Our definition of co-creation

Here is CoC Playful Mind's definition on co-creation with children, followed by the principles we work with, when co-creating. 

Co-creating with children is a practice, method and ideology where children equally create something together with other people. Co-creation puts the matter and the process at the center of incorporating different perspectives on a common cause. In co-creation, adults have the ethical responsibility for the well-being of children and the creation of a framework that enables children's right of initiative, active participation and meaningful involvement.

The definition is based on the research-based knowledge journal "Co-creating - with children in focus" by Lene Tanggaard and Josefine Dilling as well as in the research literature in general.

Co-creating focuses on a common cause and on the equal process of creating something together. What is created can be a process, a design, a product, an activity, a service, a type of play - something that creates value for more than the individual and which none of the participants could have developed alone. In co-creating with children, it is important to create a trusting space with room for risking oneself in the collaborative and unpredictable or necessarily known processes.

Being together on a common and relevant cause contributes to commitment and to testing new positions and achieving meaningful learning. But it requires framework and facilitation.

Facilitator or professional educators have an important role to offer equal right of participation, equal right of initiative and equal dignity for children and adults learning together and from each other. The adults have a special ethical responsibility to create space for different child and adult perspectives and to ensure that the child's special positions and rights are treated ethically properly. However, everyone must experience feeling good and feeling treated equally. It is important for motivation, participation, social relationships, understanding of oneself and others as well as for learning. It leads to the following principles.

Principles when co-creating with children

• Children and adults have equal dignity, equal right of participation and equal right of initiative.
  
  
• Children and adults learn from and with each other in a process of exploring something they would like to become wiser and find great solutions for.
  
  
• Ethical reflection and action as part of the process, as it is important to ensure the well-being of the participants and an ethically sound treatment of the child's special position and preconditions and the rights of the child, cf. the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
  
  
• The creation of a product is centered on the perspectives of all the participants, with a special interest in offering and testing new positions.
  
  
• A continuum between minimum and maximum involvement of the child's perspective in various forms.
  
  
• “Art chaos” with focus on case, process and relationships, less on goal management and outcome.
  
  
• All co-creation processes are different and may be more or less facilitated, but require a framework, flexible structure or methods.