Child Agency: Family-Centred or Person-Centred?

Family-centred practice is a well-recognised and fundamental principle for providing best practice early intervention support to children. When I first began exploring child agency, I was keen to understand how these concepts interact. When we’re working with young children, do we start with a family-centred approach and over time shift to more person-centred practices, or is the interaction more nuanced?

Family-centred practice emphasises the importance of working in partnership with families to provide the best support to children. It recognises families as the experts on their child and their life, and that the best outcomes are achieved when their individual needs and priorities are listened to, and they are actively involved in decisions.

Child agency, on the other hand, is about children having a say in decisions that affect them. It's about them developing the skills and confidence to express their opinions and preferences. As discussed in our previous blog, "Empowering Children: The Importance of Child Agency", the development of child agency skills is increasingly recognised as important for all children and is vital for children with disabilities to help ensure their long-term outcomes and a full life.

How can we be listening to and working in partnership with families when we are working to support a child’s developing agency skills?

Rather than seeing them as separate and distinct approaches, it can be helpful to recognise that they’re actually connected, and that our work is with both. Child agency can, and arguably should, be supported within a family-centred approach. 

Anchoring child agency work in family-centred practices creates a safe and supportive environment where children can feel comfortable expressing themselves, while ensuring their cultural background and values are respected.

The Role of Culture

The role of culture in our work is significant. Culture plays an important role in shaping beliefs, values, and behaviors. It plays a huge part in how children are raised and how they develop a sense of self. It influences everything from parenting styles to communication patterns and is a key consideration when providing family-centred practice. When we work in ways that support a child’s growing agency, it’s vital that this is also done in ways that align with the culture, views and beliefs of the important individuals in the child’s life and not in a way that is more representative of perhaps our own culture, values and expectations.

What does this mean in our work with children and families?

This brings us firmly back to recognising the value and importance of family-centred practice. We want to work in partnership with each child and caregiver to develop a shared understanding of what supporting this child’s growing agency may look like for them, and how we can work to support this child’s developing agency together. 

We want to ensure we are:

• Respecting cultural differences: Understanding and appreciating the family's cultural background and values
• Avoiding assumptions: Not making judgments based on stereotypes
• Tailoring our approach: Adapting strategies to align with the family's cultural norms and preferences.

We can do this while still working in ways that help families to understand the importance of child agency by:

• Working in partnership: Collaborating with families to understand their child's needs, wants and goals
• Providing information and resources: Sharing knowledge about child development and agency
• Encouraging participation: Supporting families in decision-making processes.

We can share what we know about the importance of supporting a child's developing agency, maintaining our role as an advocate for children's rights, while recognising that this can happen in a range of different ways reflecting the individual needs of each child and their family.

I’ve come to recognise that child agency does not require us to shift away from family-centred practice to a more person-centred approach as children grow and develop. Instead, family-centred practice and child agency interact and our work is to support this interaction and find ways to balance the competing needs and interests. A truly effective approach involves working in partnership with families while also supporting children's agency. While this is not always easy – few important things are – it does recognise that each child and family is unique, and the approach that will best meet their needs and circumstances is going to be developed through understanding and collaboration and in a way that aligns with their culture and values.

If you want to deepen your understanding of child agency and empower children to become active decision makers, Noah’s Ark is thrilled to announce that the Child Agency Toolkit is now open for enrolments. This Learning Package will offer evidence-based resources and coaching support to help you:

• Build confidence in promoting child agency with all of children and their caregivers
• Provide individualised support that respects each child and family’s unique needs and values.

Enrol in the Child Agency Toolkit today and discover how child agency will promote long-term outcomes for all children.