Keynote Sessions

When

Opening Keynote on Wednesday 28th June, 10 – 11am

Title

'Saving, Seeing, Hearing and Regarding Children: the journey from Geneva Declaration to Geneva Delegation'

Abstract

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is one of the specialised human rights instruments of the United Nations. These instruments are sometimes referred to as ‘third generation’ treaties, referring back to the foundation of modern international human rights law in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. However the provenance of the CRC lies also in several streams of 20th century activism, including the post- First World War relief work of Eglantyne Jebb, who crafted the 1924 Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, Maria Montessori’s pioneering approaches to education and childhood research and the inspirational life and work of Janusz Korczak. The seminal importance of the Geneva Declaration was to claim basic conditions for childhood as rights, not as a matter of happenstance of birth or charity. Later 20th century children’s rights discourse centred on concepts of children’s moral agency, their evolving capacity and involvement in decision-making. This paper reflects on the journey of children’s rights from saving the children through seeing and hearing children, to ‘regarding’ children as equal participants in social and civic processes. The paper then draws on the speaker’s first-hand experience of involvement in child and youth reporting to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and youth-led campaigning for a youth parliament for Wales. It concludes by suggesting that international human rights instruments have provided, in less than a century, a journey-road from the essentially welfare-oriented ‘Geneva Declaration’ to a situation in which children can appear as full participants in civic process, including, in the context of monitoring and reporting under the CRC, as members of the non-governmental ‘Geneva delegation’.

Biography

Jane Williams is Associate Professor at the College of Law and Criminology, Swansea University. She is a founder and coordinator of the Wales Observatory on Human Rights of Children and Young People and founding Director of the nascent Wales Children's Legal Centre. Her engagement with NGO, professional, statutory and academic partners influenced the Welsh 'due regard' duties which represent the only general legislative measure of incorporation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the United Kingdom. She co-edited and represented the Wales UNCRC Monitoring Group's report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in UK State Party reporting cycle 2015 - 16 and both supported and represented youth and children's reports including a global first child-led research report by children aged 7 - 11 in the same reporting round. She is a Board member of the Campaign for the Children and Young People's Assembly for Wales, which has influenced the current initiative by the Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales towards a youth parliament for Wales. She has published widely on implementation of children and young people's human rights and related topics.

When

Thursday 29th June 9.30am

Title

“Regarding children and young people in school: participation, recognition, and wellbeing”

Abstract

Although children’s rights to participation are clearly established in the CRC and General Comment 12, it can also strengthen the case for participation to show that it enhances student wellbeing. New research in schools in New South Wales has sought to explore the connections between different aspects of participation and measures of wellbeing, and the part played by intersubjective recognition (as defined by Honneth, 1995) in those connections. Focus groups with students and interviews with teachers informed a large online survey. The results demonstrate clear and specific links between participation and wellbeing, and also point to recognition as a mediator of those links. In this keynote lecture I will explain the results and discuss what they mean, both for practice in schools and for our theoretical understanding of how participation is grounded in interpersonal relationships.

Biography

Nigel is Professor of Childhood and Youth Research at the University of Central Lancashire and Co-Director of The Centre for Children and Young People’s Participation. He was previously a social work practitioner, manager and advisor, and then a social work educator. Nigel’s research interests are principally in child welfare, children’s rights, children’s participation and theories of childhood. His publications include Children, Family and the State: Decision-Making and Child Participation (Macmillan 2000, Policy Press 2002); Social Work with Young People in Care (Palgrave 2005); Children, Politics and Communication: Participation at the Margins (Policy Press 2009); and A Handbook of Children and Young People’s Participation: perspectives from theory and practice (with Barry Percy-Smith, Routledge 2010). He is Chair of the Editorial Board of Children & Society, a Visiting Professor in the Centre for Children and Young People at Southern Cross University, and an Honorary Professor in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at Aberystwyth University. Nigel Thomas is featured in the book Key Thinkers in Childhood Studies by Carmel Smith and Sheila Greene (Policy Press 2014).

