On 16th November 2015, NCB delivered a full day participation skills workshop with staff from the Belfast Trust who will be working together to plan for the engagement of children and young people and their families in the redevelopment of the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children (opening 2022).
This work programme was led by our Senior Participation Officer Gill Hassard who developed and facilitated a workshop based on NCB Participation Skills training which explored the NCB model of participation within a child's rights approach to participation.
The Belfast Trust staff learnt about the benefits of engaging with children & young people (CYP) and their families and were helped to identify potential challenges that they may encounter in their project and strategies for overcoming these challenges.
NCB also helped the staff team identify areas that CYP and their families can influence the project and how this can be possible, which supported the projects engagement framework to be developed.
Project Manager Rachel Thompson said "The workshop certainly focused minds and I think has encouraged the team to be brave and try new things".
Participants were left with a resource pack to help further develop their own participation skills and those of the Royal Children's Hospital staff.