"The Council of Europe Child Participation Assessment Tool (CPAT) was developed to provide governments with indicators against which they could assess their progress in implementing Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, its ten indicators only address the measures that are needed to build a conducive environment for child participation. In other words, the foundational elements necessary to facilitate and support children’s participation were the focus.
It purposefully omitted outcome indicators that would track actual changes in children’s perceptions of the fulfilment of their right to be heard. Member States believed that including outcome indicators, before they had the chance to put the necessary structures and procedures in place for the right to be heard, was premature.
Since it was published in 2016, 13 governments have undertaken the process of assessing their level of compliance with the CPAT tool.1 They each engaged in a year-long process involving wide-ranging consultations with professionals, NGOs, government agencies and departments and children and young people themselves. The process culminated, for each government, in a report and action plan to implement any necessary measures to enhance their compliance. Most of the participating governments have engaged in a subsequent commitment to act on the findings and strengthen the participatory environment to enable children to be heard on all matters of concern to them. There is now a growing demand for the creation of an instrument that States can use to start evaluating the results of that work to measure changes in children’s experience of participation. This will enable the introduction or strengthening of measures to improve existing strategies and maximize the initial investment. Accordingly, the Council of Europe (CoE) has engaged in a process to develop a set of outcome indicators to supplement the CPAT."