The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Wales

Description

This book explains the background to and effect of the law passed by the National Assembly of Wales, giving general effect to the UNCRC in the exercise of governmental powers, both in terms of furtherance of children’s rights in Wales and in terms of its implications for multi-level governance spanning the local to international laws and structures. It presents studies on several key policy areas where issues of children’s human rights are prominent, for example child poverty, special educational needs and health provision, treatment of asylum seekers and traveller communities. It also examines the key issues of accountability and civic participation, including the questions of involvement of children and young people.

Sujets

• Social Policy
• Public Policy
• Political Science
• Wales

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 28 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780708326879
• Langue: English

Extrait

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Wales
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Wales
Edited by
Jane Williams

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS CARDIFF 2013 -->
© The Contributors, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.
www.uwp.co.uk


British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


ISBN 978-0-7083-2562-9 e-ISBN 978-0-7083-2687-9

The right of the Contributors to be identified as authors of their contributions has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.





Typeset by Marie Doherty Printed in the UK by MPG Books Group Ltd
For Ciarán, Matthew, Megan and Gareth
Contents


Tables and illustrations
About the Contributors
Foreword by Rt Hon. Rhodri Morgan
Preface and acknowledgements
Abbreviations and terms
Editor’s Introduction
Jane Williams
Part I: The UNCRC in Wales – and Wales in the UNCRC
1 Children’s rights as a policy framework in Wales
Ian Butler and Mark Drakeford
2 Made to Measure: cooperation and conflict in the making of a policy
Michael Sullivan and Helen Mary Jones
3 Policy advocacy communities: the collective voice of children’s NGOs in Wales
Trudy Aspinwall and Rhian Croke
4 The Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011 in the context of the international obligations of the UK
Jane Williams
Part II: Making it work: realising children’s rights in selected policy areas
5 What is the value of a right if it is never afforded?
Kevin Fitzpatrick
6 Child poverty and human rights
Rhian Croke and Anne Crowley

7 Housing and the independent older child
Jennie Bibbings, Simon Hoffman and Peter K. Mackie
8 Children’s rights in education
Peter Hosking
9 Extended rights for children and young people in Wales? A focus on gender
Jacky Tyrie
10 The rights of children and young people seeking asylum in Wales
Tracey Maegusuku-Hewett and Kathryn Tucker
11 The rights of Gypsy and Traveller children and young people in Wales
Trudy Aspinwall and Luke Clements
Part III: Ensuring it works: accountability and participation
12 Accountability
Simon Hoffman and Jane Williams
13 ‘Holding government to account’: the role of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales
Osian Rees
14 Funky Dragon’s Children as Researchers project: a new way of enabling participation
Funky Dragon
15 Children’s participation in Wales
Anne Crowley
Tables and illustrations
Table 4.1 Comparison of equalities provisions
Table 6.1 The proportion of children in poverty in the UK

Illustration 5.1 Cartoon: Lupten/Crippen Cartoons
About the Contributors
Trudy Aspinwall has worked as an advocate for children’s rights in Wales since qualifying as a social worker in 1992. She works directly with children and young people and as a policy, research and participation worker in a variety of roles. She worked with Save the Children to initiate and then support the UNCRC Monitoring Group to influence key children’s rights developments in Wales, including the development of the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011. Her policy and consultation work has involved her in working with young Gypsies and Travellers to influence Welsh Government strategy and develop materials and awareness raising on the UNCRC with and for Gypsy and Traveller children and young people during the early stages of the Travelling Ahead project.

Jennie Bibbings has worked in social policy since 2002, joining Shelter Cymru in March 2011. Her background is in consumer policy with a particular interest in public services, rights, redress and regulation. In 2010 and 2011 she conducted in-depth analyses of progress towards implementation of the recommendations of the Pennington Inquiry, which investigated the circumstances leading to the major E. coli O157 outbreak, which hit south Wales schools in 2005. Jennie’s role is to manage Shelter Cymru’s research and policy work.

Ian Butler is Professor of Social Work at the University of Bath. He is a former special adviser to the First Minister of Wales. Following a career in social work practice, he has held academic posts at the universities of Cardiff and Keele, and is a member of the Academy of Social Sciences. He has published widely on social work with children and families and on welfare policy for children.

