Three Children's Institute representatives recently attended meetings of an informal network of child policy research centres from across the globe. The network was established in 2001 "to explore common organisational issues, challenges, and practices; to compare research interests and identify issues that might benefit from joint work or a cross-national approach; and to examine the possibility of developing working relationships that could enrich and further the work of participating centres". Nine countries are represented on the network, and this year's meetings took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The meetings focused on common organisational and research challenges and covered topics related to child policy in Brazil, systems and social responsibility for children, and staff development. While the research focus of participating centres differs, it was evident from presentations that child policy research centres from around the world face common challenges in their research work.

Such challenges were shared during discussions at a Child Perspective and Voice Working Group meeting, aimed at sharing information on research that draw on children's voices and perspectives. By means of short presentations, six participating countries shared their experiences on a total of 12 different child perspective research studies. The Children's Institute gave input on its experiences in working with the Dikwankwetla - Children in Action group to comment on the Children's Bill.

Some common perspectives and issues that emerged from the presentations were:

• Gatekeepers to children, such as social workers, can pose a problem to researchers' access to children's perspectives and voices.
• Limited engagement time with children can make studies more difficult.
• It can be challenging to work with small groups involving sensitive issues.
• There is a need for researchers to share methodologies regarding accessing children's perspectives and voices.

• avoid token participation,
• motivate service providers to access children's voices to input on improvements of services,
• make children's voices available to decision-makers,
• include quantitative elements in the research, and
• assess the value of research methods used.

The network participants at another session discussed research on and approaches to systems and social responsibility for children. Common challenges that emerged were related to collaboration between different government departments responsible for children's well-being, as well as the need for departmental budgets to match comprehensive policies. These issues are also being debated in the Children's Bill process.

However, the meeting highlighted the fact that more progressive approaches, such as multi-disciplinary planning particularly within the court system in Northern Ireland, seem to be emerging. It was also reported that there is an increased emphasis on children's legal rights in Norway, as a trend to set jurisprudence on socio-economic rights has been emerging.

Overall, the meeting of the child policy research centres network has been an affirmation to the Children's Institute about how its work measures up in the international research arena. At the same time, the feedback from participating centres on South Africa's attempts at progressively realising children's rights has been most encouraging.
 

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