It's always a good idea to give children and young people with experience of being in care a voice, but it's not always easy to do. Billie Ibidun gives some pointers on how this can be done successfully

This is a momentous time in corporate parenting and related issues. Quality Protects, the Children Leaving Care Bill, the Waterhouse report, Modernising Local Government, the social inclusion agenda, the stake-holder approach, among others, have left us all aware of the potential for lasting change in how we look after children.

Developing meaningful and sustainable ways of involving children and young people in the services we provide is at the heart of this change.

We have all been caught in different stages of readiness and none of us can sit back and hang the "Duninvolvin'" sign over the old corporate homestead quite yet.

Against this backdrop, how we involve young people is a complex question. It depends on who is asking and what stage they are at with all of the above.

The frequency with which this question occurs speaks a lot about the need for more practical resources to help share good practice and inform, advise and train. Many organisations are in the process of developing resources in this direction.

This climate has also created a spate of events targeted at children and young people in care and leaving care, based on the broad themes of participation and involvement.

Some of them are amazing, inspiring, powerful ventures in which the voices of children and young people are heard and acted upon. Some, however, are not.

A National Voice is an organisation run by and for young people from care and has an obvious interest in these events. We organise many of them, are involved in others and are often the first port of call for local authorities planning such events.

We still have much to learn, and we have not yet developed a blueprint for the perfect event. However, the following is compiled based on the generous assistance of young people and events we organised over the past year.

• Allow enough time. Helping young people to do the work takes a lot more time than people think.

• Work with a planning group of young people from the start.
• Support the planning group with practicalities, such as meetings, transport and reminders, and offer to speak with carers to explain what you are doing.
• Have focused short meetings with practical goals.
• Come with some ideas to help get things started and be prepared to have them rejected.
• Don't reject ideas from the young people -Êconsider each of them seriously.
• Be upfront about the available resources to support the event.
• Tell the young people what you want from the event, ask them what they want and be seen to be putting equal effort into both.
• If one of the purposes of the event is to collect information or consult on a particular issue, tell the young people how this information will be used.
• Send copies of any reports, evaluations and information about decisions arising from the event to all the young people who participate.
• Help young people take leadership roles in the preparation of the event itself.
• Invest in training and support for young people to do this confidently - for example, public speaking, developing a piece of theatre and so on.
• Choose a young person- friendly venue.

• Involve adults in support roles.

• A little apathy, suspicion, mistrust and attitude is allowed, but not from you.

• Expect the best of young people - you might be amazed at how often you get it. CC

Billie Ibidun is co-ordinator of advocacy organisation A National Voice

• We're always being told to listen to what young people tell us about the services that affect them. But how exactly do we involve them?