Pennod 20, Lee Patterson, Cyngor Caerdydd a swyddog arweiniol UNICEF
Hello and welcome to another episode of architecture for kids podcast I’m your host Antonio kown I’m a trained architect an architectural educator and founding director of award-wining architecture for kids cic in this podcast I’m going to talk to practitioners and creatives that share the same passion as I do to inspire and
To engage children and young people to shape their built environment and the creative Industries the podcast is brought to you in collaboration with the built environment trust the Thornton education trust and the well School of Architecture Cardiff University my guest today is Lee Patterson Lee is a lead officer for the partnership between
Cardiff Council and UNIS f as part of the child friendly City program he’s a social pedagogue with experience of working with children and young people for over 30 years both in the UK and overseas he has worked in both formal and nonformal settings including local government schools youth centers Play
Services Community work and specializes in embedding children’s rights into policy and practice Le congratulations on Cardiff becoming the first UK sh friendly City with UNICEF state thank you for coming to talk to me today and I’m looking forward to our conversation thank you very much it’s
Been a long and exciting Journey uh and I’m really pleased uh that UNICEF have recognized Cardiff uh for all the work it’s done since 2018 um hopefully uh we’ll have lots more uh UK cities joining uh the program and uh embedding children’s rights to the level of Cardiff has and I’m really
Pleased that the wider Public Services not just local government are being recognized uh as part of the assessment so it’s really good news for everybody involv Le one of the questions I asked all my guests to begin with is what subjects were you good at school and uh
What subjects did you enjoy most I like geography most two reasons the subject was interesting but the teacher was fantastic it was inspirational funny and engaging and I enjoyed learning about physical geography human geography and I never did anything really meaningful after leaving school with geography
Which uh is sometimes the case they just ended up as a social pedagogy I that trashed of developed as most things by accident I I left the country I grew up in the UK had some experiences when I was a teenager of going overseas and I I
Saw the the world is a bigger place than me when I immediately grew up so I ended up spending the summer in Hong Kong when I was 13 and I knew that as soon as I could that I wanted to go and move around the planet a little bit more so I
Did that for quite a long time and then I came back to the UK after a few years and I decided that I wanted to work with children and young people in some way I I didn’t know what I wanted to do but I know that I wanted to work with children
And young people I was good with them I was interested in their lives and so I ended up doing uh play work as we called it in the United Kingdom and so running play schemes and holiday school programs I ended up running those sort of programs and then I found that there was
Youth work uh and so then I went to University and I’ve got a full-time job um I’m a professional Youth and community worker that meant that I had buildings and keys and responsibility but I also had some influence and some budget to work with children and young
People and Central to what we do in youth work is we’re going to listen to children and young people and we have to put them at the center of what we do and build our programs of work so that’s that’s how it all started and that moment where you realized that you
Wanted to work with children and young people was there a particular of thing that happened I don’t think there was one particular time however I do think that over a period of years I spent more and more time visiting schools over sees in Africa and India and Southeast Asia I
Spent more time with organizations and NOS volunteered in some uh camps where people were being resettled and as a result of that I just I just found that it was quite an interesting worthwhile way to spend your day working and encouraging and educating children to to do certain things get better at certain
Things learn new skills find the way they in the world you know so it was more over a period of time really by Dev things that I’m interesting talking to you about is the this child friendly City program that you are uh developing here in Wales how did that come about
And let’s talk about the program as well I think it’s fair to say that a number of years ago talking about 7 eight years ago Cardis had some challenges in some of its service education and Children’s Services particularly uh were on an improvement journey and they were looking outwards decision makers at the
Senior level senior politicians were looking out across the UK and further field around what other communities and cities were doing as part of their improve Improvement uh sort the journey and they come across the program and work which was at this that stage in a pilot phase so UNICEF were running a
Pilot in the UK they’d run a program called child friendly cities and communities for 20 years globally but never in the UK and as part of this uh exercise where they were looking outwards they were interested in the the difference it was making in the five
Pilot areas that were chosen in the UK and at that time the pilots had just come to a complete stop they were looking at rolling out the program and uh after a period of reflection uh the leaders of the city of Cardiff decided that we would be the first city to
