available simply because more time facilitated more opportunities for connecting with different facets of council business and with new people. It also meant that children’s participation could be realistically promoted into the review timelines, which for one council, resulted in new, valuable qualitative data being gathered. An obvious negative outcome of this time-stretch was that a loss of project momentum and timeline slippage occurred, as was the case with Manukau City.
Practical and user-friendly process
A user-friendly process was certainly evidenced at the Auckland City Council pilot project; friendly for child participants and friendly for council recipients. Time was taken by the Auckland City team to identify what would be useful for them to know more about and simultaneously, who to link and communicate that information with across council. The utilisation of a survey method was chosen by which to hear from children, and the assistance of the trained youth interviewer meant that children could immediately relate with someone closer to their own age when responding. The Auckland staff noted their enjoyment of the consultation work. Additionally, both local assessment projects were administered within discreet fields of review and policy that accommodated the need(s) of local children rather than across large swathes of council
44 work. This meant that the assessment process was more manageable and contained for the staff involved, and therefore, more user-friendly for their needs.
Transparent process
Another useful project management technique at each site was the documentation of conversations held with a variety of colleagues, of decisions made and of steps taken. This has enabled the process to be transparent, and provided a basis for future institutional learning. The compilation of this information may also enable other councils to undertake child impact assessments.
Sector transience
The transience in the child and youth advocacy field was a hallmark of this study, with the fluctuation of staff members’ availability being an ongoing issue. By the completion of the project, each of the original child advocates in situ had moved into new spheres of work, internally or externally. The resultant uptake of child impact assessments in councils was therefore remarkable: one council proceeded very smoothly with their assessment process despite the exit of their dedicated child advocate, whilst the other council’s child advocate was able to initiate the project and then observe what became a much-diminished form of assessment occurring. As noted previously, one council did not proceed after their child advocate changed roles.
Senior management and political commitment
Another illustration of where the desk-based literature review deviated from the inaugural implementation was regarding the importance of attaining permission from the highest management and/or political levels. In both of these inaugural projects, this permission was not sought. Instead, the child impact assessment was grafted onto existing council policies which had already been mandated by council decision-makers, so as to get the project off the ground. It was thought that the senior decision-makers could be tapped for support later in the proceedings when the assessment findings were utilized in wider decision-making contexts across council.
Engaging senior management and/or politicians in the assessment process may be very useful where child impact assessment is being embedded more fully into council processes. Political buy-in is especially important where organisational resources need to be re-prioritised so as to include child impact assessments. Additionally, a commitment from operational and political leaders for child impact assessments would send a clear message organisationally that this was a preferred mechanism to use. The Edmonton local government example does demonstrate the usefulness of political support for the continuance of their child friendly city aspirations. The insertion of a child impact assessment approach into a council officer’s job description or department’s workplan was considered a very good mechanism to advance the probability of the assessment continuing by the two New Zealand councils involved.
45
The family of impact assessments
Impact assessments are already being undertaken in councils. Economic impact assessments have been undertaken for some years. Environmental impact assessments, and in some instances social impact assessments, are undertaken in line with the Resource Management Act 1991 requirements. There may be an argument therefore that other assessments will evolve, such as child impact assessment, to eventually become a core council mechanism. The emergence of child impact assessments may waver though because of competing social sector interests. For example, children’s advocacy groups do not often have a compatible level of resources to vie with other specific populations, such as older people’s issues. This might become more pronounced as the population ages, and greater advancements for older people are promoted with council decision-makers, potentially leaving children marginalised in these advocacy processes. A factor raised by the New Zealand Association of Impact Assessment (NZAIA) and Local Government New Zealand was their shared concern about fracturing impact assessments into even more specific denominations beyond social and environmental spheres. This concern was contextualised by the difficulty in gaining recognition for these existing fields of impact assessment enquiry beyond the existing legislative imperatives and into broader policy applications. Through the Reference Group, assessment-fatigue was cited amongst some councils, with further additions to the impact assessment menu not being perceived as helpful in the greater impact assessment and public policy picture.
Beneficially, connections were made by the researcher and the Children's Commission with health sector colleagues who were investing significant resources towards Health Impact Assessment, with the new relationship prompting a greater awareness of children’s needs and issues within this assessment framework. Some councils are beginning to utilise this assessment approach; through this avenue they would potentially be prompted to consider the best interests of local children as part of this assessment. Similarly, connections with colleagues engaged with NZAIA were useful. What was apparent was that whilst NZAIA noted the relationship between environmental and social impact assessments in their Objectives and Ethical Guidelines, neither children nor children’s needs are explicitly noted in any of their web-based information pages. This reiterates the need for child-specified assessment processes to be developed so as to begin to address this invisibility in the impact assessment sector.
The Families Commission have also been looking at some form of impact assessment which can be utilised in a local government setting, whereby family issues are brought more prominently into the policy making process. Latterly, discussions with a Families Commissioner have identified how a child focus could be upheld within their emerging family impact assessment framework. That is, a child impact assessment could be one of a series of assessment tools within the kete of family-orientated considerations by councils or other leading decision-makers. This framework is still being developed with councils. The ongoing relationship between the Office of the Children's Commission and the Families Commission has facilitated a cross-germination of ideas in the development of impact assessments in New Zealand.
46
Affirmative framework
Children’s needs and issues are largely portrayed through a deficit lens; for example that children need to be protected because they are vulnerable. This deficit perspective can overlook a lot of beneficial and affirming aspects of children’s development and contributions into their communities. The Reference Group discussed health impact assessments, and reflected how health is often similarly framed around illness and deficit-orientated perspectives. Members identified the seeming disparity between the local government approach which is more orientated towards individual equity and a deficit-orientated paradigm. The group considered these approaches to be incongruous and that one approach may compete with the other and thus hinder any possible synergies in attaining wellbeing outcomes. Framing child impact assessments as contributing towards community wellbeing outcomes and thus enabling the legislative purposes of New Zealand’s local government is an important goal to remain focused upon in implementation.
