At The Ark, child participation is at the heart of everything we do and we have been continually building on our child participatory practice over the years. In line with this practice, on Universal Children’s Day 2021, The Ark Children’s Council launched a national callout asking children across Ireland: when do you feel heard?

The Children’s Council read through all responses and used these to create a guide for The Ark about how to ensure children’s voices are heard in all its decision making. This document went through many drafts developed by the Council including input from various members of The Ark team.

Alongside this, the Children’s Council met with artist Aine O’Hara in late 2021 to devise a design brief for the list of instructions. The Council gave feedback which Aine considered for each draft of the design.

In early 2022, the Children’s Council decided on the final content and design for the document which they named, ‘HEAR OUR VOICE! Instructions on how to listen to children.’

We are very excited to invite you to take a look at the video and list of instructions below to get a better insight into the process. We hope that this these instructions and thinkings can spread far and wide beyond The Ark, in your schools, homes and workplaces (you can download the list of instructions below and have your very own copy!).