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In this article, the term 'participation' refers to the right of the child to express their views in matters affecting them and for their views to be acted upon as appropriate. While there is a growing emphasis in social work practice on a child's right to participate, less attention has been given to how best to support children's participation. A systematic review and narrative synthesis of 20 studies with varying methods explores how effective processes, commonly used in social work practice, are in supporting children's participation in decisions concerning their personal welfare, protection and care. The review explores the effectiveness of the following processes: the use of advocates; a child's attendance at an assessment, planning or review meeting; Family Welfare Conferences; and recording a child's views in writing. There is indicative evidence that the use of advocates is an effective means of supporting children's participation. Findings in relation to the other processes reviewed are mixed. A key factor influencing how effective these processes are in supporting children's participation is the quality of the relationship with the child and his or her case worker.

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According to Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children and young people have a legal right to have their views heard and acted upon as appropriate. The Lundy model of participation (2007) was developed to aid practitioners to meaningfully and effectively implement a child's right to participate by focusing them on the distinct but interrelated elements of Article 12. While Lundy's conceptualisation has been widely welcomed in research, policy and practice, there is a dearth of examples in the literature regarding how the concepts of space, voice, audience and influence can be operationalised in child welfare practice. This paper draws on findings from a mixed methods study of child protection and welfare services in Ireland to illustrate how practitioners working in child protection and welfare services action these concepts in practice. The analysis focuses on the The purpose of this paper is to share examples of how practitioners working in Ireland's child protection and welfare services implement these concepts in practice. Drawing on practitioners' personal testimonies and a selection of reports published by Ireland's social care inspectorate, it sets out illustrative examples of approaches taken by professionals when seeking to create a safe and inclusive space for children and young people to express a view, approaches to supporting them to express that view and to ensuring it is listened to and acted upon as appropriate.

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The youth mentoring program Big Brothers Big Sisters is one of the first social interventions involving youth in Ireland to be evaluated using a randomized controlled trial methodology. This article sets out the design process undertaken, describing how the research team came to adopt a concurrent embedded mixed methods design as a means of balancing ethical, feasibility, and scientific issues associated with the randomized controlled trial method, establishing an epistemological position and integrating data from various methods and multiple sources.

The paper presents results of a phenomenological longitudinal qualitative study undertaken with mentors associated with the Big Brothers Big Sisters programme in the Czech Republic. Ten mentors were interviewed during the first month and after 5 and 10 months of their mentoring involvement employing phenomenological in-depth semi-structured interviews. Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was subsequently applied using QSR NVivo software for data analysis. This paper reports the findings of an IPA analysis of one of the central theme of mentors' experience, common to all interviewed mentors: initial motivation to volunteer in formal youth mentoring relationships (FYMRs). The findings of the IPA analysis are discussed using the framework of self-determination theory (SDT) with its continuum of autonomous and controlling motivations. As a result, we argue that the initial motivations of mentors can be assessed according to the level of autonomy in mentors' motivation, in other words, congruence of their motivations with the authentic self. We argue that the level of congruence of mentors' motivation with the authentic self can be considered as the quality feature of the mentors' motivation. We conclude that, in theory, this feature has an impact on the subsequent dynamics and perceived satisfaction of formal youth mentoring relationships. We recommend that the mentors' motivation, and specifically, the level of autonomy in mentors' motivation to volunteer with socially disadvantaged children be assessed in mentoring programmes as a qualitative feature in mentorś training and recruitment.

A B S T R AC TThe worldwide growth in formal youth mentoring programmes over the past two decades is partly a response to the perception that young people facing adversity do not have access to supportive relationships with adults and positive role models in their communities to the degree they once had. Formal mentoring programmes facilitate the development of a friendship or 'match' between an older volunteer and a young person, with the objective of supporting the young persons' personal and social development. Drawing on 66 semistructured interviews with young people, parents, mentors and caseworkers associated with nine youth mentoring matches in the Big Brothers Big Sisters Programme in Ireland, this paper analyses the forms of social support evident in the mentor-mentee relationships and highlights how the mentoring relationship was perceived to have impacted on the well-being of the young people participating. The findings reflect the consensus in the mentoring literature that close, well-established mentoring relationships have the potential to bring about meaningful change in the lives of young people.