47 7. Template for implementation
A model (Diagram II) has been developed to demonstrate the six steps needed when implementing a child impact assessment: “Successfully implementing the first Child Impact Assessment into your council” (see p.47). This model reflects the findings from the literature which are synergised with actual practice. How each of the six steps can most effectively be implemented is also outlined so as to guide and support a council team to successfully implement their inaugural child impact assessment. The process will not necessarily be as linear as these steps suggest. However, every step supports every other step and collectively they create a comprehensive assessment. Each step is important, no step is redundant.
48 Diagram II: Successfully implementing the first Child Impact Assessments into your council
What? Child Impact Assessment involves Why? UNCROC principles and local assessing a proposed policy, decision or activity government laws and policies mandate with ’the best interests of the child’ central to children’s meaningful involvement in council the assessment. It links with existing impact business. The requirement sends a signal to assessments in New Zealand which broadly decision makers about the rights of children; encapsulate ‘environmental’ and ‘social’ issues. the process increases awareness of children’s Child Impact Assessments present solutions interests; which cumulatively may achieve a and alternatives to the policy or activity being mainstreaming of children’s interests and assessed. needs into policy and practice over time.
6. Monitor 5. Report and Evaluate Best interests of the child the of interests Best
Enable democratic local
decision-making and Sustainable engagement 4. with children’s issues action, and promote 1. Screen Assessment social, economic, which facilitates positive environmental and wellbeing outcomes cultural wellbeing
3. Gather info & develop 2. Scope questions
When? Child Impact Assessments begin with Who? Motivated and cohesive team members small, discreet projects, ideally at an early stage who collectively understand relevant local and of the policy development cycle. The assessment national policies and strategies; undertaking needs to be framed affirmatively, and use an research and providing analysis; children’s issues, exploratory approach. To succeed, it requires and local government. Meaningful participation supportive strategies & policies; adequate takes time and children’s schedules of schooling, resourcing; relationships; goodwill; a user- recreation, cultural and family commitments do friendly process; quality local data; and an not easily allow for that indulgence. However internal advocate. children’s perspectives are beneficial to include in a child impact assessment, along with other child- specific knowledge-bases.
49 Six Process steps when initiating a child impact assessment at your council
1. Screening
Attention should be focused on policies and activities likely to have ‘significant’ or ‘substantial’ effects upon children, including marginalised and disadvantaged groups within this population. The less-obviously child-related areas of council business can actually be the most beneficial proposals to assess. Final policy selection criteria of what to assess will necessarily include associated timelines, financial resources, and staff availability, including the mix of professional skills and motivation towards a particular proposal. The team needs to view its council’s current planning and assessment processes. The outcome of this step will be the identification of a policy or activity to focus the assessment upon.
2. Scoping
Scoping identifies the main aspects of the policy or activity to be assessed and translates these into one core research question. This will then be subjected to either a full or brief child impact assessment. Two-stage processes have been developed internationally, with a similar approach being undertaken by New Zealand’s Ministry of Health - Manatu Hauora - where a Health Lens Tool is used for a brief health impact assessment and a Health Appraisal Tool is used for a more in-depth assessment16. Whichever depth is determined, it will be useful to document why it is the most appropriate tool to be used, for future reference. The outcome of this step will be the identification of a core research question which identifies the main aspects of the policy or activity to be briefly or fully assessed against the principle of the best interests of local children.
3. Information gathering and developing questions
Other questions that drill further into the core research question need to be developed. They might cover social, physical, individual/behavioural, environmental, cultural, spiritual, and economic issues, and access to quality services. Both quantitative data and qualitative information can be used to inform the assessment. Much of this information will already be available within council and online. Different methods of finding information are available (see Appendix V). The methods used should be clearly explained and justified as different methods reveal different depths and breadths of information. Ideally, children will be actively involved in some capacity in voicing their opinions and experiences. The outcome of this step will be the identification and gathering of child-specific information related to the policy or activity from a variety of sources.
16 Accessible at http://www.nhc.health.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagescm/700/$File/GuideToHIA.pdf
50
4. Assessment
When the team is assessing the gathered information beside the specific policy or activity, identifying win-win options is a sustainable approach. It is important to balance negative determinants and mitigating factors with positive improvements and future- orientated suggestions, which are based on the evidence gleaned from the information. Using a range of data collection methods enables the team to embark upon repetitive analysis and supports the credibility of the eventual findings. The outcome of this step will be that the assessment has responded to the identified research questions pertinent to the policy or activity.
5. Reporting
Reporting can be undertaken collectively by the team. Use plain English and visuals (diagrams, graphs, photos etc) where possible. The inclusion of a non-technical summary alongside the larger informational report is advisable. Providing solutions is constructive and better facilitates the opportunity of the assessment findings being heard by decision makers. As a reporting guide, a series of headings are offered here:
¥ the proposal; ¥ the central and subsequent questions asked and the methods used to answer these; ¥ children’s views and other qualitative and quantitative evidence; ¥ any disagreements or conflicts in meeting children’s best interests and the mitigation of these conflicts; ¥ alternatives proffered; ¥ how the best interests of the child can be met by the proposal; and, ¥ the monitoring and evaluation required after implementation.
Creative communication of the findings is critical. A range of people will want to know what the outcome of their (passive or active) engagement in the child impact assessment has been. The outcome of this step will be the completion of a useful and understandable paper for council decision-makers to act upon.
6. Monitoring and evaluation
It is very difficult to evaluate both the assessment process and local children’s wellbeing outcomes meaningfully as changes in children’s lives happen slowly. Therefore, a mechanism by which to track outcomes for local children, perhaps through indicators, is important. Similarly, reporting on the assessment process itself is important to different (internal) audiences and needs to be given consideration in the final documentation and communications. This might be documenting staff experiences and organisational learnings. The outcome of this step will be (a) identifying the actual impact of the policy
51 on children and (b) that the process is sufficiently robust to replicate, and which builds a body of knowledge about how a local council is promoting local children’s wellbeing.
