This document discusses applying principles of total quality management (TQM) and increasing youth participation in social projects. It provides definitions and examples of TQM, action research, and community capacity building. A key organization discussed is Eurochild, a European network that promotes children's rights and participation in policy decisions. The document examines Eurochild's efforts to gather youth input through surveys and consult children on policy strategies. It advocates applying TQM concepts like beneficiary participation, continuous quality evaluation, and action research to improve social projects and children's rights.

1. Applying TQM in social projects –Children rights and youth
participation as the community capacity building next frontier
Author: Reynaldo G. Rivera (InterMedia Consulting)
INDEX:
TQM.....................................................................................................................................................1
Action research and community capacity building.......................................................................2
Eurochild: giving voice to children in Europe ................................................................................3
Youth participation survey............................................................................................................5
Participation Network of the 101 of participatory projects ......................................................5
Consultation on the draft Council of Europe Strategy on the Rights of the Child –
Eurochild contribution highlights .................................................................................................6
TQM
Is it possible to deliver a “Toyota-type” social service?
That is the question that led us to start a research on TQM, lean production methods and
children participation. This article is the first article draft, intended to be a “provocative”
piece of information that gathers without any kind of scientific design, data from different
sources.
First of all, let me define TQM. Project Management and Total Quality Management (TQM)
are all achieved through similar protocols and procedures such as employee
empowerment in decision making, the use of facilitated teams in the organization,
individual responsibility for products and services and a strong customer service
orientation, working from a set of values envisioning a mission, maintaining commitment,
sustaining motivation, prioritizing tasks, cooperating with others, communicating effectively
and seeking to continuously learn and grow1.
Project Management is the art of directing and coordinating human and material resources
to achieve stated objectives within limits of time, budget and stakeholders satisfaction.
This is often accomplished through the interaction of Project Management elements
applied in various phases of the Project Cycle. These project elements include project
requirements, organizational options, project team, project planning, opportunities and
risks, project control, project visibility, project status, corrective action and project
leadership. A project is a human effort that is unique, creates changes, has a defined start
and end date, is constrained by time, cost and quality requirements, and includes staffs of
different units, departments, background, experience and competences. Project objectives
are specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic and timely2.
1
John Morfaw, Total Quality Management (TQM): a model for the sustainability of projects and programs in Africa
(University Press of America, 2009), xiii.
2
Ibid., 1.

2. Beautiful definitions, are not they? Well, from our 6 years-experience perspective, Project
Management is a common element (in principle) in several social projects as a part of a
“Project proposal to donors”. That’s all. Project controls, corrective actions, measurement,
results assessments, etc. are the “big-missing-in-action-guy” in the majority of social
programs we had the opportunity to know in depth.
Let me follow with the next concept: TQM is a philosophy of total organizational
involvement in improving all aspects of the quality of product or service provided by the
organization. It is also referred to as Total Quality Control, Total Quality Leadership,
Integrated Quality Management, Continuous Quality Improvement, Quality Management
Science, Industrial Quality Management or Configuration Management. TQM is intended
to result in the improvement of services and products not by looking at what is produced
but by examining the process for root causes of problems, effects and errors3. In NGOs,
this entire means: action research and problem analysis, beneficiary participation
(customer – oriented products) and continuous processes and quality evaluation. In
medium and small sized civil society organizations, all those concepts and strategies are
completely absent. Let me offer the reader some evidence of that:
• there is not any book in the Google Books database focused on applying TQM and
Lean Transformation in NGOs,
• scientific problem analysis for projects design is not applied,
• and, the UN had to write an international Convention for promoting children
participation worldwide, although there a lot of social projects and programs that
have children as main beneficiaries. In consequence, children’s rights are at the
very centre of the Council of Europe’s Strategy. In fact, it is designing a 2012 –
2015 strategy paper built on the achievements and the activities of the previous
policy cycles of the programme “Building a Europe for and with children”.
Action research and community capacity building
If the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer 4 (Drucker), civic society
organizations (usually called NGOs) are created to identify and assist “a beneficiary” in a
social matter that is not solved by the government or the market.
To achieve that mission, action research methodologies may be applied in the process
of social projects design and implementation: once identified and defined the problem,
selected a theoretical approach and paradigm (if available) and developed an approach (a
guidance model) for tacking it, the most difficult stage of a social innovation starts: the
design (selecting dimensions / areas of intervention and certain indicators for measuring
outcomes, results and impact) and implementation of a specific strategy in the field –
which implies working with stakeholders, beneficiaries, donors, etc.
3
Ibid., 4.
4
Peter Atrill e Eddie McLaney, Management Accounting for Decision Makers (Pearson Education, 2009), 2.