Express an interest of being part of that program and the program broadly sets ant to recognize children’s rights and put them at the heart of decision making in the city so I can talk a little bit more about that but that that’s that’s the overarching aim improving the lives of children young
People by recognizing and prioritizing their children’s rights let’s now talk a little bit about that so in cardi we identified three key areas over the last 5 years that we wanted to improve as part of the program we know that you can’t just change everything and improve everything it’s it’s not realistic
UNICEF challenges the city to make sure that they listen to children and young people directly they look at the analysis and data they speak to the adults in the workforce of work with children and young people and identify their priority areas for us it was Education Health that’s both physical
And emotional health and Family Services they were looked at through the lens of being particularly for the most vulnerable children in the city some children were doing very well in terms of their family education and Health but we know there were certain groups of people that really were struggling and
We wanted to make sure that we considered Charles Ro’s approach in improving those services and improving the city as a whole so we’ve been that that uh working through that for the last four years and we’re just coming to the end of that period and now we’re
Looking at the next 3 years of what those priorities would be how do you put that into practice I’ll give you some examples through Health we were looking at people moving around the city in a much more sustainable way making sure that they were safe uh and trained and
Felt confident to be able to move around either by scooting cycling walking and we know that there’s a particular challenge not just in this community but when across the world at the beginning and and end of a school day we know that people have to get to one point quite
Quickly and it could become quite an intense thing and if you’re in cars it makes it even worse so we were trying to encourage people out of their cars onto public transport or even better into healthy modes of Transport like scooting walking to do that we’ve uh invested Ed
Heavily in five Super highways uh those super highways won’t help everybody get to school but you might use part of that Network to been a good part of your journey we invested heavily in training young people and children to be comfortable in using bikes and riding
One of the things that children told us is we’d love to ride but our parents won’t let us cuz they don’t think it’s safe we also did a lot of work in the immediate area around schools so we know that with a lot of cars moving around
Some parents were right it wasn’t the safest environment for for children to come congregate particularly on mass so we now have a series of programs including cameras outside schools and Ro closures to make sure that the period of time before and after school is come completely carfree uh and it makes it
Far more comfortable for everybody arriving at the school gate so there just that’s just one or two example of what we did in in that particular UniFi when you identify those um aspects that you been working on how did you identify them that’s a good question so UNICEF
Referred to that period of time as a discovery phase so through through our Discovery phase um we built on we’re very fortunate in Cardiff that we’ve got a long history of engaging meaningfully with children and young people in in healthy really creative ways so we built on that strength and we spent nearly
Eight months running large scale workshops activities listening exercises in communities in the city center bringing large people large groups of people together the first thing we did is we asked Cardiff kin do you think we’re child friendly because if we were then there’s no point in moving forwards
They told us that we weren’t and they told us some areas that they wanted to improve we then took that across the the next several months and we tested that idea those priorities those concerns with different groups and over time we’ve got got a better understanding of
The lived experiences of children in in Cardiff and then we presented uh some of the data to children and young people we did a similar parallel process with adult Workforce so people from Health youth Justice education communities and housing libraries and we ask them do you
Think we’re child L if not why not where do you think we could have the most impact particular even the most vulnerable and at the end of the seven months we brought the children and the um and the adults together and we asked them to choose UNICEF refer to a series
Of badges they asked you to choose three badges and so the first two were easy uh children and adults both chose education and health as a priority area the third one was a bit of a an arm wrestle bit of an argument Antonio so uh through a
Period of a day in refining thinking we eventually chose family and belonging as the badges referred to and we’ve been delivering against those actions so situational analysis listening and working together for seven months or so now I’m curious to know what was the other badges yeah so they have the this
The fourth one was equal and included so it’s dealing with inequality in the CST and interestingly we’ve picked that up for this next threeyear period so we didn’t forget about that we went back and did another Discovery we’re in the middle of that period now but equal included which is dealing with
Inequality particularly uh through a lens of Youth Justice and gender uh that’s one of our priority here is going forward for the next few years so we didn’t forget are you following some kind of precedent the the working with children and young people and creative
