Edinburgh Napier University

  The vision for a children’s advocacy centre in the north of England was first mooted in a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust report (Rowland 2014). Having witnessed the work of the child advocacy movement in the USA, Rowland argued that a UK based children’s advocacy centre would be an exciting and innovative project that could result in real benefits for children in the area in which it was located. He argued that the children’s advocacy centre would fully involve children of all ages in the location, design and service-specification. It would be a place where children could self-refer to get advice and support with a wide range of problems, including physical and mental health, social care, protection, help with relationship difficulties, bullying and schooling. He also acknowledged the importance of co-design and co-production, whereby the children and young people with most to gain from the centre would work with the adults with access to resources (skills and money) to make it happen