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The discourse of child participation stemming from the UNCRC has been criticised for adopting modernist ideas of personhood which over emphasise the child as an autonomous, independent individual, overlooking the importance of relationships and interdependence of actors. It is argued as a result, that much child participation falsely searches for ways to access the pure, inner, authentic, voice of the child, free from mediation by adults. So whilst voice is not synonymous with participation, a critical exploration of 'children's voice' which takes account of emerging relational conceptions of childhood and child participation is now necessary. This thesis builds on these recent criticisms of voice, positing that dominant models of child participation have implicitly assumed child to adult communication occurs monologicaly, as the transmission of information from child to an adult. I argue that transmission based notions of communication overlook the role context plays in the production of meaning, and the potentially polyphonic nature of communication. Using the epistemic perspective of dialogism, I develop a relational and intersubjective model of 'children's voice'. With this, I argue that 'children's voice' can be understood as an intersubjective act of knowledge creation, occurring between at least two intersectional dynamic standpoint-identities, and interrelated with mutual recognition and potentially occurring both within and across generational boundaries.

Most European countries now have independent children’s rights institutions, but there has been little attempt to systematically evaluate their impact. This study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the kinds of impact institutions make, and how this could be evaluated. Critical realism, case study and appreciative inquiry were the approaches to the research questions. The research had two phases: a survey of all members of the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children (ENOC) to get a broad picture of how they understood their impact; and to recruit participants for phase 2; and case studies in two institutions. 67% of ENOC members responded to the survey, which was designed to shed light on the context in which IHRICs are working, mechanisms and their outcomes. It showed that contextual factors helping members are their staff, mandate and independence, frameworks and networks, especially NGOs. Impact was sought in terms of full implementation of the UNCRC, influencing law and policy, and raising awareness of children’s rights. As a result, the main focus of the case studies was on evaluating the organisations’ impact on law and policy, and how this was informed by children’s perspectives. The second phase of the research involved talking to staff of the two institutions and a range of stakeholders, and reviewing relevant documents. This revealed that key contextual factors were: powers and remits, staff, political independence and background of the Ombudsman and Commissioner. Participants mainly pointed to the greater visibility and priority of children’s issues in policy-making, greater participation, and raised awareness of children’s rights as impacts of the two institutions. The research showed that the impact of children’s rights institutions can be substantial but variable, that evaluation has to be highly contextual, and that generalised indicators have limited value. It produced a template for contextual evaluation, to help ICRIs and IHRICs show the evidence of their impact and reflect on what works well for them. The study also suggested that institutions can act as interlocutors between children and the State by empowering both to engage in more effective dialogue, and so enable children to have real impact on policy.

Background: The implementation of the Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care Green Paper (Department for Education and Skills, (DfES) 2006) and the subsequent Care Matters: Time for Change White Paper (DfES, 2007), witnessed the consolidation of a universal ambition to improve the opportunities for all children living in care. Arguably, the most important recommendation in this pursuit is reflected in the need to provide people who have lived in care as children with independent support, which enables them to discuss their experiences, and suggest ways in which the care system might be improved. However, whilst this recommendation has been implemented with a diverse range of care leavers, the impact of the experience of living in care and the associated disadvantage experienced by Travellers and Gypsies remains under researched, understated, and unacknowledged (Cemlyn et al., 2009). Methodology: Guided by the philosophical assumptions of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), this study represents and constructs the experience of living in public care by focusing on the voices 10 Travellers and Gypsies who lived in care as children. Testimonies were collected through a wide variety of methods that included face-to-face interviews, focus groups, telephone interviews, blogs, emails, letters, song lyrics, and poems. Findings: Following a considered application of IPA, six main themes emerged from the analysis. These were social intervention; an emotional rollercoaster of separation, transition, and reincorporation; a war against becoming settled; leaving care and the changing relationship with the self and others; inclusion and strength; and, messages for children living in care. In line with the tenets of phenomenology, these findings are presented in such a way to as to invite the reader to move away from their own personal understanding of the world in order to enter the ‘lifeworld’ (Husserl, 1970, 1982) of Travellers and Gypsies who lived in care as children. However, to assist in this sense making activity, this study also provides a discrete interpretation of the findings before developing this knowledge to form a more detailed theoretical construct entitled ‘the model of reflective self-concepts’. Taken together with the testimonies of each person who took part in the study, the thesis enables an understanding of how the experience of living in care is inextricably linked to a process of social and psychological acculturation. By staying close to the experiences provided, it reveals how a process of change is determined, more often than not, by a sense of personal resilience directly related towards a Traveller or Gypsy self-concept. In attempt to move towards service improvement, this thesis offers a series of recommendations and conclusions which aim to support social workers and carers empower Traveller and Gypsy children to develop a secure Traveller and Gypsy self-concept thus enabling them experience improved outcomes including those opportunities set out in Care Matters social policy agenda (DfES, 2006; 2007).

Background: In recent years cash transfer programs have increasingly become the strategy of choice for poverty alleviation in middle and low income countries. Several child cash transfer programs have been implemented in middle and low-income regions such as Latin America, Asia, and Africa, and many of them have been found to be effective in improving child outcomes. South Africa's child support grant (CSG) constitutes the largest cash transfer programme in the country and the continent. Even though evidence exists which shows that the CSG is associated with improved child outcomes,less research has gone into examining how the different aspects of the grant all work together to facilitate or limit it as a policy instrument for child poverty reduction. Such evidence is important in facilitating an understanding of the capacity of the CSG as a poverty alleviation strategy in a developing country context. Methods: This dissertation utilises a mixed-methods approach to explore: 1) barriers to CSG take up; 2) the adequacy of the CSG in supporting its recipients; 3) participants' views on current topical issues surrounding the CSG. Results: Despite evidence that the CSG is important in tackling child poverty, this dissertation found that the grant is not without its shortcomings as a poverty alleviation instrument. The limitations of the grant are influenced by the policy environment, operations, institutions working alongside the CSG, and the social context in which the grant is implemented. Conclusion: The findings raise important questions about the capacity of cash transfers to make a significant difference in the lives of poor children and their families if they are neither substantial nor linked to other poverty measures in developing country contexts. The policy recommendations that have been made can strengthen theChild Support Grant's potential to lift children out of poverty in South Africa.

This thesis examines the impact of social policies on child mortality. It argues that structural factors explain most of the variation in child mortality across countries and time. But that in Vietnam the state implemented effective social policies; leading to this country having low child mortality for its structural factors (income, income equality and women’s power). This thesis uses panel data econometrics to investigate the structural determinants of child mortality. Our model shows that national income and women’s power reduce, and income inequality increases, child mortality. These independent variables are significant at the 1% level and explain over 90% of the variation in child mortality when our dependent variable is under-five mortality from the World Development Indicators dataset. These results are robust to changes in the functional form, lag structure, dataset and measure of child mortality used in our model. Vietnam is an outlier in our model; it has low child mortality for its structural factors. We consider that Vietnam’s effective social policies may explain why it is an outlier. This thesis also undertakes a detailed case study of Vietnam’s social policies. We argue and provide considerable evidence that in Vietnam the government implemented effective family planning, child immunization and female education policies and that these reduced child mortality. Developing countries are currently committed through MDG4 to reducing under-five mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015. Our results show that developing countries are unlikely to achieve this goal because social policies have a small impact on child mortality relative to structural factors.