TITLE: Child Voices in the Call for Reform!

Short introduction of myself (background as a care worker and as a human rights advocate) - (1 minute maximum)

  • to at least justify to the audience why I am standing there :-)

"Picture if you will" a situation: Establishing the Problem: A case-example (from my own time in practice) showing how deficiencies in care systems override Best Interests (2 minutes)

  • Lack of preventative services
  • Sibling Separation (without participation)
  • Lack of Option & Quality of care?
  • Right to Identity (with a quote from one of the children noting that the "department" took everything from him, including his identity/role in terms of caring for his siblings

Addressing the Problem - international trends/messages on DE-I and reform

Background and principles of the Guidelines (about 3 minutes)

  • authoritative child rights guidance
  • NECESSITY/Prevention and SUITABILITY/Options & Quality
  • underpinned by BEST INTERESTS
  • understanding Best Interests as a procedural right not just a principle!
  • Noting the MOVING FORWARD
  • definitions of forms of care vary - the concern of the Guideline is the extent to which the rights of children are realised irrespective of definition
  • KEY MESSAGE of the Guidelines re care system reform
  • not just "closing down" - reducing reliance on institutional forms - develop family/community-based alternatives
  • Hungary example...reducing kids in institutions by 60k overnight by changing designation of institution to education department

Reinforcing the message above and need for BROAD understanding of necessary reforms (1 minute)

  • Prevention – fewer children in care?
  • Development of complementary quality family and community-based alternatives
  • Leaving Care (the outcomes)

Having identified the problem and taken trends from international frameworks what do young people tell us the need? (2 minutes)

  • Young people from care - Prague Conference 2011
  • ? series of participatory workshops
  • ? young people's final presentation
  • ? you adults have been taking about quality care as complicated (it is not rocket science)

YOUNG PEOPLE - we need three things - 3 S's

  • Safety - a secure and nurturing physical environment free from violence and abuse where we can grow safely!
  • Stability - stable placements giving us the opportunity to build positive, supportive and empowering relationships with people who care for us
  • Support - empowering support to help us develop, access and achieve in education, to grow into the successful young adults we want to become

Summarising THE TREND to achieve those 3 S's (1 minutes)

o Prevent separation (unless contrary to Best Interests)

o Develop a range of options that allow for good quality individualised care (in the child's Best Interests)

o DETERMINE THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD IN ALL DECISIONS and INCLUDE CHILDREN in those processes.

o BROAD DE-I as reform of the care and welfare system - not just closing facilities

The Road to Change/Reform is never easy - and some will resist and focus on the negative (1 minute)

  • But as George Bernard Shaw "Those who think it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it"
  • "Picture if you will" - a care system where young people, in both families and in alternative care, have experienced those 3 S's
  • Look at them completing high school and going on to succeed in University if that is what they want.
  • Look at them finding the jobs they want and desire.
  • Look at them eventually independent and empowered to begin families of their own.

FINAL CALL TO ACTION: It is all of us, here in this room, who have the expertise, experience and commitment to be the change and to reform care and prevention services so that all children experience the Safety, Stability and Support they tell us they need! I wish us all Good Luck on that journey!