11
About Viewpoint
Viewpoint has over 20 years’ experience working in the UK and internationally supporting the engagement of children and young people in Children’s Services and Youth Offending Services.
Viewpoint provides children and young people with an independent means of expressing their views and increases their active participation in assessment and planning process.
Evaluations of the Viewpoint system show:
- Improved participation of young people in care plan reviews,
- Young people are better prepared for care plan review meetings,
- Individual reports are helpful to practitioners when engaging with young people prior to care plan review meetings.
Viewpoint was established in 1999 ‘to promote the participation of children and young people in consultation and decision-making processes’. It built on original research by the founders to develop an instrument to measure service quality in children’s services and uniquely to use a computer based graphical environment to engage children and young people.
When young people experience difficulties, have concerns or worries it may be hard for them to express their thoughts and feelings in a verbal way, therefore it can be helpful to have different methods to enable communication. The medium of the computer provides a method to understand a young person’s life and concerns. Computers can provide a neutral environment to engage children and young people. They provide an opportunity for expression and communication and can be particularly helpful to young people who find it hard to express their thoughts and feelings verbally. It provides a safe way to express strong and sometimes sensitive feelings.
The Viewpoint ACASI (audio computer assisted self-interviewing) methodology delivers a structured series of questions. It is an interactive questionnaire tool with text read out loud by animated characters, aiding literacy difficulties. As a result of completing such questionnaires the research evidence is that young people are willing and feel able to reveal more about themselves, their concerns and experiences, providing information to be taken up by practitioners.
Viewpoint ACASI continues to evolve as technology develops. Our MyView app can be downloaded from the App store and Google Play
An evaluation of the Viewpoint methodology and the experience of young people using it is reflected in an evaluation by the Open University ‘Looked After Young People and their Social Work Managers’ by Morgan and Fraser published in 2009 concluded: ‘Our recommendation for managers, based on this study, is to give ACASI serious consideration. It is relatively cheap to deploy and as long as users have a real choice to use it or not, it can be empowering for young people and for staff’.
In this same study responses reported from young people were:
- 95% agreed or strongly agreed ‘I enjoy using Viewpoint to record my views and feelings’ Additional comments from young people: ‘it’s a better way of communicating’, ‘helps me discuss my feelings’, ‘lets you write down stuff instead of talking face to face’.
- 90% agreed or strongly agreed ‘It helps me think more clearly about what I feel’. One young person added ‘it gives you more options to think about than the booklet’.
- 93% agreed or strongly agreed. ‘It’s a good way to get people to hear what I think’. Additional comments included: ‘I can write down my thoughts and feelings better than I can say them’; ‘because if you are shy in front of people and too scared to say what you feel’.
- 95% agreed or strongly agreed. ‘Using Viewpoint is good because if I say something important then someone will be able to act on what I say’.
- 86% disagreed or strongly disagreed that: ‘Viewpoint is used TOO MUCH to find out what my views are’.