3. Therefore, action research can be used as a methodological paradigm for building
communities capacity (source: Institute for Community Research, Hartford, US, Jean
Schensul):
• It offers opportunities to access new information related to problematic issues.
• It organizes people around a common set of questions and problems.
• It provides collaborative methods for assessing, analyzing, recording and re/co-
constructing community, history, ritual, stories, artifacts and other components of
cultural identity.
• It enables identification of local ways of conceptualizing and defining problems,
needs and resources.
• It offers an informed basis for critique, resistance and redefinition and political
advocacy.
• It democratizes science and access to science technology.
Everybody who have a previous experience in the non profit sector had surely heard about
“capacity building” processes and their relevance for development. However, it is common
to avoid defining it.
Using Chaskin’s paper on the issue, a community capacity can be defined as the
interaction of human, organizational, and social capital existing within a given community
that can be leveraged to solve collective problems and improve or maintain the well-being
of a given community. It may operate through informal social processes and/or organized
efforts by individuals, organizations, and the networks of association among them and
between them and the broader systems of which the community is a part 5 . In
consequence, community building processes are the efforts concerns strengthening the
capacity of communities to identify priorities and opportunities and to work to foster and
sustain positive social change. The word capacity denotes both the idea of containing
(holding, storing) and the notion of ability (of mind, of action). Applied to communities, the
notion implies the existence within them of particular capabilities, faculties, or powers to do
certain things. These capabilities may have an impact on a number of aspects of
community functioning, but in the context of community building are all concerned with
ways to help promote or sustain the well-being of the community and its components
(individuals, informal groups, organizations, social interactions, the physical environment).
Community capacity defines, in a general way, communities that “work”; it is what makes
well-functioning communities function well6.
Eurochild: giving voice to children in Europe
Is there in Europe any good practice that fits the previous “action – evidence based”
oriented model trying to improve participation of children in policy decisions and social
programs?
In InterMedia we have identified one: Eurochild (www.eurochild.org), a European network
supported by the European Community Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity,
that:
• ensures a voice for children, young people and the organisations that work with
them in policy debates both at national and EU level;
• strengthens EU policies on children’s rights in particular with regard to the fight
against child poverty and exclusion and the promotion of child well – being and
participation;
5
Robert Chaskin, Defining community capacity: a Framework and implications from a comprehensive initiative. The
Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. 1999. Paper prepared for the Urban Affairs Association
Annual Meeting, Fort Worth, April 22-25, 1998.
6
Ibid.