Luke Clements is a Professor at Cardiff Law School and a consultant solicitor. He has conducted and advised on many cases before the Commission and Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg involving both Roma and children, including the first Roma case to reach that court ( Buckley v UK [1996]).

Rhian Croke is the UNCRC Monitoring Officer for Save the Children Wales and is a committed advocate for children’s rights. She coordinates the work of the Wales UNCRC Monitoring Group, a national alliance of agencies tasked with monitoring and promoting the implementation of the UNCRC in Wales. She is co-editor of Righting the Wrongs: The Reality of Children’s Rights in Wales (Cardiff: Save the Children, 2006), and Stop, Look, Listen: The Road to Realising Children’s Rights in Wales (Cardiff: Save the Children, 2007). She has previously worked as assistant director for Save the Children Wales and at the University of Cape Town Children’s Institute as a senior researcher in the HIV/AIDs Programme.

Anne Crowley is a policy and research consultant and obtained her PhD in 2011 from Cardiff University. Anne has undertaken research with children and young people on a range of issues including youth crime, public care, participation, advocacy services and child poverty. She is currently a member of the National Independent Advocacy Board set up by the Welsh Government to provide independent advice on the strategic development of advocacy provision for children and young people, and of the Wales Committee of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. In 2007 Anne co-edited (with Rhian Croke) the ‘alternative’ report on progress in implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Wales, Stop, Look, Listen: The Road to Realising Children’s Rights in Wales (Cardiff: Save the Children, 2007).

Mark Drakeford has been the Labour Assembly Member for Cardiff West since 2011. He is Professor of Social Policy and Social Work at Cardiff University and has researched and written widely, particularly on social policy and devolution, poverty and social exclusion, and children and young people. He was, during Rhodri Morgan’s tenure as First Minister for Wales, Morgan’s special adviser and helped to craft many of the iconic policies of Labour in the Assembly.

Funky Dragon is the Children and Young People’s Assembly for Wales. It is a peer-led organisation supported by Welsh Government funding and other funding. Funky Dragon gives 0–25-year-olds the opportunity to get their voices heard on issues affecting them.

Kevin Fitzpatrick has thirty-eight years’ direct experience of disability and the issues affecting disabled people. He is director of Inclusion21 Ltd, offering training and consultancy promoting equality and diversity. He taught philosophy at Swansea University and is an associate of the Welsh Institute for Health and Social Care at the University of Glamorgan. He is a non-executive director of the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust, a board member of Consumer Focus Wales and chair of the board of trustees of St David’s Children Society adoption agency, and of Arts Care/ Gofal Celf. He was the first Disability Rights Commissioner for Wales, carrying out this role from 2000 to 2007. He was awarded the OBE for services to disabled people in Wales in 2011.

Simon Hoffman is a lecturer and researcher at Swansea University where he teaches human rights. His primary research interest is children’s rights and socio-economic rights, in particular how to give effect to internationally recognised rights and entitlements in national legal systems and domestic social and fiscal policy. Simon is currently focusing on implementation of children’s rights within devolved administrations, and the delivery of rights through duty-creating legal mechanisms linked to programmatic action. With Jane Williams, he is co-director of the Wales Observatory on Human Rights of Children and Young People.

Peter Hosking worked as a teacher and lecturer both in the UK and overseas as well as working as an adviser on special educational needs for a voluntary organisation. From 2001 to 2011, he worked as a policy and service evaluation officer for the Children’s Commissioner for Wales. His role was to protect and promote children’s rights by influencing policy developments of the Welsh Government.

Helen Mary Jones was educated at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, has taught in the special education field, and has held various positions in youth, community and social work. She is currently Chair of Plaid Cymru and was Plaid Cymru AM for Llanelli and Mid and West Wales from 1999 to 2011. Her political interests include environmental issues, social justice, equal opportunities, children’s rights and employment. She was Shadow Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning, and a member of the Education and Lifelong Learning Committee, the Committee on Equality of Opportunity, the South Wes