
Those numbers strongly advocate a growing attention for children and youngsters at social risk, and urge for interdisciplinary research, global policy approaches, and society and community-based practices. To respond to this advocacy, VOICE aims to contribute to these
more global community-based and interdisciplinary approaches by acknowledging children and youngsters as co-researchers being involved, informed, and consulted in the entire process of researching, emphasizing their human right to be fully involved in the development and implementation of prevention and intervention initiatives, highlighting their capacities as agents of change, without neglecting the socio-economic and political power structures and power mechanisms of exclusion and marginalization. This means that children and youngsters are perceived as actively involved in the construction of their own social lives, the lives of those around them and of the societies in which they live.