This series of six steps highlights the detailed and complex nature of an impact assessment. The levels of resourcing available, including staff skills and time, as well as the availability of information, will facilitate the process’ depth of coverage at each step. As noted earlier, the process may not be as linear as these steps suggest due to unforeseen circumstances entering into the assessment equation over time, such as the staff turnover and shifting political priorities.
Following this process will enable a council-based team to answer the core question:-
What are the likely positive and negative impacts of a policy or activity on local children - including particular populations of children - and what are the alternatives to mitigate these impacts?
52 8. Conclusions
Caution needs to be exercised in drawing too many conclusions from the two different case studies and generalising these lessons across New Zealand local government. For example, both councils were located in metropolitan councils. From a total of 85 councils in New Zealand, only 16 are city councils with the remainder comprising either district (57) or unitary (four) councils. There are also 12 regional councils across New Zealand. Hence the sample is small and non-representative. Furthermore, there are difficulties when comparing or connecting the examples because the depth of information was significantly different for each case study. Importantly, whilst one council was able to proceed some way through a child impact assessment process, neither completed an entire assessment cycle. Effectively, this reduces the quality and quantity of the data available by which to make broad statements applicable to a whole assessment process.
Utilizing the best from the literature and practical case studies, there are some factors which will ideally be present within a council for an initial child impact assessment to be successfully undertaken. These include:
¥ individual and/or institutional goodwill towards children’s views; ¥ staff with responsibilities for children’s issues; ¥ inter-departmental and external relationships; ¥ adequate resourcing; ¥ other impact assessment work being done; ¥ good quality information; and, ¥ a supportive strategic and policy environment.
Similarly, there may be other elements which emerge over the course of the process which can support its success. These include:
¥ having a positively-orientated wellbeing framework guiding the assessment; ¥ using an exploratory project management approach; ¥ a practical and user-friendly process that focuses on the best interests of the child(ren); ¥ a multi-skilled, motivated and cohesive working group; and ¥ documenting the process to build institutional knowledge and skills.
In the experience of the two pilot studies, there was a lot of pre-existing individual and/or organisational goodwill towards children’s views. This is an excellent platform from which to build a child impact assessment. Connecting with the personnel with responsibilities for children’s issues to discuss a child impact assessment is only the beginning of a long conversation with councils about this sphere of work. An internal champion is important in advancing child impact assessments although an external person can hold the process if there is also a cohesive council-based group to work alongside.
53 The nature of council business requires local colleagues to join-up their expertise so as to give best effect to council business. There may well be strong inter-departmental and external relationships in existence in which to raise the possibility of undertaking a child impact assessment process. These relationships are important, and are from where an inaugural child impact assessment can begin.
Adequate resourcing is important and includes staff time; there are costs associated with establishing an assessment process also such as sourcing informational materials.
There may be other impact assessment work being done in councils, such as the environmental impact assessments required under the Resource Management Act, or the economic assessments which have been a feature of local government business for some years. Additionally, there may be social and/or cultural impact assessments being undertaken, as these are an emerging sphere in local government policy analysis work. If a child impact assessment can build upon the best features of these tools, then a greater familiarity will be experienced by staff as well as the utilisation of effective practice. The child impact assessment process needs to have as its focus the best interests of local child(ren).
Councils are significant repositories of local information. An effective child impact assessment requires baseline information as well as supplementary data to enable the assessment to occur meaningfully. Good quality local data and evidence that acknowledges and reflects the diversity of local children’s lives e.g. age, developmental stage, gender, (dis)ability, ethnicity, deprivation, and locality will be very useful. This might be derived from council reports as well as from government, community and academic reports, budgets, surveys, and/or articles. Part of the information gap when formulating a child impact assessment question may be the availability of local children’s specific perspectives. These perspectives can be gleaned through a variety of research and consultation methods by council staff and with external child-focussed agencies. Initiating good consultation and engagement processes with a diversity of children and with relevant child advocacy agencies to identify their perspectives is very useful. The difficulty is that councils are used to facilitating and controlling public engagement, which does not necessarily empower children’s civic engagement experiences. Using methods which encourage children to be a part of the assessment’s design, development, and eventual dissemination may be a positive and inclusive approach.
A supportive strategic and policy environment assists the passage of a child impact assessment because where a policy has been signed off, a workplan will ordinarily exist for its implementation. There will be clauses within this workplan which can accommodate the insertion of children’s issues and needs. Additionally, where a child / youth / family / social inclusion policy statement exists in a council, this will advance a child impact assessment further, as policy and relational connections will have already been made during the policy’s development.
There are other elements which can emerge over the course of the assessment process that may support a child impact assessment’s success. These include the framing of the assessment as being an affirmative wellbeing-orientated process which gives emphasis
54 to children’s strengths and the benefits that children bring into their communities. This is preferable to a deficit or negative-orientated framing where children’s issues are perceived as needing to be fixed.
Child impact assessments in New Zealand councils are a new phenomenon; using exploratory project management approaches will enable the staff involved to experiment and learn whilst being part of the process. Documenting the process to build institutional knowledge and skills will assist future learning, and support the replication of the successful components of previous processes.
In the two councils where child impact assessment occurred, the associated project staff were enthusiastic, good managerial support and guidance was in place, and there was a very good sense of what an assessment could meaningfully yield for their child-focussed advocacy work internally. Recruiting a small team of skilled people onto the assessment project with specific knowledge is very useful; however, a motivated and cohesive group of people can achieve a lot.
