Child and Youth Participation Awards 2025

Eight inspiring initiatives have been honoured with Child and Youth Participation awards for their commitment to ensuring that children’s voices are heard when it comes to any decision that affects them.

Each service applied for an award based on a participatory project that they have completed alongside young people in their service or based on evidence that participation is embedded in the culture of their service. Applications were reviewed by an evaluation committee comprising of representatives from Tusla, Gaisce, the Children’s Rights Alliance, the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman, and Hub na nÓg.

Guided by the Lundy Model of Participation, applications are assessed under the criteria of Space, Voice, Audience, and Influence. This year eight services scored the minimum 16 points out of 20 to earn themselves an award, with each winner having a massive impact on young people’s participation in decision-making.

This award is highly valued by the Agency, and every applicant receives individual feedback from the committee to support our learning as a collective. Well done to all applicants of 2025.

Among the winners was Kilkenny Community Early Years Project for their research study on co-play. Accepting their award, Project Coordinator, Alicia Mastrandrea said: “KCEYP thanks Tusla for this recognition. We believe that every interaction with children presents an opportunity for participatory practice.

“In our service, children are given opportunities to make decisions daily and throughout their overall learning journey within our setting. Our staff provide the time and space for children’s voices to be heard and we engage in ongoing reflective practise to ensure that the children's opinions and decisions have meaningful influence,” she added.

The successful entries, based in regions where participation officers operate, received their awards at a series of individual ceremonies in recent weeks. Award recipients were presented with a framed certificate of achievement and a wall plaque to recognise their commitment to upholding children’s rights. These were presented by regional participation officers on site at each service. Meanwhile, services which just fell short of the cut-off mark were awarded Certificates of Merit for their inspiring initiatives.

This year’s award recipients are great examples of youth participation in decision-making, and many of the projects can easily be replicated by other services if they wish to do so. You can get a detailed looked at each project below.

YMCA PAKT (Parents & Kids Together): A Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) was established to bring about positive change to the service and ensure young people’s voices were represented in a structured way. The YAC were given a budget to make practical changes where required, and they had opportunities to present their views to senior decision-makers in the service.

The YAC created a PAKT Charter of Rights, which was designed, and written by them; they designed a children’s only registration form that children fill in with the youth leader, and created a "buddy wheel" where the groups names are written onto a wheel, which they spin to see who will "buddy" with a new member to help them settle into the group. The committee, which has been operating since 2019, has also planned trips to try new activities such as zip lining and other adventure activities, supporting the service to achieve other strategic objectives.

Kilkenny Early Years Insights into Participation: The Kilkenny Early Years team participated in a research study on co-play and continued to analyse their own co-play with children and young people in their service. Educators there make the most of every opportunity to co-play with children, allowing them to support the child with their investigation of ideas and decision-making. Co-play facilitates this to happen naturally during learning experiences through conversations and observations. Through the research project, staff analysed videos of each educator’s practice of co-play in a strengths-based manner. This practice has helped them to identify where, how, and why the toddlers and young children are experiencing good practice in relation to their meaningful participation in decisions that affect their play and learning. As a result, the educators learned that when they intentionally spend meaningful periods of time co-playing and involving the children in decision making through the play; there are definite elements required for this to succeed.

Barnardos Lorien: When the Mac Uilliam playground was vandalised and removed by South Dublin County Council approximately eight years ago, Barnardos Lorien engaged with children who reside in the area, who all voiced their opinion that they have nowhere safe to play in their area. The team in Barnardos collaborated closely with the Mac Uilliam interagency group to highlight the children’s concerns at their meetings. Barnardos succeeded in advocating for the children’s wishes and plans were made to commence the development of a community garden in consultation with local children. They engaged with local children to plan not only the development of the space, but also how it would be used and cared for into the future. Since the space was opened to residents, the children in the community have been involved in planning events such as movie nights and shows. They have also actively supported Barnardos to keep the place well maintained and safe to play in.

Tullow Area School Completion Project: Secondary school students in Co. Carlow asked if they would have access to a football to play during lunchtime, something which was not an option at the time. The school completion officer organised met with the young people and together they produced the idea of an organised first-year boys soccer tournament as a way for the students to be able to play soccer at lunchtime. Soccer was the instigating factor in the tournament but there were other spin-off benefits and changes for the whole school. Nine matches were played at lunchtime over several weeks. The winning team received a champion’s league football. Following on from this success, the school lifted the ‘no footballs at lunchtime’ rule and a new sign in/out system has been established at break time to keep track of the balls.

FamiliBase Ballyfermot Young Person’s Support Programme: The Dublin initiative is an activity-based, life skills, and drugs educational programme, which aims to break the stigma of hidden harm whilst building the young person's confidence and resilience, as well as their trust in adults. The service informed participating children and young people about the risks associated with drug use, fostering healthy coping mechanisms, and promoting positive life skills, which can play a crucial role in breaking the cycle of intergenerational substance abuse. The children and young people worked with the service staff to bring about positive changes to the programme such as changing the duration of the programme, as well as changing its content and method of delivery. The result was a much-improved programme that meets the needs of all young people who avail of the Famlibase service.

ISPCC Monaghan: Children and young people in the service were invited to create their own wellness journal for themselves and for their peers availing of services in ISPCC. The service created a panel of interested children and young people who wanted to progress the project. They met weekly over a five-month period, during which they informed a graphic designer on the content, design, and overall format they wanted to create. The result was a unique journal focussed on a theme for each month of the year. Features included using familiar symbols to reflect each month instead of naming the months. The young people also chose to fill the journal with positive quotes from popular song lyrics and motivational messages. The journal was printed and young people across Cavan and Monaghan are using it.

Crannóg Nua retro makeover: The project involved staff from the Special Care facility supporting a young person to create a space for themselves that was peaceful and could meet their sensory needs during therapeutic intervention. The young person created a plan, presented it to management, sought approval for the visual and creative aids, the soft furnishings, painting of the space and overall progression of the space into one that has a real ambience and cosiness. The project allowed the young person to build confidence in using his voice. The presentation of his ideas gave him a definite audience where limitations could be discussed, and solutions agreed on together supporting the young person to bring his project to fruition. The project has inspired other young people to achieve in similar ways.

PPFS Cavan Online Awareness Video: PPFS Cavan works with children and young people 10-18 years of age, supporting them with differing levels of need. Staff invited young people to explore topics or themes that they felt should be addressed. After deliberation, they decided to explore ‘raising awareness of social media’.  The service supported workshops on developing their ideas. The group chose to use a video as their medium for ease of communication to a wider audience. The group used a graphic designer for support in creating story boards, scripts, and character designs. Young people presented their video at a cross-county professionals networking event in December 2024, following this the video was shared to the target audience via schools, family resource centres, and parenting fora.

Congratulations to all the winners and to those projects who earned a well-deserved Certificate of Merit!