Children's Rights in N. Ireland 2004 - Report 11/04 [NI]
On behalf of the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY), Queen’s University has produced a report entitled Children’s Rights in Northern Ireland 2004. The 281-paged research document comprises an audit of the current state of children’s rights and a critical analysis of the extent to which they are respected in law, policy and practice.
Introduction
Research Objective:To highlight the gaps, problems and difficulties in the protection, promotion and implementation of children’ s rights in Northern Ireland.
The establishment of the office of the Commissioner for Children and Young People and the decision to draft a strategy for children and young people are highlighted as key recent developments to children’s rights. The report also stresses the significance of Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act, the drafting of the Bill of Rights by the NI Human Rights Commission and the Equality duty administered by the Equality Commission, which will promote the duty to consult with children & young people. The methodology, ethics and techniques of the research is outlined, with information having been sampled from policymakers, professionals, volunteers, school-children, children outside school. Significant themes include the Legacy of the Violent Conflict, Poverty, The Impact of the Experience in the Care & Justice System, Children in the Traveller Community, Children with Disabilities, Civil Rights & Freedoms, Training & Awareness of Rights, and Listening to Children & Making their Voices Count.
The report has been sub-divided into 6 chapters relating to the following topics: General Measures of Implementation, Family Life & Alternative Care, Health, Welfare & Material Deprivation, Education, Leisure, Play, Recreation, Culture & the Arts and Policing & Youth Justice.
Each chapter summarizes relevant international standards and provides an overview of key developments in local law/policy/practice. This is followed by an analysis of key issues which emerged in the research. Each chapter then concludes with a number of priorities relating to issues of the most serious concern in Northern Ireland in 2004. (Due to constraints of space, this summary will focus on the identified priorities).
The researchers state that whilst NICCY may not be in a position to resolve all of the issues, the priorities may inform strategies regarding the promotion of children’s rights, complaints/legal action and research. NICCY will also be in a position to raise the concerns with statutory powers and raise awareness from a children’s rights perspective.
Chapter 1: Priorities for General Measures of Implementation
As children’ s rights/UN Convention on the Right of the Child (CRC) are inadequately protected in NI law, NICCY should lobby intensively for incorporation of the CRC into domestic law, and the inclusion of a clause protecting the rights of children and young people in the Bill of Rights for NI. NICCY should also promote the return of the children’ s strategy to its original objective of the mechanism through which the CRC is to be implemented in Northern Ireland.
NICCY should promote the development of children’ s rights indicators or impact analysis for law, policy and budgetary decisions. It should lobby for a high level, cross-departmental statutory/Assembly committee and/or Minister for Children with the power and resources to effectively co-ordinate implementation of the Convention and children’ s rights more generally.
NICCY should raising awareness of the Convention and children’ s rights among children and young people, and adults, including those working with and for children, all of whom require on-going training on children’ s rights.
NICCY should work to establish itself as the central point for information on children’ s rights in Northern Ireland and should work strategically to ensure that all children and young people have effective access to information about their rights in child sensitive forms.
The Commissioner needs to address the serious lack of child-sensitive complaints procedures and independent advocacy services for children and young people, possibly consulting with NGOs on what precisely can be done to fill these gaps and how existing mechanisms can be appropriately adapted.
The practice of producing and maintaining up-to-date and disaggregated data across government departments needs to be mainstreamed. An annual, comprehensive publication on the state of children’ s rights in NI should be produced.
NICCY should take a lead role in promoting the right of children to be heard and have their views taken into account in individual decisions as well as law, policy and in the political system. It should link with representative NGOs as well as with children and young people, directly involving them in the work of the Office. NICCY should also work with the Equality Commission on ways to maximise the potential of S. 75 in respect of the age criterion and seek to collate and disseminate best practice on how to consult with children and young people. It should promote schools councils, and youth councils in local authorities, city councils and in the NI Assembly.
Chapter 2: Priorities for Family Life and Alternative Care
An overarching family policy with a focus on positive parenting and preventative strategies, particularly in the early years, needs to be developed. This should be accompanied by the necessary funding to ensure that it is effectively implemented and allow for the on-going provision by the voluntary and community section.
A programme of multi-disciplinary training at all levels, combined with a co-ordinated approach to interagency working at practice level should be put in place.
The issue of recruitment and retention of social work staff in all areas of family and child care and the lack of specialist staff, particularly in the area of therapeutic work and child and adolescent mental health needs to be addressed.
There needs to be a continuing, high profile drive for the removal of physical punishment in the family
Within the area of child protection there is a need to invest in structural improvements and to strengthen the functions of ACPCs. Such improvements should include clearer criteria for significant harm and a robust assessment framework.
Continued efforts need to be made to address issues specifically associated with the progress of Children Order cases through the court system. These include, ensuring that the views and wishes of children and young people are taken into account, the lack of separate representation in private law proceedings and greater use of family mediation and/or alternative dispute resolution projects.
