Don't assume you know what's best for us without our opinions. You don't. Maybe you know what would be best for you if you were a child, but you're not in our minds now, are you?

16 year old girl

One of the challenges of Going for Growth is:

• to recognise and enable the capacity of children and young people to be the agents of change both for themselves and for others. (Section 5.3)

To do that, the Church needs to listen to what children and young people are saying and respond to what it hears. That isn't easy - and won't necessarily be comfortable, because the clarity with which children see and speak about their lives challenges our preconceived notions of what we expect to hear. But unless we do it, we cannot expect children and young people to feel that they are valued.

This section of Going for Growth offers tools to enable children to speak out about their lives, their faith and the world and challenges adults to listen and act on what they hear.

The Open Learning module offers a chance to learn more about participation in its widest sense.