4. • builds an influential network of NGOs;
• shares experience on what works best for children, young people and their families.
How does it achieve those objectives?
• sharing information
• disseminating information on latest EU developments
• forging NGO alliances
A clear example of spreading relevant information and influencing decision – making
through policy positions was the conference organized by Eurochild in Cardiff last
November 2011.
We present in the following paragraphs some insights from that show a clear path for
promoting children’s rights through research, best practices databases, consultations
participation,
Valuing children’s potential 7
Committed with the promotion of the CRC, Eurochild published “Valuing children’s
potential”, a book that present some case studies and relevant information with the
objective of describing a few of the pioneering examples of where children are given a
voice.
As Mária Herczog states, efforts to tackle child poverty and social exclusion can only be
fully effective if they find ways to empower children and involve them in decision-making.
The benefits to the children directly involved are self-evident – as all the children
interviewed for this book testify. But participation can have a much wider impact on policy
change, on attitudes of service providers and the quality of the services delivered, and
ultimately on public attitudes to children. Such a shift in mentality can make a crucial
difference to breaking cycles of poverty and creating a society in which every child is
allowed to flourish.
What is participation? It is defined as the process of sharing decisions which affect one’s
life and the life of the community in which one lives. It is a means by which democracy is
built and it is a standard against which democracies should be measured” (Hart, 1992,
p.5).
The dominant ideology underpinning ‘participation’ is that service users are best able to
define their own needs and to say how these needs should be met. By participating in
developing a service, users are empowered to improve the sustainability and affectivity of
interventions (Warrington 2010). In respect to youth work, participation offers an
opportunity to challenge the ‘imperialist’ model of the relationship between children and
adults, where adults assume power and authority. Instead, it advances a ‘partnership’
model where adults and young people share decision making (Coleman 2010). This focus
on participatory approaches is supported by the developing children’s rights (UN
Convention on the rights of the child and UNICEF, 2002).
A project carried on in 2009 taught three things.
Firstly, that participatory activities need to be adaptable to the changing circumstances of
young participants whose home circumstances, health and wellbeing may change
dramatically through the course of the work.
Secondly, that although it is time consuming and resource intensive, it is important and
productive to involve vulnerable and disadvantaged young people in decisions about what
they need and how services should be delivered. This can ensure that all young people,
not just those who are articulate and motivated, have a say in effecting change to service
delivery.
7
All quotes were taken from:
http://www.eurochild.org/fileadmin/ThematicPriorities/Participation/Eurochild/ValuingChildren_sPotential.pdf

5. Thirdly, that the process of participating is understood to be as important as the outcome.
That is, the ongoing activity is valued as much as the product it creates. The learning
experience which is involved throughout the process of these activities can stimulate
disaffected young people to realise their self-worth.
All these lessons are common principles in TQM and confirm the importance of applying it
in social projects. The Eurochild’s book offer interesting case studies like children involved
in NGOs personnel recruitment process (Action for Children – The right choice), a Cypriot
Children’s Parliament with members elected by their peers at school that gather
information through surveys (like InterMedia’s project on YouTube usage and abusage),
the Funky Dragon Children’s and Young People’s Assembly for Wales (that involved
10,000 children in a national survey).
Conclusions are a clear indication that there is a lot of work to do in terms of NGOs
capacity building applying action research and TQM paradigms: The process of children’s
participation is as important as the outcomes: it gives children and young people and
particularly disadvantaged children self-esteem. It also gives them confidence and they
learn how to express their opinions using clear arguments and how to listen to each other.
Participatory activities need to be adapted to the changing circumstances for young
participants, whose home circumstances, health and wellbeing may change dramatically
through the course of the work.
Additional resources:
Youth participation survey
Conducted by the University of Bedfordshire, it gathered responses from 40 organizations
(16 umbrella and 16 individuals), the majority of them working with people aged 0 to 18+
(mainly 13 – 18).
26 work with people who are experiencing poverty, 14 with disabled, 19 with those who
are in or leaving care.
13 work with those who have caring responsibilities and 17 with victims of violence, abuse
and neglect. Some of them involve children in the programmes development. 25 use
children as volunteers. 23 provide training on participation (14 for policy makers).
24 facilitate meetings between children and decision makers, 19 support children to
campaign on their own issues.
Participation Network of the 101 of participatory projects
How may an NGO promote children participation?
PN (www.participationnetwork.org), after ten years of experience in the field, published the
AskFirst! Standards that provide useful guidance for establishing effective direct
engagement mechanisms, as well as a benchmark for measuring effectiveness:
• Appropriate methods
• Support
• Knowledge
• Feedback
• Inclusion
• Respect
• Senior People
• Timing

