The CLARISSA Bangladesh team successfully collected and analysed 405 life stories from children in the worst forms of child labour (WFCL). Our key learning from undertaking this first part of a systemic Action Research process in the context of WFCL is as below:
- Trust and rapport building, in the local neighbourhoods of intervention, was essential in order for the process to work. This was challenging, in the context of initial mistrust – given the sensitivity of WFCL. It took six months of casual and informal visits and meetings to slowly build trust with a wide range of stakeholders including children in WFCL, their parents and gatekeepers (small business owners, house managers). Taking consent processes seriously helped us to build rapport and also showed the parents that the team was concerned about their children’s safety. Compensating children for their time contributed to trust building and establishing an office in the community showed our commitment to working there in the long term. Once initial trust was established with some adults and children in the community, a positive trust feedback loop occurred, whereby children explained the process and shared their perspectives with others who were therefore more inclined to engage. Building trust with business owners was particularly challenging, given their concerns about the consequences of participation (for their businesses).
- Closely related to building trust was being intentional with our tools and processes for a child-centred approach. This included being responsive to feedback and preferences expressed by the children, such as adapting specific tools or undertaking processes at a time and place preferred by the children. This meant that team members had to be flexible and sometimes work outside of standard office hours. An enabling environment for child-centredness was one where children felt respected, loved and heard. Peer-to-peer working helped to build trust, but importantly, when it comes to sensitive topics, this worked best with children of the same gender.
- We learned about shifting our own mindset that underpins our beliefs around children’s abilities. This evolved over time as we witnessed more and more how children were able to undertake the collection of stories and engage in the subsequent analysis of the stories with quality and depth.
- Life story telling and analysing has the potential to retraumatise the participant. When working with children in WFCL, safeguarding and mental health and psycho-social support processes need to be in place, especially as we were collecting stories during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health and psycho-social support services were made available for children when they experienced emotional breakdown. All facilitators were trained to support children when this happened, and a CLARISSA social worker was central to the process. Implementing good COVID-19 safety procedures helped to build trust with parents and children by providing tests and safe spaces to undertake the work.
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