Ways to listen to them is a strength in the city what we haven’t done is done that systematically acoss the organization in local government what I can say now after four and a half years is that we’re doing that far far more and the quality is better
And we have a commitment not just to listen to Children the young people but but to take action where appropriate and to tell the children of the young people what’s happened as a result so that feedback loop and that whole process of getting better across the organization
Is really key um and it’s not just about the this thing you’ve got to roll your sleeves up and do these things as well you’ve got to make the changes improve the services people sometimes are are patronizing just because human beings haven’t been on the planet longer than
Somebody else we we have that sort of paternalistic sometimes patronizing view you sit down and listen to some children at the age of 8 11 14 and they’re outstanding they know what they want they understand the world around them they are experts in their own lives and
And we W recognizing that as well as we could have done across the whole of local government in the past and I now is it correct for me to say that it’s about bringing agency to Children exactly and why do you think it’s important to have for children to have
Agency if we see them as passive recipients of the service uh we’re doing them a service we you know if we’re providing them with the service that they require that they need either because it keeps them safe it educates them it keeps them healthy keeps them motivated then treating them as passive
Recipients is not the way forward so it needs to be engaging and it needs to be meaningful and that you need to find out if it meets their needs so I I I just think it’s it’s ignorant for adults uh and for if if people work with children
And young people and if you as whether you have you’re a parent or a caregiver you understand that you know they’re they’re quite surprising they’re very and they’re not citizens in Waiting Antonio they’re they’re noncitizens in Waiting they’re citizens now with intrinsic human rights um and it’s it’s
As Duty bearers is the technical term so people that should make sure that these kids have their rights met it’s a it’s a legal obligation we shouldn’t just be doing it because we’re told to we should see the benefits of you know it should be co-producing things working together understanding what’s needed refining
Things to get better and that could be everything from planning a whole Community developing a park starting up a new project or service when politicians make a decision they understand what children’s rights are and what the impact of their decisions are how money is being spent it could be
It doesn’t need to be boring politics sometimes is really boring but actually if you if you bring it to life and if you put kids in the middle of the allw all of a sudden it gets interesting the dynamic changes you know it becomes more
Real what is the impact in general of a child friendly City cuz I I don’t think that will impact just the sh no no if if we stick with our next priority will as I said is about equality the second priority is about place it’s about urban planning and design and meeting the
Needs of children and young people and involve them in the designing of their own communities if our city planners here in cariff and we’re very lucky to have quite Progressive teams that are really interested in working with children and young people to design their communities with them if they’re
Designing for an 8-year-old called bark then quite often the design that the child wants is is the same as an 88-year-old called ver because Mobility is an issue because the way that they use the Urban Design and the planning elements of of our city is quite similar
You know we not everybody can move across a very large rtal Road quickly not everybody uh can walk long distances everybody needs a place to sit and dwell we all benefit from Green spaces and blue infrastructure like lakes and rivers you know nature enhances us it’s
It’s all so it’s it’s it’s a game it’s it’s ignorant to think actually by planning for children you’re planning other parts of our Civic society and of that Community it’s complimentary quite often I’m thinking about families at great no number amount children that was that generational uh lifestyle within
The family that several Generations live together and they helped each other and complement each other’s life impossible Society in different countries we’ve lost that element to some extent that intergenerational I mean fortunately in we’re a very rich uh diverse community so we still got a lot of uh groups of
Families that live together three4 three generations in a household and uh you see some of our Parks being used you’ll have an 8090 year old cluster of people sitting there and talking on benches while families are playing in the background and having a picnic and teenagers will be dwelling we’re very
Fortunate to hand that in card if and we want to build on that and we want to make sure that everybody is welcome in those spaces within the program how much work do you have until Implement a lot of these ideas you’ve been working on been working since 2018 our strategy was
Launched uh so we’re coming up to nearly 5 years we’re now in an evaluation period where we’re reflecting on our success what we else we need to do and we’re setting out an action plan uh in March uh 2024 that we will set out exactly what we’re trying to achieve for
23 to 26 we still got work to do in terms of internal processes around how we involve young children and young people in budget set um how we involve children and young people in training and evaluating some staff and and uh developing new services I don’t think we’ll ever get that
