The contribution of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to understanding and promoting the interests of young people making the transition from care to adulthood

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) acknowledges that young people without parental care are entitled to special support and assistance from the State. In detailing their expectations, the UN Committee have issued Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children which recognise that State parties have a number of responsibilities towards care leavers. The paper explores how the UNCRC reporting process, and guidelines from the Committee outlining how States should promote the rights of young people making the transition from care to adulthood, can be used as an instrument to track global patterns of change in policy and practice. Content analysis of State Party Reports and Concluding Observations from 15 countries reveals that to date there has been limited engagement with understanding and promoting the needs of this group in the reporting process; although where a government is committed to developing legislation and practice then this does find its way into their national reports. Data supplied by affiliates of the International Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood from Care (INTRAC) reveals that national concerns, political ideology, public awareness, attitudes and knowledge of the vulnerability of care leavers influence service responses to protect and promote the rights of this group and the attention afforded to such issues in reports to the Committee. Findings also suggest that global governance is not simply a matter of top down influence. Future work on both promoting and monitoring of the impact of the UNCRC needs to recognise that what is in play is the management of a complex global/national dynamic with all its uneven development, levels of influence and with a range of institutional actors involved.     

The rights of the child and ethnic minority families in Sweden

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was launched in 1989 and is ratified in most countries. The UNCRC is considered by child welfare authorities worldwide to be an essential document that aims to improve the rights of children. However, contemporary research indicates that the UNCRC is an obstacle to social work because it emphasizes the legal equality between children and adults. This finding prompts the question of how Western child protection agencies conduct child protection encounters with families with a non-Western ethnic background. The present article aims to examine if specific articles in the UNCRC can serve as a medium for improving social work with ethnic minority families within the child protection sector in Sweden. This article is based on a research project concerning youths with an ethnic minority background in out-of-home care. Relevant articles in the UNCRC are revealed to be potentially helpful to child protection programmes involving ethnic minority families because these articles emphasize considering the perspective of the child and strengthening parenting skills. However, child protection agencies must consider how the UNCRC can be used to teach parents or guardians to understand and acknowledge the perspective of the child without violating the values of the family.     

Improving the lives of Ghanaian children: complementing the global agenda with a structural social work approach

Manful SE, Manful E. Improving the lives of Ghanaian children: complementing the global agenda with a structural social work approach Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 115–123 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. In principle, Ghana's commitment to the global agenda for improving the welfare of children cannot be disputed. Globalisation has advanced changes in the country's institutional landscape with the introduction of economic reforms and administrative institutional frameworks to improve the welfare of children, amongst others. This article discusses the impacts of two global agendas, the Structural Adjustment Program and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It argues that the economic reforms and the legal framework to ensure the welfare of children have not achieved their envisaged goals, because the global initiatives focused on institutional changes, neglecting social factors that cause inequalities. Consequently, these factors have contributed to the inability of adequate service provision for children. To alleviate the problem, this article suggests that a structural social work approach be adopted in Ghana as a complementary strategy to improve the welfare of children.     

Children's lives and rights under lockdown: A Northern Irish perspective by autistic young people

By June 2021, children and young people had experienced two periods of lockdown and home learning in Northern Ireland. The detrimental impact of these periods of indefinite confinement is wider reaching than reported educational stagnation, with the fundamental rights of childhood: play; rest; and leisure; all adversely implicated. Autistic children's experiences of Covid-19 have been largely absent from current crisis and recovery discourse. This is the first published study to directly and specifically involve autistic children both as research advisors and as research participants in a rights-based participatory study relating to the pandemic. Drawing on concepts of ableist childism and epistemic injustice, this article presents, through Photovoice, the emotional, social and educational experiences of post- primary aged autistic young people in Northern Ireland during the first 2020 lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. The project was grounded in a child rights-based approach and was guided by a group of four autistic young advisors aged 11–15. The paper concludes by arguing that government responses to the pandemic, as experienced by autistic young people, act as forms of oppression that prioritises and further embeds normative non-autistic structures and responses under the guise of public health necessity.     

The UNCRC and Social Workers' Relationships with Young Children

In the UK, The Munro Review of Child Protection (2010, 2011a, 2011b) has recently highlighted that among the failings in safeguarding children known to social services is the lack of meaningful relationships between social workers and children. In her final report, Munro (2011b) has made recommendations for a more child‐centred system anchored on two themes – the child's journey and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This article illustrates by way of practical examples how the UNCRC, together with the detailed advice and guidance contained in the UNCRC general comments numbers 5, 7 and 12, provides the best framework for developing effective social work relationships with, and safeguarding, young children. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Citing Literature

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Volume 20 , Issue 6 November/December 2011

Pages 395-406