Do you work in the public sector? Do you work to promote children’s rights? If you are interested in learning how governments and public sector professionals can listen to children’s views on policies and practices that affect their lives, this is a webinar for you.
Children’s participation in public decision-making is a process through which children express their ideas about government policies, guidance, budgets and services and through which children’s ideas produce changes in, for example, understanding, training, policy and practice. This is not only possible, but happening successfully in quite a few different parts of Europe, at local and national levels.
How can professionals improve practice and public sector officials and decision-makers offer the best space for children to engage in public decision-making? Find out by registering for the Eurochild and Childhub joint webinar!
The webinar will introduce the concept of children’s participation in public decision-making, offering opportunities to participants to learn from interesting practices from across Europe. The webinar introduces perspectives shared in detail in the background report to Eurochild Conference 2018, which has been drafted by child participation experts and the presenters of this webinar, Anne Crowley and Mieke Schuurman.
What to expect from the webinar:
- Introduction to the concept of children’s participation in public decision-making
- Lessons from interesting practices of children’s participation and successful examples of children influencing public decision-making
- Discussion with child participation experts and authors of the report on the topic
- Invite to register for the Eurochild conference 2018 in Opatija, Croatia
About Eurochild Conference 2018
Eurochild, a Europe-wide children’s rights network is organising its bi-annual conference in Opatija, Croatia with hosts Society ‘Our Children’ Opatija and City of Opatija on 29-31 October 2019. It will bring together practitioners, researchers, civil society actors, policy and decision makers along with children and young people themselves to contribute to improving children’s participation in public decision-making. The background report to the Eurochild conference forms the basis for this webinar. Find out more about the conference here.
Pre-reading (optional):
Children’s participation in public decision-making – A review of practice in Europe - this background paper to the Eurochild Conference 2018 gives an overview of current practice on children’s participation in public decision-making. Apart from review of academic literature, it also offers individual perspectives from civil society on examples of engaging children successfully in influencing public decisions, as well as recommendations for the future. The paper is co-authored by child participation experts Anne Crowley and Cath Larkins on behalf of The Center for Children and Young People`s Participation, UCLan.
Download the paper here.
About the presenters:
Anne Crowley is a policy and research consultant and an honorary research associate with Cardiff University in Wales, where in 2012 she completed a PhD on the impact of children’s participation on policy-making. From 1999–2009 Anne worked as the Assistant Director (Policy and Research) with Save the Children. More recently Anne has been working with the Council of Europe on the Child Participation Assessment Tool and on developing a policy instrument to support young people’s access to rights. In 2017 co-authored a report for the Council of Europe on New and innovative forms of youth participation in decision-making processes. Prior to becoming involved in policy and research, Anne worked with marginalised young people as a social worker. Anne is a trustee of the Global Initiative to End all Corporal Punishment of Children, a member of the policy advisory board at Voices from Care, and a trustee of Play Wales.
Mieke Schuurman is senior policy & advocacy coordinator for children’s rights and child participation for Eurochild. At Eurochild she is coordinating the work of the Eurochild member’s group of National Children’s Rights Coalitions. Mieke is also responsible for children’s participation, for which she has developed Eurochild’s internal child participation strategy and child protection policy. Before, she worked as an independent expert in the field of children’s rights and EU law and carried out assignments for various international organisations and NGOs, including the Council of Europe, European Commission, Eurochild and UNICEF. She has provided advice, carried out research and given trainings on children’s rights and has a particular expertise in children’s participation. Formerly, she was Secretary-General of the European Children’s Network (EURONET) and she has been policy assistant to a Dutch Member of the European Parliament in Brussels.
She obtained a Master Degree in Law at the University of Edinburgh and she has a degree in European Studies, obtained at the University of Amsterdam.
How to attend the webinar:
Use the button below to sign up for the webinar. A few hours before the webinar you will receive an email with the link to the webinar room and instructions how to join. Joining our webinars is very easy, doesn't require any special skills from you and only takes a minute or two. You can join the webinar from your computer, tablet or mobile phone.
You can check here when the webinar starts in your time zone.