Perfect there’s always work to be done but we are looking outwards at the other priorities which I said is is about making sure that we got Cardiff is a is a fair and equal city as much as possible and that our planning you understands children’s needs and and uh
Respects their rights what has been been most successful in in all this world I think there’s some tangible things that have changed one of the first things that children and young people consistently told us was that you we don’t know about our rights and uh we’re not taught about our rights right so
When we talk about rights some people get really off it’s a legal framework but actually when I speak to Ms and dads and Foster carers and children themselves it’s just things that help you keep you happy safe uh you’re not discriminated against and you’re able to
Flourish and be the best that you can be that’s it it’s as simple as that it’s a set of rules that the adults need to do uh and adults even have their own rights they got human rights but actually me children need Extra Protection cuz they’re extra vulnerable so they get an
Extra set of rights which we call children’s rights it’s not rocket science they told us you need to teach us better and you need to teach us earlier so in Cardiff one of the tangible things that we’ve seen is UNICEF run another program of work called retrospecting schools and we
Wanted to sort of have a framework where we could take something off the shelves and deliver it in cardi and do it as well as we could so we decided to try to get all of our schools to be part of this UNICEF program which is called rights respecting schools which it’s not
Just about putting a poster up or running an assembly about children’s rights it’s about teaching through rights not just about rights through rights so if you’re learning about geography learning about architecture learning about civil rights learning about history you use the lens of children’s rights so people become
Experts in it and it’s not just the children it’s the staff it’s the non teaching staff is to Governors and parents and I’m pleased to say we did have 15 schools that were active in that program we now have have A1 schools so every day people are immersed in talking
About children’s rights and we started as early as we can because that’s what children told us so in our primary schools so from four upwards uh so I think over the period of uh four years that’s a lot of uh children’s rights education and so I think we’ve got much
More of a a group of pupils than are more comfortable skilled and confident about what their rights are and then they hopefully they’ll be empowered to challenge adults maybe when they don’t understand their rights and I think that makes a difference throughout their life not just in school you know they part of
The role is to go and talk to your parents and caregivers about those sort of issues as well so that’s what something quite tangental the other thing for example is uh Cardiff is a dispersal area so we we’re very proud the fact that we can host people that
Are coming into the the UK for the first time now unfortunately a few years back those children if they’re coming with families weren’t entitled to go to a school place while they were being resettled there was a process it was quite a technical process Cardiff used a rights-based
Argument to say that we were concerned about their safety and their well-being because what were they doing if they weren’t in school maybe they were in temporary housing they weren’t engaged in positive activity were they being exploited so we used that argument to first of all to be able to give them
Some sort of Education in the community and then we argued with the home office that the school is the best place so from now on a number of for two years now new newcoming families their children immediately get off at the school place so they’re straight away involved and so they they’re surrounded
By professionals if they’ve got any concerns they can raise those concerns and of course they’re getting educated and socialized in their new home I didn’t balance this relationship between the kid make their own choices engaging in the conversation with adult how does that work sometimes there are tensions
What we have to do is make sure that we protect the well-being of the children young people that are engaging in the process so our our duty is to them first and foremost so that invance making sure that they know what they’re getting involved in understanding uh that they
Can withdraw at any time making sure any information that’s given to them is given them to you know beforehand and it’s in an accessible format so they can understand it because we work with quite Young childr how young um we definitely work with eight plus but we are Challen
Challen challenging oursel to to drop down we would like to do some work with much younger children uh and there are examples where organizations are working with under Force to actually sort of capture their views and shape Services we don’t do that very well currently but
We are definitely it’s part of our plan um and so that that preparation knowing that you can withdraw at any time and managing their expectations it’s really an important so I have a whole team of people that are specialized in doing exactly that engaging with young people and children preparing them preparing
The adults making sure the adults understand you can’t just stand there and do a a slide deck of a PowerPoint with 15 slides because it’s not the way to do it to adults and certainly you can’t do that with children we advise on methods we make sure it’s fun and that