Given that foster care, especially kinship placements, has been widely acknowledged as providing more stable and longer term placements, urgent attention should be paid to the development of this type of provision.
The proposals for the development and restructuring of residential care are welcome but issues regarding current provision and problems in this area remain to be addressed in the interim period.
In secure accommodation urgent steps should be taken to bring the operation of the Independent Review mechanism into line with international standards specifically Article 5 ECHR.
Chapter 3: Priorities for Health, Welfare and Material Deprivation
Benefit/minimum wage rates for 16 & 17 year olds must be raised and accessible information must be provided regarding their entitlements.
Multi-agency approaches must be developed to guarantee appropriate services to meet the physical and mental health needs of children and young people.
Child and adolescent centred health care services in which children and young people have the opportunity to fully participate in decisions about their health care must be developed.
Urgent provision of fully resourced and appropriately staffed mental health services for children in care, secure accommodation and custody throughout Northern Ireland must be put in place.
The serious lack of adequate accommodation and support for 16 /17 year olds leaving care or who are otherwise homeless must be addressed.
Regionally based, accessible and comprehensive sexual health services for young people including age appropriate awareness raising should be promoted.
Inequalities and discrimination in health care policies and practices for children from ethnic minorities, children with disabilities and GLBT young people should be challenged.
Community safety strategies and initiatives to accommodate and recognise the physical and mental health needs of children and young people should be developed.
Chapter 4: Priorities for Education
Children with special educational needs should have prompt assessment of learning needs and appropriate educational provision.
All staff should be adequately trained in identifying and managing bullying behaviour; incidents should be properly monitored and recorded; and appropriate support should be put in place for all children involved.
Children educated outside mainstream schools must have access to high quality, full-time education.
Children’ s views must be given due weight in all decisions affecting them, through (a) the enactment of a statutory obligation on schools and other professionals working in education to take pupils’ views into account and (b) training and support for all staff in relation to the implementation of Article 12 of the CRC.
There must be a strategy to secure equal access to effective education for Traveller children.
There should be a concerted strategy to address issues relating to the impact of the conflict and religious segregation in schools.
Chapter 5: Priorities for Leisure, Play, Recreation, Culture and the Arts
The right to play must be given a higher profile through the implementation of a Northern Ireland Strategy on Play.
The various types of provision across Northern Ireland should be mapped in order to identify particular locations where children’ s access to various forms of play, leisure, recreation and the arts is limited.
There must be a greater emphasis on providing inclusive social opportunities for marginalised children and young people, particularly those who have disabilities and those living in rural communities.
There is a need to create safe space for children and young people in the areas where they live and in play, youth and leisure facilities.
Children and young people should be involved in planning decisions about play, leisure, recreation and the arts.
There is a need for a more concerted effort to tackle the problems of community segregation in play, youth, sport, recreational and arts activity and to harness the potential of each of the various sectors in promoting tolerance.
Chapter 6: Priorities for Policing and Youth Justice
The use of plastic baton rounds as a means of riot control should be abolished.
A co-ordinated strategy for the reduction of child deaths through violence should be introduced, recording all crimes committed against children and monitoring, investigating and prosecuting cases of violence against children.
The minimum age of criminal responsibility should be raised and age-appropriate welfare and justice interventions established.
The detention of children in custodial and care institutions should be used a measure of last resort and children are at all times should be held separately from adults.
The use of restraint in custodial and care settings should be reviewed and solitary confinement should be abolished.
Policing strategies should be initiated that gain the confidence of children and young people through effective consultation and challenging differential and discriminatory treatment.
Given their incompatibility with the principles and provisions of the CRC, anti-social behaviour orders should be withdrawn.
Appropriate training that meets the needs of children as vulnerable witnesses should be provided for the police, lawyers and judges.
An appropriately resourced and integrated framework of mental healthcare and therapeutic provision should be established, directed towards the physical and psychological recovery of children who are survivors of violence, abuse, trauma and self-harm.
Self-harm and suicides of children and young people should be researched and an informed, multi-agency strategy developed identifying and responding to children ‘at risk’ .
Restorative justice initiatives should be monitored to ensure that in policy and practice they offer an
effective alternative to punitive measures.
Workable protocols through which state agencies and community-based restorative justice programmes can work co-operatively should be advanced.
There should be an end to all community punishments and exiling of children and young people administered by paramilitaries and vigilante groups.
?Building on existing initiatives, fully-resourced programmes for the children and families of prisoners and ex-prisoners should be consolidated and expanded.
Community-based initiatives for combating drugs and alcohol abuse should be implemented alongside effective policing strategies targeting the supply of drugs into Northern Ireland.
The full document is available for download at the website of the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children & Young People (see link above right). Unfortunately printed copies are not available due to prohibitive costs. However, NICCY is hoping to produce a more accessible, children’s version of the report. For further information, please contact:
Contact Details
NICCY
Millennium House
17-25 Great Victoria Street
Belfast BT2 7BN
Tel: 028 9031 1616
Fax: 028 9031 4545
