ABSTRACT
Researchers often use the word voice to denote meaningful contributions from research participants. In health care and nursing practice, the adult proxy voice has most often been invoked to derive meaning and interpretation of children and young people’s experiences, wants and wishes. Underlying this is the view that adult commentators can speak on behalf of children and that children and young people are not able to speak on behalf of themselves. It seems to us that this stems from a one-dimensional view of voice – that associated with verbal and written communication. For children and young people, voice is much more than this and includes verbal and non-verbal behaviour, silence and gestures (Livesley and Long 2013). Yet, children and young people’s voice has often been silenced due to a common-sense understanding of them being ‘incompetent’ and unable to speak for themselves.
