Consenting for themselves: A qualitative study exploring a Gillick Competence assessment to enable adolescents to self-consent to low-risk online research
Maria Loades, Lara Willis, Emma Wilson, Grace Perry, Melanie Luximon, Christy Chiu, Nina Higson-Sweeney
BMJ Open, 13 February 2025
Abstract
Background
Providing digital mental health interventions online could expand access to help for young people, but requiring parental consent may be a barrier to participation. We therefore need a method that enables young people <16 years old (i.e. presumed competent in the UK) to demonstrate Gillick Competence (understanding of purpose, process, potential benefits, and potential harms) to self-consent to online, anonymous, low-risk studies.
Aim
To explore whether a new method for assessing Gillick Competence to participate in low risk, anonymous online studies is acceptable to both young people and parents.
Method
We interviewed 15 13–15-year-olds and 12 parents of this age group in the UK. Using a qualitative approach, we explored the acceptability of a series of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) designed to assess understanding of a specific online self-help research study testing a self-kindness intervention.
Results
The MCQ answers that participants gave mostly corresponded with their narrative explanations of their understanding during interviews. Young people and parents thought that the process was empowering and could increase access to research whilst also promoting independence. However, they emphasised the importance of individual differences and different research contexts and highlighted the need for safeguards to be in place.
Conclusions
The MCQs were acceptable to both young people and parents, providing preliminary evidence for the potential of this process for allowing <16’s to self-consent to online, anonymous, low-risk mental health research. Further research is needed to validate the effectiveness of this process among a diverse range of populations and research contexts.

Between Protection and Participation: Informed Consent, Ethics and Play in Research With Children and Youth
Original Article
Maria V. Barbero
Children & Society, 11 February 2025
Abstract
While a robust scholarly dialogue has emerged in recent decades surrounding child and youth-centred research methods, less attention has been paid to how other elements of research design can better account for the needs, vulnerabilities, and perspectives of children and youth. In this article, I discuss challenges tied to informed consent processes and inflexible ethical guidelines in social science research with minors. Drawing from the child and youth studies literature as well as my past research experiences, I explore what it means to develop ethical approaches that are situated, responsive, and relational and which focus not only on the protection of minors but also their inclusion and full participation in research. In doing so, I develop the concept of “playful consent checkpoints” and argue that playful approaches can offer interesting and flexible possibilities for responding to ongoing ethical challenges in research with young people.

Ascribed Agency, Denied Influence: How Adult Narratives Shape and Constrain the Right of Children in the Justice System to be Heard
Mark Yin
The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 17 December 2024
Abstract
Following McMellon and Tisdall’s (2020) literature review on children’s participation rights, as embodied in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 12, this narrative review considers how access to these rights is affected by children’s involvement in the criminal justice system. Based on 30 papers relating to youth participation in youth justice, it is argued that adult-driven narratives of criminalised children as “risky”, “self-interested” or “vulnerable” variously undermine their right to be heard, while children’s narratives about themselves are often neglected. This suggests that the “perennial” implementation solutions identified by McMellon and Tisdall belie more fundamental questions about the very idea of childhood – as exemplified by children in conflict with the law – which warrant their own analysis.

Giving Due Weight to Children and Young People in Australian Policy Making
Meaghan Vosz, Anne Graham, Mark Hughes
The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 17 December 2024
Abstract
While Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child is often cited to assure children’s right to express their views freely in all matters affecting them, little is known about the practices associated with giving due weight to their views in policy-making that impacts their lives. This paper reports on critical-participatory research exploring the practices of more than 100 policy actors, conducted with five young co-researchers with lived experience of Australian child protection and out-of-home care systems. Practices associated with giving due weight included: involving children as policy actors, listening, giving feedback and reporting back, and amplifying their views. Practices were constrained by discourses of authenticity/tokenism; bureaucracy and jurisdiction; the attribution of expertise; and limited funding and time. Research demonstrated opportunities for realising Article 12 through intergenerational dialogue and valuing the lived experience and agency of young people as policy actors.

A New Approach for Investigating Children’s Participation Rights in Early Childhood Education: Listening to Voices in Interaction for Participation (LViIP)
Cynthia Hicban, Maryanne Theobald, Julia Mascadri
The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 17 December 2024
Abstract
   Research into children’s participation rights has largely focused on the challenges for early childhood educators to navigate children’s participation rights enactment. The aim of this article is to show how the enactments of children’s participation rights in an educational setting can be identified using a new approach, Listening to Voices in Interaction for Participation (LViIP).

LViIP is based on Lundy’s (2007) conceptualisation of Article 12(1) and combines with conversation analysis (ca) to identify how rights enactment sequentially unfolds and how the interactants mobilise (or gatekeep) opportunities for children to have a say.

A step-by-step worked example of LViIP shows in detail how participatory approaches by educators and children are built in early childhood education, thus demonstrating which interactional practices contribute towards the co-construction of children’s participation rights and how early childhood professionals can listen, be and do as duty-bearers of children’s rights in their daily practice.