The young people and the children get something out of it it has to be engaging has to be fun they have to understand just by taking part it’s helping the city to be better and they like it they understand that it is great and they feel a sense of value and a
Sense a belonging you are a Cardiff kid you’re important because you live in Cardiff you know and that in all itself is is is important enough been working with children young people almost all your adult life how much have things changed and when do you think if there
Was a shift if there was one and why do you think I think it’s not it doesn’t go in One Direction I think it it ends and flows and I think nationally well first of all there are there are Global things which alter people’s perspective and priorities and we’ve seen that in recent
Times with pandemic however if you go back just another five eight 10 years it was about it was austerity measures the global financial crisis that has a direct impact on national and local government and has to change the the way they work and for us a really
Good example uh was and for me it was it was it was a test it was a test of we been doing child-friendly program of work for a number of years and then we had a pandemic how are we going to respond during a crisis and I was pleased to say uh that
We responded with with children’s rights at the heart of our thinking so for example I saw 1,000 uh there was thousand sorry 10,000 devices were purchased and delivered directly to children and young people to make sure they had a device when the schools closed so free free it was given to them
It was on loan permanent loan because we know that that’s how they were going to communicate they were they weren’t going to be isolated they were going to get elements of Education they were going to get news that device was almost like seeing like utilities like water electricity gas it was communication and
It was a really good response uh another example how uh things had changed uh for for us in con particularly was around um what happens when you open up after a crisis well we know that people were very fearful to come together theyd lack confidence they they weren’t socialized at times so
Rather than put pressure on the children and young people people the decision makers at the senior level said we’ve got we must not talk about educational catchup being the only priority we know that that’s important but it’s about the well-being of our children and young
People and so we ran a whole series of three three three years worth of well-being programs and festivals for children young people to celebrate them to say thank you to them for the sacrifices that they made in their short lives and to give them the confidence to
Come together and the only outcome the only thing that we were counting at the end of our first Summer Festival was we called it the summer of smiles was how many Smiles did we generate yeah know that that’s the only outcome we weren’t asking them to fill out forms to it was
How many Smiles did we have and so for for me that’s a that’s a change that’s that that’s there’s an element of risk there so when you have a big fundamental shift in how funding is allocated and the priorities that was different to how we reacted when we had the banking and
The financial crisis we reprioritized and had another lens to look through U because unfortunately we were closing services for children of young people we took away elements of play or youth centers and some Leisure centers and libraries and hubs and most of the things where people spend time um so
Yeah I don’t think I don’t think that there is a seismic moment where the everything has shifted and put into one place and that was the moment and in fact I go as far to say is some children young people in different parts of the UK and wider are still you know not
Being priorit yeah they there really are some some poor examples of practice and policymaking and people in charge not necessarily there there is a tension some people see it you know it’s it’s like when you say to your children you know I don’t have a favorite although
Some people might have a favorite I don’t have a favorite I’ve got I’ve got enough love to go around and it’s the same it’s the same for a local government just because you’re prioritizing a 5-year-old doesn’t mean to say an 85y old is going to miss out
You know it that you just need to just make sure that we sort of work together to make sure that whatever it is we’re trying to achieve you know it meets the needs of all the individuals talked about the need to reach out to other kids that’s being forgotten is this part
Of your ambition of the project you’re doing here of this program it’s a good question to work so so ciff did it out of necessity ciff needed to get better at their fundamental C Core services but you don’t need to wait until you’re in crisis or that there’s a there’s a
Problem there’s a huge amount and benefits to actually prioritizing children and young people there there there you know people refer to children and young people as an indicator species right what that means to people like me on the on the street is if if our kids are growing up and they’re happy and
Healthy and they they’ve got a good life you know wider Society will also be healthy you know it’s an indicator as things are going well if your children and young people in your Society are struggling falling through the cracks being exploited not sort of getting educated or keeping healthy um that’s
That’s an endowment that’s that’s not a that’s not a good thing for a community to be uh know reflecting on so uh in Wales I know that the children’s commissioner for example is really Keen uh not necessarily to work with UNICEF you can take children’s rights and and
