Planning is central to ensuring children and young people live in safe, secure places, that they are included and can be active. There can be few aspects of planners’ work that do not directly impact on children, from designing city centres, to implementing policies that will minimise the environmental effects of industrial practices. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) requires planners to consider children in matters affecting them and affirms that they have the right to be heard on such matters, and there is a consensus that it is important to try and engage children and young people in the planning process. The main question is how?

This book provides a range of international case studies illustrating good practice. It offers a variety of tools and techniques which have proved to be successful and discusses the work that needs to be done to enable planners to respond more effectively. It identifies key areas of concern generally with reference to the built environment and more precisely to planning theory and practice.