Developing, Implementing and Critiquing an Evaluation Framework to Assess the Extent to Which a Child’s Right to be Heard is Embedded at an Organisational Level

The national Child and Family Agency in Ireland, in 2015, undertook an ambitious three-year programme of work to embed a child’s right to be heard in its culture and operations. In parallel to its implementation, the authors of this paper were tasked with evaluating to what extent this intended outcome, that a child’s right to be heard was embedded in the government agency’s culture and operations, was achieved. The overarching evaluation design was a mixed methods baseline and follow up study. This paper reports on the development and implementation of the evaluation framework guiding the study. The framework comprised seven structural and process indicators adapted from the Council of Europe Child Participation Assessment Tool and five outcome indicators informed by the Lundy Model of participation. As well as reporting on the evaluation process, the paper critiques the value of the framework, its benefits, challenges and the pitfalls along the way to inform future evaluations.