The Children and Young People’s Health Equity Collaborative (CHEC) was a partnership between the UCL Institute of Health Equity (IHE), Barnardo’s and three Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), Birmingham and Solihull, Cheshire and Merseyside, and South Yorkshire, which ran from 2023 until 2025.
This report documents the children and young people’s engagement exercises that took place as part of the Children and Young People’s Health Equity Collaborative from July to August 2023.
The purpose of the engagement work was to understand key social factors that children and young people themselves identify as being important to their health and wellbeing, to ensure that children and young people’s voices are at the heart of the Child Health Equity Framework, as well as the Collaborative’s work going forward.
Resources used to guide workshop participation included in this report were developed by the Barnardo’s Voice and Influence team and adapted for delivery by voluntary sector organisations. These voluntary organisations included (but were not limited to) Birmingham Voluntary Sector Council, CHILYPEP (Children and Young People’s Empowerment Project), and Youth Focus North West.
This report provides an exploration of the methodology of the sessions, and an in-depth look at the findings from children and young people in each ICS area.
Updated 21 November 2025