Children and Young People’s Rights and Participation Group
The Children and Young People’s Rights and Participation group leads the strategic direction for children and young people’s rights in Aberdeenshire. The focus is to support our workforce to uphold and promote children and young people’s rights and to enable youth participation and decision making across Aberdeenshire.
The Group takes account of all relevant national policy and statutory requirements, reflecting on local learning and stakeholder feedback to work collaboratively with children and young people across Aberdeenshire to:
- Listen and respond to the views of children and young people about what’s important to them, including service design and delivery.
- Develop and implement a strategic framework to support the progressive realisation of children and young people’s rights and participation across Aberdeenshire.
- Ensure regular scrutiny of performance and reporting, based on a clear evidence base, which demonstrates how the partnership are continuing to improve on how we enable children and young people to claim their rights under the UNCRC.
- Support preparation for the UNCRC Incorporation (Scotland) Act 2024.
Membership
Health, Children’s Social Work, Children’s Rights Service, Police Scotland, English as an Additional Language Service, Active Schools, Education, Voluntary Organisations, Children and Young People’s Services Planning, Legal Services, Tackling Poverty and Inequalities, Child Protection Committee.
The group reports to, the GIRFEC Strategic Group, making recommendations for improvement and reporting on progress.
Current Work
The Group have developed a workplan that clearly sets out what they hope to achieve over 2023-26.
In 2024 we have continued our dialogue with children and young people to gain understanding of where we currently are in implementing the UNCRC and how they feel we are doing in upholding and further effecting their rights. This has given the group a clear steer in what needs to be done to further improve our rights based approach.
Workforce support and guidance is progressing, with the creation of a space for practitioners to freely access resources and materials in progress.
The GIRFEC Strategic Group is currently progressing the Getting Ready for UNCRC in Aberdeenshire self-assessment and action planning process supported by the Improvement Service. This resource takes forward the Theory of Change and outlines a number of key steps that will enable public bodies and their partners to demonstrate their commitment to children’s human rights and further embed these across their organisation, including within their values and organisational culture.
To improve our governance and to help us to share learning from good practice, the group have created a reporting form to showcase and celebrate the variety of children and young people’s rights work being delivered across Aberdeenshire.
Resources
Aberdeenshire Youth Rights Ambassadors, get involved
UNCRC Simplified Articles: https://cypcs.org.uk/rights/uncrc/articles/
What is the UNCRC Incorporation: https://www.cypcs.org.uk/incorporationuncrc/#h-what-is-uncrc-incorporation
“Let’s Explore Our Rights” is a book for those working with young children to help talk about their human rights: https://www.cypcs.org.uk/resources/lets-explore-our-rights/
The Right Way to Meaningful Participation: https://www.therightway.scot/
How Professionals Make Rights Real – Children’s Parliament https://investigates.childrensparliament.org.uk/ Children have explored this issue and have created a range of resources for professionals to learn about children’s rights.
A number of e-learning and training is available via ALDO, all Aberdeenshire staff are able to request an ALDO account.
Podcast