Professor Nigel Thomas Sara Imanian The Centre for Children and Young People’s Participation

1. Evaluating the Impact of European Independent Human Rights Institutions for Children:Preliminary Results Professor Nigel Thomas Sara Imanian The Centre for Children and Young People’s Participation School of Social Work University of Central Lancashire, UK

2. RESEARCH GROUP ON OMBUDSPERSONS FOR CHILDREN Members: Brian Gran (Case Western Reserve University) Karl Hanson (InstitutUniversitaire Kurt Bösch) Nigel Thomas (University of Central Lancashire) Areas of inquiry (based on interviews with members in 2010) Comparison of different models Effectiveness and impact Evidence base for policy

3. The challenges of evaluating impact • Specifying desired outcomes • Collecting evidence • Attributing outcomes as consequence of specific actions • Avoiding climate of negative criticism

4. Aims of research • to explore conceptualisations of ‘impact’ by independent human rights institutions for children (IHRICs) • to begin to develop methods and indicators for measuring their impact. Phase 1: Survey of ENOC members – Brief questionnaire sent to 42 members in 2012; Responses from 28 (67%); Questions about members’ priorities, their key stakeholders, the impacts for which they aimed. Phase 2: Case study of two member institutions using methods of Appreciative Inquiry.

5. Findings of the survey In order to explore the impact that IHRICs have made across Europe, some information about these organisations were required; the key ones were their aims and priorities in addition to their relationship with stakeholders. These were acquired by two separate questions. The respondents were asked to rank their priorities as well as the stakeholders’ influence on their work in order.

6. Tables 1 and 2 were revealed after summing up the values given by ENOC members. As illustrated by Table1, the first priority of the IHRICs is to influence Law, Policy and Practice that even precedes promoting full implementation of the CRC. Overall, promoting children's access to complaints processes was valued as the last aim of the respondents.

7. The way the stakeholders are ranked in order of influence they make on IHRICs work reveals an important fact about the power of governments that mainly handle law and policy. The other influential stakeholders are NGOs and parents. The respondents’ ideal is that children have the most influence instead of government. This might explain why the institutions have chosen to influence law and policy as their first priority.

8. A considerable part of the questionnaire was dedicated to open questions about the impact these institutions try to make, the impact they suppose they have made and their approach towards evaluating the impact of their organisation. After coding the responses, this table was disclosed: Tables 1 and 3 demonstrate that the main areas of impact mentioned by the respondents are: law and policy, awareness of child rights and implementing the CRC. These are exactly the first three aims of the IHRICs that are pursued by the impact they try to make.

9. Experiences of evaluation in IHRICs • Many IHRICs have not undergone any evaluation; shortages of time and budget and lack of knowledge of benefits of impact evaluation • IHRICs mostly evaluate their performance and not impact • It is difficult for them to isolate their impact from larger networks • Measuring the impact of IHRICs is a challenge and UN admits it • IHRICs need evaluations to set up their strategic plans and monitoring indicators • The evaluations done have not provided them with the level of detail they wanted.

10. Second Phase • Analysing the data collected through the survey highlighted: The areas of impact that should be focused on The stakeholders that should be engaged Institutions willing to participate in the second phase • Based on the findings of the survey and consultations with experts, it was proposed that the main focus be on evaluating the organisation’s impact on law and policy, and how this is informed by children’s perspectives. • Theresearch is drawn on methods of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and realistic evaluation, in an attempt to understand the mechanisms that produce successful outcomes and the contexts in which they work. • The Northern Ireland Commissioner for CYP and the Ombudsman for Children in Finland were selected and agreed to be our case studies.

11. This phase was comprised of three stages: An exchange of ideas with the core team of the institution to develop the detailed plan for the case study, so that this is a collaborative evaluation from the start, and to identify key sources and informants; A data gathering phase in which selected staff of the organisation and some of the IHRICs’ stakeholders (including the youth panel advisors, NGOs and representatives of Government) were interviewed, and relevant documents related to the institution’s work were examined; The findings will be shared with the institutions, the analysis will be completed, and they will be helped to plan for future work and further evaluation.

12. Our initial findings The stakeholders talked about: • Strong points of the institutions • Examples of their good practice • Difference they have made to children’s lives • Best experiences of working with these IHRICs • Dreams for the future of these organisations

13. What we have learned • Measuring impact is very difficult! • There are different agendas to consider • Between institutions • Among stakeholders • Recording policy impact is important • The AI method can be developed and adapted

14. RESEARCH GROUP ON OMBUDSPERSONS FOR CHILDREN What we can offer • Further work to develop impact evaluation • Customised evaluation for individual institutions (or groups of institutions) • Advice on commissioning and using research • A service to Ombudspersons • A service to ENOC

15. Thank you! Merci! Danke! Grazie! Takk! Gracias! Cпасибо! Hvala! Ευχαρίστω!

16. Contact details npthomas@uclan.ac.uk simanian@uclan.ac.uk www.uclan.ac.uk/cypp