A model (Diagram II) has been developed from the literature findings being synergised with actual practice. The model: “Successfully implementing the first Child Impact Assessment into your council” demonstrates the six steps needed when implementing an inaugural child impact assessment:
1. Screening 2. Scoping 3. Information gathering and developing questions 4. Assessment 5. Reporting 6. Monitoring and evaluation
Importantly, the nominated projects in these councils were interesting, useful, manageable, and not stereotypically associated with children’s issues. It was clear from the case studies that there is potential to undertake child impact assessments in a wide range of policy environments within councils and interest from an equally diverse staff group. In the Manukau City Council case study the area selected offered great potential as it built upon work being undertaken by the City Environment Waste team. It also reinforced the current focus upon sustainability, in that the child impact assessment process was aimed at future generations as well as the children of today’s impact in the community. For Auckland City, the process enabled a variety of staff to understand better what children’s issues and needs were as CBD residents. The Auckland City staff have been promoting these newly identified needs into a range of policy and decision making fora. The next step for each of these councils will be to have the courage to adjust the identified policies so that the principle of the “best interests of local children” can be acknowledged, acted upon and made meaningful.
The Auckland Regional Child and Youth Network, hosted by the Ministry of Youth Development, is a potentially supportive vehicle through which to progress child impact assessment aspirations, as many central and local government staff, and some community sector representatives with child-orientated responsibilities, attend this
55 forum. This network reaches across the greater Auckland region only and does not reach elsewhere into New Zealand. Similar networks exist in other regions across Aotearoa who may already be interested in this sphere of work.
The subsequent table (Table III) identifies other factors which may be relevant to pursue once the decision has been taken by a council to sustainably pursue child impact assessments within their organisation. These were not found or identified through the pilot projects, but may still hold validity for future child impact assessments being implemented into councils.
Table III: Other possible factors to support local councils undertaking Child Impact Assessments sustainably Securing Chief Executive, senior management and/or political support and understanding of child impact assessments to ensure sustainable resourcing and action Obtaining organisational commitment to an ongoing process e.g., annual business plan acknowledgement Identifying a sample of relevant international and New Zealand examples, including any useful assessment content and core research questions to utilise Utilizing existing council methods and systems to develop criteria which explain how and why particular Annual Plan policies are selected for assessment Monitoring the actual impacts for local children by identifying existing and new indicators. This is a very challenging aspect of an assessment process as children’s lives can change slowly Demonstrating how the assessment process makes a positive difference for council. This is also very challenging. With the ‘best interest of the child’ being the central assessment premise, developing a common frame of reference about children’s rights and outcomes using council and other agencies’ child-specific strategies and policies may add to the institution’s knowledge Utilising transparent and replicable process steps – this is achieved by trial and error over time, and the importance is in documenting progress, failures and findings Development of other child advocacy tools e.g. particular processes that are triggered when decisions that significantly affect children are to be made Incrementally identifying common definitions (e.g. children’s rights and sustainable development) and language between the council departments involved in assessment through using existing council-wide documents e.g., Children’s Strategy, as well as issue-specific policies, for example, water management strategies
56 9. Bibliography
All Party Parliamentary Group for Children. (2007) Child Impact Assessment Project Learning Seminar, Tuesday 17th July 2007 Minutes. National Children’s Bureau and The Children’ Legal Centre. United Kingdom.
Angus, J. (2007) Placing Children at the Centre of Policy Making: A Discussion Paper on Child Impact Assessment, unpublished paper prepared for the Social Services Policy Division of the Ministry of Social Development. Wellington.
Auckland City Council. (2006) Victoria Quarter Plan: Auckland CBD’s dynamic western fringe. Auckland City Council. Auckland.
Carroll, P. (2007) Research Proposal: The experiences of families living in multi-unit intensive urban environments. SHORE, Massey University. Unpublished.
Corrigan, C. (2006) The Development and Implementation of Child Impact Statements in Ireland, Office of the Minister for Children. Dublin.
Freeman, C; Quigg, R; Vass, E; & Broad, M. (2007) The Changing Geographies of Children’s Lives: A Study of how Children in Dunedin use their Environment. Report on Research Findings. University of Otago. Dunedin.
Freeman, C; Aitken-Rose, E; and Johnston, R. (undated), Generating the Future? The State of Local Government Planning for Children and Young People of New Zealand. University of Otago. Dunedin.
Greenaway, S. and Kaiwai, H. (2006) Formative Evaluation of the Northcote Child and Youth Development Project Final Report. Auckland: Sustainable Auckland.
Greenaway, S; Conway, K; and Kaiwai, H. (2005) A Formative Evaluation of the Northcote Child and Youth Development Project – Quarterly Progress Report Two. See http://www.sustainableauckland.govt.nz/download/northcote_project_quarterly_review_oct_05.pdf
Hanna, K; Hassall, I; and Davies, E. (2006) “Child Impact Reporting”, Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, Issue 29. See http://www.msd.govt.nz/publications/journal/29-november-2006/index.html.
Hodgkin, R. (1999) Child Impact Statements 1997/98: An Experiment in Child-Proofing UK Parliamentary Bills, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children and UNICEF, National Children’s Bureau. London.
Institute of Public Policy, Children’s Agenda and UNICEF New Zealand. (2002) Making it Happen: Implementing New Zealand’s Agenda for Children. Institute of Public Policy, Children’s Agenda and UNICEF New Zealand.
Local Government New Zealand. (2004) New Zealand Local Government Toolkit for Child and Youth Participation. See http://www.lgnz.co.nz/projects/archive/toolkit/index.html
Massey University. (2004) Social and Cultural Studies: Contemporary Approaches to Participatory Action Research in Aotearoa-New Zealand. School of Social and Cultural Studies. Massey University. Auckland.
