Children and young people continue to face barriers in their everyday lives. We can see this most when it comes to accessing to the outdoors, having the freedom to play and getting involved in decisions about where they live and how they learn.
Just like adults, children have rights. The United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child tells us that children have the right to be seen and heard. Their freedoms to play and express themselves should be respected, and their views taken seriously.
Our mission at APiC is to enable and support young citizens to participate meaningfully in improving our world, now and for the future. We seek to achieve this by conducting young-person-led projects that build autonomy and capacities for an uncertain world, while bringing about real positive change.
We are committed to the rights of children and young people and enabling them to lead. We’re a small team that brings our considerable expertise in urban planning, educational psychology, outdoor learning and charity governance to our work at APiC.
We support anyone who wants to make Scotland a great place to grow up. We research what works, meaningfully engaging children and young people in the process to ensure their voices are heard. Through this, their skills as active citizens are developed, and their unique insights inform policy and practice that contribute to better places for all.
Our charity is a young, single tier Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) based in Edinburgh, made up of a Board of Trustees and a small Executive team. Our activities revolve around working closely with clients whom share our values to deliver bespoke projects and place children and young people’s participation at the heart of policy and practice.
We can offer expertise on child-led placemaking and consultancy on place, policy, practice and services. If it’s academic-standard research and evaluation that is needed, we can do that too – and we’ve worked on some ground-breaking publications in this area. Our team also has considerable experience in public speaking on the subject of children’s rights, outdoor learning and innovative forms of engagement.
Most recently, we have been delivering safe and secure online collaboration with children and young people. During the pandemic, our COVID-19 Project with Young Scots has been empowering youth across Scotland to explore how they would have done things differently if they’d been in charge.