Make them a priority um and make make sure that our politicians and the people that run the local councils and all the Charities are thinking about children and their rights and their needs um and they they’ve developed a set of guidance and I think what we’re going to see in
The next year or so is people becoming more and more comfortable and confident of taking up these these toolkits and these guides to give them advice and support and that maybe they might want to look to someone like Cardiff about their experiences we certainly haven’t
Got it perfect by any means but in the UK I think the that we’ve got devolved so you know for those people that don’t necessarily understand the UK is made up of four Nations under the banner of the United Kingdom and they do things differently um England and Scotland
Ireland and Wales have slightly different approaches different powers so I think each uh counterparts going to have to have different approaches to make sure it works for them how much more do you think professions or or or practitioners in general could do to kind of help you to implement a lot of
These ideas and of this the program that you’re working on as well as is the curriculum how does it help with what you are doing there there are two really important points that you’re asking now and firstly you don’t need a whole city as as advantageous of the whole city
Ecosystem prioritizes children’s rights but we we we’re in the real world right if you’re in charge of a large organization like a public service such as the Health Board you can make massive Mass massive impact by by prioritizing children and young people in your work if you’re a house board for example
We’re very fortunate to have again a really strong partner in Cardiff with Cardiff and Vale a university health board and what they’ve done is they’ve taken children’s rights in their context in in so they’re responsible for things like Health Services in communities hospitals dentists Etc and they um they’
Established a youth Health Board to help them make good decisions so they have young people than trained that support them make good decisions help with recruitment developing new ideas and policies and programs um they’ve taken children’s rights and started to analyze the way that they do business and make
Improvements to keep children even more safe and listen to their voice and make sure their voice is Central so you can do that organization by organization and in terms of the curriculum we’re very lucky that we’ve going to Welsh government that prioritized innovation in our curriculum and a number of years
Ago uh point Ed um Professor Donson to do a review we’re now seeing the new curriculum in wealth schools being delivered and I sit actually within education in the local Authority and what that means is that we are now so half the teachers in our schools are very excited Antonio they’re very
Excited because they can deliver education in a way that they probably thought it should have been done they’re Innovative they give us some Freedom there’s another half which are a little bit fearful I think a little bit um full of Jeopardy uh thing change is you
Know is is a it’s a pressured thing it’s a stressful thing um and so what we would like to do is try to help them so what we’re being expected in terms of Education to deliver is an education which is relevant to the real world which helps the kids develop skills and
Competencies uh that is measured in a different way you know the fact that you might learn about geography by going out and uh carrying out mathing exercises and integrating your lessons in the real world uh we we as a city like to try to provide real world challenges to our
Schools now so if we are looking to improve urban planning and design what we do is we work with teachers give them the resources uh and say teach teach your pupils around this subject and get their views as part of their learning experience and then share the views with
Us take those views and then we can actually use them to inform our decision- making and our plans so the education is actual real and visceral so we’ve got a climate response uh to to The Climate emergency it’s called One Planet Cardiff that is an education priority across all our schools so our
Curriculum team have developed a suite of resources so teachers can actually uh engage the pups in a real world challenge that we can use in the coming years in our client response brought was there a question I should have asked you that I haven’t asked you and what is is
That question are we going to carry on making positive progress or is there a danger that things will stop or slow up I think there is a danger that we do that recognized as a the first UNICEF City in the UK to have this accreditation there is always a danger
You think the work is done however I don’t think that that’s the case because it was about culture change and we’ve been working for 5 years to change the hearts and minds and uh build up the confidence of people making decisions in the city and to see the benefits of it
And I think we’re so far down the line now that I think it’s in the way that we do business so I would hope that we continue in the right in the right vein continuing to make positive change for children thank you thank you very much
To my guest today to all the listeners and please subscribe to architecture for kids podcast and leave your rating and the review recommend us to your friends and family and to find out more about it visit our websites Antonio kl- portfolio. co.uk building center.co Thornton education trust.org cardiff.ac.uk and follow us on Instagram
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