Ministry of Health. (2007) Whanau Ora Health Impact Assessment. See: http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/whanau-ora-hia-2007
Ministry of Social Development. (2007) The Social Report Te Purongo Oranga Tangata. Ministry of Social Development. Wellington. Ministry of Youth Development. (2007) UNCROC: An Overview. See http://www.myd.govt.nz/Rights/rightsanduncroc.aspx
57
New Zealand Association of Impact Assessment (NZAIA) Objectives and Ethical Guidelines. See http://www.nzaia.org.nz/Info/Objectives.htm
New Zealand Parliament. (2002) Local Government Act 2002. See http://www.legislation.govt.nz/browse_vw.asp?content-set=pal_statutes
Office of the Auditor-General. (2006) Local Government: Results of the 2004-2005 Audits – Parliamentary Paper. Wellington: Office of the Auditor-General.
Payne, L. (Editor) (2000) Child Impact Statements 1998/99: The Next Stage in Child-Proofing UK Parliamentary Bills, National Children’s Bureau, London.
Statistics New Zealand. (2007) Regional Summary TLA Population data. Unpublished.
UNICEF. (2007) Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries. Innocenti Report Card 7. UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. Florence.
Witten, K; Penney, L; Faalau, F; and Jensen, V. (2006) Neighbourhood environments that support families. Wellington: Families Commission.
58 Appendix I
Interview results with Auckland CBD-living children January and February 2008
Undertaken at the holiday programmes of YouthTown and YMCA, and Auckland Central Library
What kind of a home do you live in? (Tick one)
Age counts and % of total Gender counts and % Ethnicity counts and % of of total total 4 year olds 2 4% Female 25 57% Maori 3 7% 5 year olds 6 14% Male 19 43% Mixed 10 23% 6 year olds 2 4% Pacific 2 4% 7 year olds 11 25% Pakeha 10 23% 8 year olds 4 9% Asian 12 27% 9 year olds 4 9% Other 7 16% 10 year olds 7 16% 11 year olds 6 14% 12 year olds 2 4%
TOTAL 44 participants £ Apartment 40 (91%) £ Office building £ House 2 £ Shop building 1 £ Townhouse £ Other (flat) 1
How many adults normally live in your home? (Tick one) £ 1 adult 12 (predominantly “mum”) 27% £ 2 adults 30 (predominantly “Mum and dad”) 68% £ 3+ adults 1 (Mum, Poppa, Nana) 2% £ Other (4 adults) 1 (Mum, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma) 2%
Does the adult(s) in your home work nearby? YES 34 - 77% NO 5 – 11% SOMETIMES 1 (work from home) NO ANSWER 3 – 7% RESPONDENT DOESN’T KNOW 1
What do you like about the inside of your house? (PAUSE, then prompt …. its warm, lots space, comfortable, safe). There were 43 / 44 responses to this question. Key themes mentioned were: - warm (19); safe (19); cosy / comfortable (13); own/my bedroom (12); deck / balcony (6); views (5); clean (3). Two children commented that they liked the colourfulness of their homes
The question used the prompts of ‘warms’ and ‘space’ and ‘comfortable’ and ‘safe’ which may have similarly ‘promoted’ these options in the children’s minds
59 How could the inside of your house be better for you? (PAUSE, then prompt…. more space, rooms, less traffic noise…). There were 38 / 44 responses to this question. Key themes mentioned were: - more room / bigger (29); have own room / currently share bedroom (9); stronger / less thin walls (2). One 7 yr old commented that the stairs were too high and too many
The question used the prompts of ‘space’ and ‘rooms’ and ‘less traffic noise’ which may have similarly ‘promoted’ these options in the children’s minds
What is good about outside your house? (PAUSE, then prompt…. near park, bus stop, trees, interesting people…..). There were 37 / 44 responses to this question. Key themes mentioned were: - riding / playing outside (12); being near a park (12); having a deck / balcony (7); trees and bushes (6); near shops / café / dairy (4).
The question used the prompts of ‘parks’ and ‘trees’ which may have similarly ‘promoted’ these options in the children’s minds
What do you not like about outside your place? (PAUSE, then prompt…. traffic noise, rubbish, nowhere much to run…). There were 42 / 44 responses to this question. Key themes mentioned were: - noise (25); not a lot of space / no grass area / no play area / no outside / dirty outside (18); One child spoke of there being lots of windows so can’t kick ball around. Some children spoke of people yelling, screaming, “loud loud people” and “don’t get proper sleep”. Two additional comments included “construction noise”.
The question used the prompts of ‘noise’ and ‘rubbish’ and ‘nowhere much to run’ which may have similarly ‘promoted’ these options in the children’s minds
Do you have friends near where you live? YES 25 - 57% NO 19 – 43% SOMETIMES 0
Do you have a pet? YES 4 – 9% NO 14 – 32% NOT ALLOWED 26 – 60% SOMETIMES 0
Do you have family near where you live? YES 11 – 25% NO 30 – 68% SOMETIMES 1 NO ANSWER 2
Are your neighbours friendly? YES 28 – 64% NO 8 – 18% SOMETIMES 3 HAVEN’T MET THEM 5 – 11%
60 When was the last time you played at the beach / in the bush / climbing trees / at the park? £ Yesterday 5 – 11% £ Last week 14 – 32% £ A few weeks ago 8 – 18% £ Before Xmas 5 – 11% £ Not at all 7 – 16% £ Not sure / no answer 1 – 2% £ Can’t remember 4 – 9%
Where do you hang out? There were 44 / 44 responses to this question. Key themes mentioned were: swimming / pools (15); at home (14); parks (11); YouthTown (10); library (7); Rainbows End (6); shopping / shops (6).
The question did not use prompts; however, two of the three locations of the surveys were YouthTown and the library, which may have ‘promoted’ these options in the children’s minds
What do you get up to with your mates? (PAUSE, then prompt…. like clubs, swimming pool, parks, playing areas, basketball?). There were 44 / 44 responses to this question. Key themes mentioned were: playground (14); beach / pools (14); YouthTown (6); video / computer games / game parlour (5).
