Reframing Challenges of Children-Friendly Research As Opportunities for Integration of Children's Voices into Research, Policy and Practice

Background and Purpose. Right-sensitive research and evaluation present an emerging epistemological trend in developing social work research agenda for the future. The realization of children’s rights to participate and be heard through evaluation and research is getting more attention. The research is primarily done by the adult researchers who imply their own biases in communication with children that shape the way we interpret research findings.  Lack of children’s voices in the research undermine our ability to adequately evaluate the state of the children. If we believe that children need to participate in constructing the knowledge than special efforts need to be made to ensure child-friendliness of research practices. Nonprofit evaluation as a type of research that needs to be paid special attention to due to lack of regulation and protection of the children who become part of evaluation efforts in these settings, especially in developing countries. The aim of this study is to conceptualize and develop a model of child-friendly evaluation based on the perspective of nonprofit professionals in Russia.

Methods. Fourteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews with nonprofit professionals and a focus group with five independent evaluation consultants were conducted. Total of 28 participants, nonprofit president, CEO, evaluators, child psychologists, program managers, were interviewed. The grounded theory was applied to establish the model. The nonprofit participants represented a variety of organizational forms including grassroots non-profits, corporate and family foundation, nonprofits with international headquarters, nonprofit with university partnerships, nonprofit with a business component. Data analysis consists of identifying codes, reducing codes to themes, relating categories, model mapping and contextualizing the new model within the literature. Data was entered, coded and analyzed in Dedoose.

Findings. The results of conceptualization enabled us to formulate eight principles of child-friendly evaluation which includes equal partnership, egalitarian triangulation, inclusiveness, ethics, open communication, individual progress measurement and orientation to the future.  Participants described their understanding and implication of what can be considered child-friendly evaluation. They also noted that child-friendly evaluation is difficult to implement without having child-friendly program design in place which in turns should be a part of child-friendly organizational culture. As a result, these principles gave us the foundation for creating a child-friendly evaluation model of institutionalization within the nonprofits.

Conclusions and Implications: The findings emphasize the important of reframing  how we think about the children as participants in the research and evaluation process. The results of the study have strong implication for macro social work research, practice and nonprofit management, as well as how our policies in regards to the children construct them as passive group in the evaluation process.  The UNCRC notes importance of  the rights of a child to be heard, however, the challenge for social work research is to create a child-friendly space in its research agenda to make this right work for the most vulnerable children groups—children in care.