When

Thursday 29th June (5 – 6pm)

Title

“The Price is Right: Assessing the impact of Neoliberalism on Children”

Abstract

In recent decades, neoliberal economic policies have grown in prominence and influence across the globe, a trend that is likely to continue in the post Brexit climate.  The key features of neoliberalism -  privatisation, liberalised trade, the erosion of the welfare state and the promotion of self-sufficiency - are difficult to reconcile with the protection and promotion of children’s rights.  This paper will explore some of the most worrying manifestations of this, and consider what strategies might be adopted to protect and promote children's rights in the face of such antipathy. 

Biography

Helen is a leading expert on European children's rights, having researched and published extensively in this area. She has led projects on behalf of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and the Council of Europe to develop children's rights indicators, and has acted as expert consultant to the Council of Europe, the European Commission and UNICEF on issues relating to child friendly justice, child protection and the children's rights implications of EU enlargement. Most recently, she was appointed as Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords EU Home Affairs sub-committee in relation to their inquiry into the UK and EU's response to the plight of unaccompanied children in the current refugee crisis (March-July 2016). Her most recent project, Children's Rights Judgments, which she co-ordinated with Prof Kathryn Hollingsworth  (Newcastle University) involved over 50 academics and practitioners from across the world in revisiting and redrafting existing judgments from a children's rights perspective. The findings of this, Children's Rights Judgments: From Academic Vision to New Practice, will be published by Hart in the late summer 2017.

When

Friday 30th June 9.30am

Title

“Positive Youth Justice: Children First, Offenders Second”

Abstract

The Children First, Offenders Second (CFOS) model evolves youth justice beyond its contemporary risk focus and promotes a positive, principled, progressive and practical approach to the treatment of children in the Youth Justice System. The measurement, assessment and amelioration of the risk children present to themselves and others underpins and drives contemporary youth justice processes. However, the utility of the risk paradigm has been over-stated and is incapable of sustaining the faith placed in it as the guiding principle for animating youth justice practice. Nevertheless, there is at present no consensus about what approach to youth justice should or can replace risk as the driver of policy and practice. 

This paper outlines the CFOS model as a manifesto for changing the Youth Justice System – a modern, economic-normative paradigm founded on central guiding principles for positive youth justice practice – child-friendly and child-appropriate, rights-focused treatment, diversion, inclusionary prevention, participation and engagement, legitimacy, the promotion of positive behaviour and outcomes, evidence-based partnership, systems management and the responsibilisation of adults.  Therefore, CFOS constitutes a blueprint for a distinctive, principled, progressive approach to working with children; one that can be adopted and adapted by local authority areas throughout England and Wales, and by other nation states across the UK, Europe and beyond. The evolution, trajectory and practical realisation of CFOS positive youth justice will be discussed and animated with evidence from a twenty-year programme of associated reflective research in Swansea and the emerging success of an integrated, holistic and child-friendly delivery model in Surrey.

Biography

Stephen is a criminologist in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University. He specialises in youth justice issues, particularly the implementation of ‘children first’, ‘positive’ practice models that challenge the negative, risk-based approaches of post Crime and Disorder Act youth justice. Stephen is the co-author (with Professor Kevin Haines) of ‘Positive Youth Justice: Children First, Offenders Second’ (2015, Policy Press) and ‘Understanding Youth Offending: Risk Factor Research, Policy and Practice’ (2009, Willan). He has published numerous academic articles in multi-disciplinary, international journals, including Youth Justice, Children and Society, the Howard Journal and the Journal of Substance Use. Professor Case has conducted research for the Youth Justice Board, the Home Office, the Welsh Government, the National Institute for Health and Social Care Research and the Wales Office for Research and Development, including leading the national evaluation of the Welsh Government’s youth inclusion strategy ‘Extending Entitlement’.