The question used the prompts of ‘clubs’ and ‘swimming pool’ and ‘parks’ which may have similarly ‘promoted’ these options in the children’s minds
Which school did you go to last year? (44 responses) Freemans Bay 17 - 39% Green Bay Primary 1 Newton Central 10 - 23% Pt Chevalier School 1 Ponsonby Intermediate 5 - 11% AUT Kindergarten 1 Parnell Primary 4 - 9% Chelsea School 1 Laingholm Primary 1 Ferndale Kindergarten 1 New Plymouth 1 Ponsonby Kindergarten 1
How did you get there and home again? (Exclusively use this transport) £ Walk 8 – 18% £ Skateboard £ Bus 5 – 11% £ Car 7 – 16% £ Bike £ Taxi £ Scooter £ Mix transport 24 – 55%
How do you get to school and home again? (Tick all options) £ Walk 22 £ Skateboard £ Bus 18 £ Car 26 £ Bike £ Taxi £ Scooter £ Other
What is some free stuff you would like to have nearby?
61 Swimming /wave pool /baths Game parlour / laser strike / arcade = /waterpark = 29 3 Sky tower = 13 colouring in / painting pictures / art movies = 8 lessons = 3 park (and shady trees) = 7 YouthTown = 3 Rainbows end = 5 Children / animal shows = 3 Zoo = 5 Ice cream = 2 Beach = 3 games at parks = 2
Single suggestions from children included Warehouse JBHS library Internet telephone store selling octaphones Pretty flowers outside my door DVD shop Motat McDonalds Bus / train rides Seaworld Martial arts classes Movie world Dancing places Splash world Mini golf Trampoline Have my dad nearby Butterfly creek Skatepark / biking park
How long you been living in your home? 1-6 months 9 – 20% 7-12 months 0 1-2 years 15 – 34% 2+ years 8 – 18% unknown months 1 unknown years 9 – 20% unknown 1 unanswered 1
Do you live at another address? YES 11 – 25% NO 30 – 68% SOMETIMES 3 – 7%
Analysis of results
There were 44 participants in this survey, which was undertaken in January and February 2008. The participants ranged from 4-12 years of age, with 7 years olds comprising the majority (25%), whilst the fewest number of participants were aged 4, 6 and 12 years old (each 4% of the total sample). There was a good proportion of male (43%) to female (57%) participants. The predominant ethnicity of the participants was Asian (27%) closely followed by Pakeha and ‘mixed’ ethnicities (both 23%); the fewest were Pacific children (4%). The majority of the participants went to local public primary schools, namely Freemans Bay (39%) and Newtown Central (23%), with a range of other schools being noted.
The vast majority of children lived in an apartment (91%). Most participants lived with their mum and dad (68%) or in a single-adult household (27%), predominantly nominated as being ‘mum’. Of the 44 participants, 34 (77%) stated that at least one adult in their household worked nearby to where they lived. When asked about what they liked about the inside of their house, the children spoke of it being warm and safe (equally 44% of responses). They also stated that they liked having their (own) bedroom, and that their home was cosy / comfortable. In responding to the following question pertaining to what could be better about the inside of their home, the children overwhelming spoke of wanting it to be bigger (29 of the 38 responses – 76%). The next leading improvement the children wanted was that they could have their own room (24%).
The children were then asked about the outside of their home – what was good and what they did not like. The children equally liked playing and riding outside of their apartment, and being near a park (32%). What 60% of the children did not like was noise – people, traffic, construction, music, ships etc. Some children spoke additionally about the resultant difficulty they had in getting sleep. The next most popular dislike was that there was not a lot of space / no grass area / no play area / no outside area, or that the outside are was dirty (43%).
Slightly higher proportions of the child respondents had friends near where they lived (57%); most respondents did not have family nearby (68%). Nearly all children stated that they did not have a pet or were not allowed a pet (92%). In the majority of cases (64%), the children felt that their neighbours were friendly, although 11% had not yet met their neighbours, and a quarter of the children felt that their neighbours were only sometimes friendly, or were not friendly towards them.
When considering their recreation opportunities, the children were asked about when the last time was that they had played at the beach, in the bush, climbing trees, or been at a park. Given that the questionnaire was administered in the peak of a very sunny January school holiday period, 43% of the children stated they had done at least one of these activities in the last few days or the day before. Sixteen percent said that they had not at all, with the remaining respondents (29%) commenting that they had done so within the last few weeks or before Xmas.
The children were asked about where they ‘hung out’: thirty four percent hung out at the pools / swimming with a similar number (32%) ‘hanging out’ at home. Given the children’s age, this is not surprising as they would still need to be supervised by an adult. Parks (25%) and YouthTown (23%) also featured in this response. The children were then asked about what they got up to with their mates, with playgrounds / parks, as well as the beach and pools being the most popular options pursued by 32% of the children.
63 Appendix II
CHILD IMPACT ASSESSMENT – PROCESSES AND KEY QUESTIONS
Corrigan 2006 (Ireland) feels that the most common positive impact of Child Impact Assessment has been to put the rights and interests of various groups onto the agenda and to raise awareness amongst officials of the rights and interests of these groups.
COMMON PROCESS STEPS TOWARDS CHILD IMPACT ASSESSMENT:
Screening Attention should be focused on policies, activities and decisions likely to have ‘significant’ or ‘substantial’ effects. This can be defined by those undertaking the impact assessment.
Scoping Scoping focuses on identifying the main aspects of the policy or decision that will be subjected to in-depth assessment.
Assessment A full or truncated analytical process to carry out the impact assessment. Methods could include: Charting/mapping; description; gathering, analysis; testing; consultation; evaluation
Identification and/or development of alternatives In all impact assessments the identification of alternative options is raised.
Consultation with stakeholders Almost all impact assessment processes recommend consultation with key stakeholders on significant or substantial policies.
