Understanding Children's Rights ― A Guide to Law, Policy and Practice

What are children’s rights and where do they come from? Why is it necessary for children and young people to have their rights defined? What difficulties do practitioners face in developing a rights based approach to their daily work with children, young people and their families? What can children and young people tell us about their experiences and perspectives regarding rights?

This milestone text by a multidisciplinary author team offers an accessible and conceptually coherent guide to the theory and practice of children’s rights, grounded in extensive research. It explains the provisions of the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child; identifies developments in legislation and policy; and explores the tensions and opportunities inherent in applying a rights based approach in a range of contexts, including:

• Education
• Child protection and family support
• Kinship care, fostering and residential care
• Mental, physical and sexual health
• Leisure and play
• Youth justice
• New risks including human trafficking, child sexual exploitation and online abuse.

Rich in insight from both young peoples‘ and professionals‘ experiences, the book explores how a children’s rights perspective can be applied in combination with other professional discourses including early intervention and prevention; risk assessment; evidence based practice; and relationship based practice. It considers children’s participation in decision-making and the importance of effective monitoring and coordination in practice. Timely and wide-ranging, this book is essential reading for students and practitioners across the fields of education, health and social care.

Dr Karen Winter is a Lecturer in Social Work at Queens University Belfast, with extensive experience of teaching at undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral research levels. Prior to this, she worked as a qualified social worker and a team manager in family and childcare. She has also worked as a Guardian ad Litem. She has researched and published extensively.

Dr Bronagh Byrne is a Lecturer in Social Policy at Queen’s University Belfast. She previously worked as a Children’s Rights Research Fellow at Queen’s and as a researcher for the Centre on Human Rights for People with Disabilities at Disability Action, Belfast.

Dr Katrina Lloyd is a Lecturer in Education at Queens University Belfast. Her main research interest is in children’s wellbeing and she has many years’ experience as a quantitative research analyst. She has taught students at undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral research levels.