6. Participation Network’s site provides to everybody interested on the issue complete access
to a vast database of case studies, methodological papers, strategy papers and research
reports.
Consultation on the draft Council of Europe Strategy on the Rights of the Child –
Eurochild contribution highlights
Eurochild supports the vision expressed in the second Programme’s overall goal on the
need of designing and implementing holistic children’s strategies and policies.
Equality in and through education should be presented as one of the key principles in the
new strategy and it should be pursued throughout the different strategic objectives. A
holistic approach to children's rights should embrace the right to an education, also
including a rational approach to one’s beliefs and peaceful coexistence between religions:
in conformity with "Toledo guiding principles on teaching about religions and beliefs in
public schools”, OSCE, stating that «There is a growing consensus among educators that
knowledge of religions and beliefs is an important part of a quality education and that it can
foster democratic citizenship, mutual respect, enhance support for religious freedom, and
promote an understanding of societal diversity».
Shortcomings and good practices: gathering a comprehensive data and an in-depth
analysis of the situation in particular member states is a starting point of any action, which
wishes to be successful. Improving the existing monitoring systems, establishing child
rights-related policy targets and monitoring their impact are one of the key challenges.
Eurochild estimates the number of children living in residential care at 150,000 – out of the
approximate one million children in the public care system in the EU. It is now widely
acknowledged that children, especially young children, who are institutionalised, are likely
to suffer long-term damage to their social and emotional development given inadequate
care during these vital years of their development. Development of family based care
with carers who are well trained and well supported to do their job should be emphasised.
Residential care must be regarded as a placement of last resort, provided for a limited time
and for as short as possible.
Eurochild expressed its great content that one of the strategic objectives is explicitely
devoted to child participation through concrete actions and involvement of children and
young people. The proposed focus on democratic citizenship and human rights
education in the strategy is a natural way forward to empower children to exercise their
full participatory rights through human rights education.
EU conference speaks up for kids online rights
URL
‘Building a child-friendly Europe: Turning a vision into reality’ - this was the objective the
Council of Europe discussed with its partners at a conference in Monaco in late November
2011. Chaired by Princess Caroline of Hanover, around 200 representatives from
governments and civil organisations debated topics such as justice, migration and violence
against children. One special focus this year was on children and new media.
"It is vital that children and youths are involved on all levels in the consultation about their
rights" said Janice Richardson, coordinator of the Insafe network, in the workshop titled
‘Making children the masters of the game: data protection and the new media
environment’. To further boost youth participation in online matters, she added, European
Schoolnet has developed the Pan-EU Youth project and will soon be appointing youth
ambassadors so that young people can report about their experiences on the internet and
can be sure that policy makers listen.
Further objectives of the workshop included a discussion on children's rights on data

7. protection (that is, for example, the minimum age requirement in online environments),
data conservation of children's online activities, data abuse and the general need to
remove children's traces on the internet. Some speakers emphasised the need for privacy
options by default for children.
Other topics on the conference agenda included ‘Empowering children through learning:
democratic citizenship and human rights education’ and ‘Children's rights start at home:
strong families for strong children’. The conference was a follow-up to a 2006 conference
in which the Council of Europe programme ‘Building a Europe for and with children’ was
launched.
The delegates assessed where progress has been made on the issues identified earlier.
The overall feedback was positive: "The protection of children’s rights has been improved
in important policy areas," a speaker of the Council of Europe stated, however adding:
"Despite the progress achieved, many challenges remain, while new threats to children’s
rights have emerged."
Towards a Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the Child 2012-2015
Draft strategy
URL
The programme will focus on four strategic objectives:
1. Promoting child-friendly services and systems
2. Eliminating all forms of violence against children
3. Guaranteeing the rights of children in vulnerable situations
4. Promoting child participation
In the period 2012-15, the Council of Europe will aim at the effective implementation
of children’s rights standards. This will be done through:
- Promoting a holistic approach: support member states in observing the four principles of
the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: non-discrimination; devotion to the best
interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views
of the child as well as the interdependence and indivisibility of children’s rights;
- Information, awareness-raising and capacity-building: improve the access to information
of all stakeholders – including authorities, professionals, children and young people – on
standards, monitoring reports, campaign and training materials and any other relevant
tools and provide professionals with training on the same;
- Mainstreaming and monitoring: sustain and develop a child-rights perspective in all
Council of Europe activities, in particular Council of Europe monitoring bodies, as well as
maintain and develop spaces for exchanging information and good practices and debating
on current and emerging issues.
Co-operation with non-governmental organisations
The Council of Europe will intensify its relations with the non-governmental sector,
facilitating their advisory role and their access to Council of Europe tools and decision
making processes. Co-operating with research and academic institutions will be reinforced
in order to promote data collection and analysis and to develop the impact assessment
tools needed to guide action. The Council of Europe will also seek to strengthen co-
operation with media and the private sector to promote awareness on and implementation
of its standards. The Council of Europe will seek to build bridges between donors and
NGOs as implementing partners.