Reporting and presentation All impact assessment mechanisms produce some form of report and guidance is available on the content of these.
Typical questions asked during a child impact process
Typical questions asked during a child impact process are synthesised below, based on relevant literature, including health impact and social impact literature. It draws from a range of checklists, which are variously called a child lens, child proofing, impact statements and implication statements.
Describe the proposal What are the objectives of the proposal What are the likely positive and negative impacts on children of the proposal o Social wellbeing, including education, housing, participation, family connection, safety, social support and cohesion, mental health o Physical wellbeing, including health, biological factors such as age, sex, genes
64 o Individual/behavioural factors such as personal behaviours (diet, physical activity, alcohol, smoking), life skills, autonomy, self esteem and confidence, stress levels, educational attainment o Environmental wellbeing, including quality of air, water and soil, pollution, waste disposal, land use, biodiversity, climate, urban design, energy, communication networks, noise o Cultural and spiritual wellbeing, including expression of cultural values and practices, racism and discrimination, links with marae and cultural resources o Economic wellbeing, including family income and access to essential goods and services o Access to and quality of services such as public transport, health care, disability support services, social services, childcare, leisure services What are the alternatives that might ameliorate the negative impacts and strengthen the positive impacts? What data or information is there to support the assessment? What, if any, new data is required What consultative exercises should be undertaken to inform the policy and/or the assessment?
Knowledge needed to inform an assessment
An understanding of the position of children and their interests and needs in respect of the proposal being assessed Access to data relevant to the issue Knowledge of evidence base for predictions of impact Understanding of the wider legislative ie., Local Government Act 2002 and policy context
These suggest that quality assessments are more likely to come from processes that have an input from:
Those developing the proposal Specialists in children’s interests and with local government knowledge Children themselves Experts with knowledge about the evidence base for impact prediction
65 Appendix III
Child Impact Assessment Project Reference Group members
Emma Davies (Office of the Children's Commission) Nic Mason (Local Government Centre, AUT University) Victoria Owen (Local Government New Zealand) Jacqui Lawless (Nelson City Council) John Angus (Ministry of Social Development) Frances Graham (Ministry of Health) Amanda D’Souza (Ministry of Health) Paula Lawley-Evans (Ministry of Health) Lyn Campbell (Families Commission) David Kenkel (UNICEF, New Zealand)
Child Impact Assessment meeting, 31 October 2007 Office of the Children's Commission, Wellington
In discussing the capacity of Child Impact Assessments to maximise opportunities and overcome barriers in councils, the following corresponding lists were drawn from the meeting attendees, of relative and related issues to this question.
Barriers ¥ People, resources, money and perceived lack-of-value are barriers ¥ language (e.g., the word “health”) can be a barrier to some council politicians ¥ competing priorities in which to assess across council business e.g. disability, environmental, aged, gender ¥ Counter-arguments include: ‘old school thinking’ that promote the 3R’s of council business (roads, rats, rubbish); and that “its central government’s responsibility?” ¥ Western-centred models of practice which sometime reduce the place of children’s perspectives to a low priority ¥ No buy-in from key people i.e. senior management ¥ Silos of council units compound an assessment as often need to access a range of perspectives internally ¥ can waste an enormous amount time ‘herding’ government departments into this work ¥ UNCROC is potentially a barrier as it very ‘high-level’ convention which state government’s sign and which most councils do not believe to be their business ¥ Lack of appreciation of value added from children’s engagement (and their families) – this process can raise awareness of children’s issues and needs and of their best interests ¥ There can be some very short turn-around processes for consultation and advice which mean that children and/or their families direct involvement is hard to attain ¥ The availability of frameworks for councils need to be promoted whereby children’s wellbeing is considered and explicit links made to core council business
66 Opportunities ¥ All councils want to attract and retain families into their district. Sustainable development approaches can facilitate this and includes the need to listen to diverse community voices. If councils design for families, families will more likely stay in the district. Hearing from children is important in this. ¥ There is a network of social and cultural impact assessment colleagues in New Zealand who can support this work ¥ councils are mandated by Act (e.g., promotion of community wellbeing outcomes) and often by existing internal policies required from the Act to address children’s issues. CIAs link well to existing strategic directions and often community-identified outcomes of council ¥ assessments can save councils money ¥ iwi and hapu have an interest in pursuing Maori issues through councils, and CIA provides an opportunity to align with Mäori tamariki and rangatahi aspirations and priorities ¥ it’s a chance to showcase council successes, it is a good news story ¥ its an opportunity to use creative and positive mechanisms to engage with children ¥ its an opportunity to work collaboratively across council and with external colleagues ie., can open the door for ongoing coalitions with local communities e.g. partnering with local schools and child-focussed agencies to undertake assessments ¥ central government can be a resource to TLAs especially those councils with existing departmental relationships. Plus there is an enormous amount of central government data to support this work e.g., http://www.moh.govt.nz/phi. PHI monitors the health of the New Zealand population by analysing health outcomes, risks and determinants to measure how healthy the New Zealand population is over time and to examine inequalities in health across regional boundaries and between various population groups. ¥ can enable staff to focus upon what can be changed for the positive ¥ its a mechanism that can identify and meet local needs ¥ demonstrates benefits, children’s interest and their rights ¥ School curriculum linkages exist with council-based CIAs ¥ A prescriptive approach is not useful; a descriptive approach is better when undertaking assessments. Therefore a ‘why it matters’ document for councils can be developed to facilitate the process and project
How will we know CIA effective for children and for councils? ¥ Are there positive outcome for children? What do children say? The involvement of children is critical – what has been their involvement? ¥ What have the people involved got to say about CIA e.g., is it better simply because children and/or their families say so ¥ Did it change thinking on way through process – did anyone have “a-ha” ¥ Did it change draft recommendations of policy, programme, service etc e.g., was something put into the policy, programme, service etc to mitigate what had been identified as adverse interest for children ¥ Did change happen at the policy, programme, service level? ¥ What impact made on quality of service ¥ What impact made on quantity of access – e.g., are needs being better met? ¥ Did transferability occur e.g., in learning / skills / guidelines / templates? Can the assessment be applied in smaller councils? ¥ some ‘results’ are not immediately apparent, so need to factor in longer timelines and possible outcomes derived from CIA ¥ What has been the impact on health inequalities experienced by children? Have determinants of children’s health been positively addressed and acknowledged?
