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Child-friendly Communities Engagement Framework
ARACY has been engaged by the Department of Social Services (DSS) to create a resource for Communities for Children (CfC) Facilitating Partners (FPs) and Community Partners (CPs) to use with children aged 6-12 years, that examines the nature and extent their community is child-friendly.
Developed with a Working Group of FPs, the Child-friendly Communities Engagement Framework Version 1.0 is for CfC Program FPs and CPs to try and test over the next 6 months, up until June 2026.
This is a working draft version and is for the exclusive use among FPs and CPs. The link to this page and downloads should not be circulated outside of this group.
The Child-Friendly Engagement Framework is composed of 4 sections:
Introduction – information regarding the underlying concepts of The Nest (Children’s Wellbeing Framework), Child-friendly Communities, and Why Children’s Voice is important
This section highlights the concepts and frameworks underlying child-friendly communities, their role in children’s wellbeing, and the importance of engaging with children.
Outcomes
This section guides you to:
1. Gain an understanding of what a child-friendly community is, the framework underlying children’s wellbeing (the Nest), and why children’s voices are important.
2. Determine your organisation’s role in a child-friendly community.
Planning – considerations of the purpose and resourcing of consultations/data collection
This section outlines the enabling conditions for conducting meaningful engagement and consultation with children, and practical steps for your organisation to undertake before developing and implementing an engagement and consultation tool.
Outcomes
This section guides you to:
1. Gain an understanding of what needs to be in place for your organisation before planning for engaging with children on child-friendly communities.
2. Clearly define the purpose of your engagement and consultation/s.
3. Understand the resources and practicalities that need to be identified and considered.
Listening – considerations in developing and implementing a localised tool or approach
This section outlines the steps for developing and implementing your localised engagement and consultation tool – the stage of ‘listening’ to children in the engagement and consultation process.
Outcomes
This section (and Appendices A and B) provides you with the considerations and resources to:
1. Decide on the approach and method to use for your tool
2. Develop the content of your tool regarding the questions to ask and areas to explore with children regarding the extent and nature to which their community is child-friendly
3. Implement your tool
Sensemaking and action– Synthesising and analysing information and data, and implementing feedback loops
This section highlights the concepts and frameworks underlying child-friendly communities, their role in children’s wellbeing, and the importance of engaging with children.
Outcomes
This section guides you to:
1. Gain an understanding of what a child-friendly community is, the framework underlying children’s wellbeing (the Nest), and why children’s voices are important.
2. Determine your organisation’s role in a child-friendly community.
The Engagement Framework is supported by the following Appendices.
Appendix A: Statement and Prompts Relevant to Section 3: Listening
This appendix provides statements and prompts (mapped to the Nest) to guide the development of the content of your engagement tool.
Appendix B: Tool Examples Relevant to Section 3: Listening
This appendix provides examples of engagement and consultation tools using the statements and prompts from the Framework, demonstrating a range of approaches.
Appendix C: Resources and References
This appendix provides the resources and references used in the framework.
Child-Friendly Communities Engagement Framework V1 (Full Document) (click to download)
The Engagement Framework draws upon The Nest (Wellbeing Framework for Children and Young People), existing research and resources about engaging with children, and the significant knowledge and experience of CfC FPs and CPs.
Three peer coaching sessions will be held from February to June 2026, for FPs and CPs who have applied the Engagement Framework in their communities to share their learnings (see further detail below). Further information will be email to all registered participants.
Registrations for the peer coaching sessions are now closed. If you have not registered, however, we would welcome you to share your experiences and feedback on using the Framework via email or using the form below (contact details below).
The learnings and feedback that we receive will help to shape the final iteration of the Engagement Framework (to be finalised in late 2026) and contribute to the experience of others who use it in future.
Learning Program Components
The Engagement Framework and peer coaching sessions are part of the broader learning program. See details below.
Workshop 1: Foundations of Child-centred Engagement
An open session held on 30 October 2025 to establish the core concepts of The Nest and introduce the Child-Friendly Community Engagement Framework
See Workshop 1 recording here:
Workshop 2: Deep dive into the Child-Friendly Community Engagement Framework
A practical and interactive session held on 25 November 2025 focused on the Engagement Framework and planning for implementation
See Workshop 2 recording here
Peer Coaching Sessions: Facilitated peer discussions for participants of Workshop 2, designed to support implementation of the Child-Friendly Community Engagement Framework in their own contexts. Sessions will take place between February and June 2026.
For more information, please contact:
Lauren Renshaw lauren.renshaw@aracy.org.au or
Thivya Supramaniam thivya.supramaniam@aracy.org.au
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