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After the adult-led research was published, Save the Children supported children living in institutional care in two provinces of Indonesia (Maluku and West Kalimantan) to conduct their own research about their lives and any issues that mattered to them.

60 children from 6 institutions in 2 provinces (10 children from each institution) were involved in that research. They were 28 boys and 32 girls, aged 11 - 18. 5 of the children were in elementary school, 31 children in junior high school, and 24 children in senior high school.

Before the research began, Save the Children carried out training with national and local adult facilitators, to help them understand the concepts and framework of childhood, child participation, child-led research, and how to help children to plan and do research. Four national facilitators were recruited from the team who did the Quality of Care research. Three local facilitators were also recruited from Maluku and two from West Kalimantan. One photographer was also recruited to help the children with learning how to use cameras and use photos, drawing and other documentation as part of their research.

Following the facilitators’ training, there was a workshop with the child researchers to help them to talk about their lives, identify the issues which were of interest to them and which they wanted to research, learn about research and the skills it requires, develop questionnaires related to the selected issues and to explore what they want to know, and develop plans including schedules and roles for each child as a researcher. Children also learnt how to use cameras as tools in data collection.

After the workshop, children then used the questionnaires they had designed to carry out interviews with other children living in institutions or in schools, the heads of their institutions, staff and caregivers. They also interviewed their teachers and their classmates at school.

They recorded the process of doing their research using photos. They also took pictures to record their findings, as well as doing drawings and making copies of documents relevant to their research. Each child researcher had a research book in which they recorded all of the information they received from the interviews and from their observations.

Once the children had done the research, another workshop was organised for the children to review their findings, support the process of data analysis and decide how to write the report of the research (which would tell people about what they had found out) and also to discuss who they wanted to share the findings with and how. They decided which pictures and photos to include in their research report and what shape and format each of their reports should look like. They also shared their experiences of the data collection process.

The report included a range of findings, including on corporal punishment:

1. Child researchers in both West Kalimantan and Maluku identified several punishments used on children if they break the rules, including pinching the child's stomach, throwing dirty water on them, or shaving the child’s head.
2. Other forms of punishment included cleaning toilets, the gutter, the yard, the goat or pigpen or all rooms depending on the level of punishment.
3. Sometimes punishment also included collecting rubbish, looking for firewood, doing push-ups, or being forced to run around the field.
4. If children were considered to have broken the rules ‘seriously,’ (for example, by dating with a boy/girlfriend or by continuing to break the rules after receiving three warnings from the staff of the institution) they could be expelled from the institution.

When children returned to their institutions, they continued with the writing of their reports. National and local facilitators visited them and helped them to finalise the reports. They talked with the children about what format and layout to give the report. The children decided that each childcare institution would have its own report, in its own format.

When they had finished the reports, they presented them to lots of adults, including government officials. Find out more.

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