67 ¥ Have recommendations made been linked with council processes that need altering? ¥ The ‘Health perspective’ is about addressing inequalities, the ‘local government perspective’ is about individual equity – these are not congruous approaches and may hinder the synergies between the sectors ¥ Have partnerships and relationships have been developed and strengthened e.g: DHB + population health ¥ important that people feel listened to ¥ marketing of outcomes important to as many people as possible e.g., through photo essay which make the process and outcomes come to life for people ¥ the Public Health Advisory Committee focus upon child health is a priority and they’re able to influence healthy public policy
68 Appendix IV
International examples
Swedish model
The following model was developed by the Children’s Ombudsman in Sweden in 2000 (Sylwander 2001). Note that it has been adapted slightly from Angus’ citation (2007) for the purposes of this review. At the centre of the model are the questions to ask about the proposal being assessed with the surrounding four general requirements for a good assessment feeding into this core assessment.
Sylwander / Swedish model (2001)
1. UNCROC principles as the foundation (Articles 2, 3, 6 and 12) s Best interests of the child s Respect for children’s views s Non discrimination s Right to life and development
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Questions relating to the current proposal s What impact will the proposal have on the child/children? 2. Preconditions s How does the proposal relate to the provisions
of UNCROC? 3. Scientific and Assessors are s What problems or conflicts of interest may the evidence base appropriately proposal entail? qualified, know s How does the proposal affect, or is affected by, Knowledge base to about children’s other factors? be able to rights and can ó s What allowance has been made for the views ó understand and access how these of children and how have these viewpoints predict impacts on rights are spelt out been obtained? the UNCROC articles, in policy, s What compensatory measures may be including access to legislation and needed? relevant research other avenues for s What costs and benefits will the proposal and evaluation. the matter in entail from the viewpoint of society, individual hand. persons and particular groups? s Other issues of relevance?
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4. Working process (adapted to fit the matter under review) s Charting/mapping s Description s Analysis s Testing s Consultation s Evaluation
69 Commissioner for Children initiatives in Scotland and Northern Ireland
The Commissioners for Children in Scotland and Northern Ireland have developed child rights impact assessment tools. Features of their tools as described by Angus (2007:10) are:
A focus on children’s rights using UNCROC’s four principles as the framework, as well as the European Commission’s statement on human rights, other international conventions and national and local law. The involvement of children as participants in the process. A two stage process; first an initial appraisal then a full analysis if warranted. Used for legislative proposals, policy, budget decisions, administrative changes and review of current planning and practice. A template approach to guide the process and content of what is reported.
The Scotland Commissioner for Children and Young People (SCCYP) model has eight steps to its child impact assessment process.
1. Identify – choose what proposals to assess; what to appraise; and what to do a full assessment of 2. Map – describe the proposal, its objectives and likely impact and determine which articles of UNCROC apply. 3. Gather information. 4. Consult with stakeholders, children and experts. 5. Analyse – assess the proposal for: Its impact on UNCROC and other rights. Its differential impact on groups of children. Any competing interests. Financial implications. And set out: Different views about impact. If any legal rights are breached or put at risk. Both negative and positive impacts. 6. Make recommendations. 7. Publicise. 8. Monitor and evaluate.
Finnish model
In Finland a handbook has recently been produced for local and central government agencies, who are required to do child impact assessments (STAKES 2007, referenced by Angus 2007:9). Unfortunately, this handbook has not been published in English. However, the press releases associated with this handbook suggest that this Finnish Child Impact Assessment:
Uses the best interests of the child as the framework (UNCROC). Covers matters of rights and child development. Includes direct impact on health, human relationships, housing and mobility, ease of everyday life, participation and equality. Includes indirect impacts on family economy, on structures and services used by children, on family and community, and on social relationships generally.
70 City of London, England
A checklist was developed by the metropolitan authorities in London in 1995 (Association of Metropolitan Authorities and Children’s Rights Office, 1995) as a mechanism for local policy and planning proposals to take account of children’s issues and needs. It asks of its local planners and policy staff, to consider issues as diverse as child protection, access, opportunities, rights, deprivation and participation in services (see Appendix II for the full listing of questions).
This comprehensive and progressive questioning approach is not thought to be any longer applied in the City of London. The dimensions and breadth of London’s political responsibilities also preclude it being realistically transferable into the New Zealand local government context. However, the intent 13 years ago to integrate children’s needs and issues into London’s business is very impressive, hence its inclusion in this review.
Appendix V
The method(s) by which information can be gathered for the assessment phase of the child impact assessment are diverse. Whanau Ora Health Impact Assessment (Ministry of Health, 2007:20-21) provides a useful listing of method options:
focus groups or focused hui population and regional analysis (quantitative or qualitative) scenario assessments (quantitative or qualitative) health hazard identification and classification (quantitative or qualitative) stakeholder workshops ‘with-proposal’ and ‘without-proposal’ scenarios surveys key informant interviews with kaumatua, experts, or with groups such as runanga, Maori Women’s Welfare League and iwi tribal authorities brainstorming citizens’ juries (inviting members of the public to hear evidence from experts and then make an assessment) Delphi processes (involving a panel of individual experts and key people engaged in consensus decision-making, where the group decides the weighting and scaling using an iterative process) environmental monitoring (quantitative or qualitative) risk assessment, risk communication and risk management cost-benefit analysis evaluation
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