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Voices into Action (VIA) Toolkit

A digital resource supporting learner and family participation in educational decision-making

Influence: Acting upon learner and family voices

Checklist: How to cultivate agency, shared power and responsibility for decision-making processes and outcomes

  • Record voices accurately, without distorting or removing their meaning 

  • Take all voices seriously, with the intent to act upon them as appropriate and possible. Give all views due weight and proper consideration – even if they cannot be incorporated into final decisions 

  • Give appropriate feedback to all participants and other stakeholders. Communicate final decisions and explain how and why their voices had (or did not have) an impact 

  • Involve participants in evaluating the whole process, including planning, implementation and follow-up, with the aim of improving initiatives for the future 

  • Provide clear opportunities for participants to continue to ask questions and engage in next steps

Practical tools

Harris & Manatakis, 2013, University of South Australia in partnership with the South Australian Department for Education and Child Development, Adelaide

Children’s Voices: A principled framework for children and young people’s participation as valued citizens and learners

This collection of tools and resources for education practitioners, researchers and policy-makers supports children’s participation as active citizens and learners. 

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By sharing power with students, by listening to them and seeking to follow their advice, we have learned that educators, researchers and policy makers are more likely to promote contexts through which the voiceless have voice, the powerless have power and from such spaces hope can emerge.

Mere Berryman, Elizabeth Eley and David Copeland, 2017. ‘Listening and Learning from Rangatahi Māori: the Voices of Māori Youth’ Critical Questions in Education (Special Issue) 8 (4), 476–494

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