Children in Charge – serie

Children have a right enshrined within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to participate in decisions that affect them, and their participation in social care services can have a positive impact on their own self-esteem and confidence, but also the quality of service and decisions made by the social care professionals working with them. Everyone seems to agree on the idea that children have to be heard, but not on how, where and when they can participate, or the organisational cultures needed to facilitate it. Promoting Children's Rights in Social Work and Social Care addresses these questions. Margaret Bell looks at the reality of children's life experiences, examines the variety of definitions of participation and highlights creative initiatives for children's involvement which have proven successful. Four research studies on children's participation in the UK are presented, which draw on interviews with children aged 6-19 and cover children's views on decision-making and recording processes, their opinions on the social work help they have received, how involved they feel, and the responses of the agencies involved.This book will be essential reading for any social work or social care professional working with children, as well as students and academics in the social work and social care fields. It will also be invaluable to those involved in promoting children's rights and child participation.

Over the last twenty-five years there has been an unprecedented expansion of opportunity for Traveller and Gypsy children to attend school. Educational outreach services have developed in parallel with an increased willingness on the part of parents to put their children into school. Cathy Kiddle has studied the effects of this expansion on the lives of the children. Having worked with Travellers and schools for over twenty years, she is well placed to consider the interactions between children, parents and schools. She examines particularly the parent/teacher relationship and the effect this has on the education of the children.The book looks at education in the context of several distinct travelling groups including Circus, Fairground and New Travellers. While recognising the importance of literacy for their children, many Gypsy Travellers fear that schooling will contribute to the disintegration of their culture, strongly based as it is on family education and supportive kinship networks. Teachers, on the other hand, may have stereotyped ideas of who Gypsies are, and may have their own expectations and demands of children in school. Cathy Kiddle examines the ways in which minority groups are forced to adapt to the changing society around them. She argues that education is important for Traveller children in that it enables them to develop into independent learners and, through this, independent people, able to speak for themselves, make considered choices and act as agents in their own lives. Essentially, her study is optimistic: if parents and teachers are prepared to understand and co-operate with each other, education will help to destroy the marginalisation of Traveller cultures, not the cultures themselves. The children will be able to give their communities a voice for themselves.

Published in association with Save the ChildrenPriscilla Alderson examines the often overlooked issue of the rights of young children, starting with the question of how the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child applies to the youngest children, from birth to eight years of age. The question of finding a balance between young children's rights to protection, to provision (resources and services) and to participation (expressing their views, being responsible) is discussed. The author suggests that, in the belief we are looking after their best interests, we have become overprotective of children and deny them the freedom to be expressive, creative and active, and that improving the way adults and children communicate is the best way of redressing that balance.This second edition has been updated and expanded to include the relevance of UNCRC rights of premature babies, international examples such as the Chinese one-child policy, children's influence on regional policies, and the influence on young children's lives of policies such as Every Child Matters and those of the World Bank, IMF, OECD and UNICEF.This readable, informative and thought-provoking book is a compelling invitation to rethink our attitudes to young children's rights in the light of new theories, research and practical evidence about children's daily lives. It will be of interest to anyone who works with young children.

Children have a right enshrined within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to participate in decisions that affect them, and their participation in social care services can have a positive impact on their own self-esteem and confidence, but also the quality of service and decisions made by the social care professionals working with them. Everyone seems to agree on the idea that children have to be heard, but not on how, where and when they can participate, or the organisational cultures needed to facilitate it. Promoting Children's Rights in Social Work and Social Care addresses these questions. Margaret Bell looks at the reality of children's life experiences, examines the variety of definitions of participation and highlights creative initiatives for children's involvement which have proven successful. Four research studies on children's participation in the UK are presented, which draw on interviews with children aged 6-19 and cover children's views on decision-making and recording processes, their opinions on the social work help they have received, how involved they feel, and the responses of the agencies involved.This book will be essential reading for any social work or social care professional working with children, as well as students and academics in the social work and social care fields. It will also be invaluable to those involved in promoting children's rights and child participation.

Published in association with Save the ChildrenPriscilla Alderson examines the often overlooked issue of the rights of young children, starting with the question of how the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child applies to the youngest children, from birth to eight years of age. The question of finding a balance between young children's rights to protection, to provision (resources and services) and to participation (expressing their views, being responsible) is discussed. The author suggests that, in the belief we are looking after their best interests, we have become overprotective of children and deny them the freedom to be expressive, creative and active, and that improving the way adults and children communicate is the best way of redressing that balance.This second edition has been updated and expanded to include the relevance of UNCRC rights of premature babies, international examples such as the Chinese one-child policy, children's influence on regional policies, and the influence on young children's lives of policies such as Every Child Matters and those of the World Bank, IMF, OECD and UNICEF.This readable, informative and thought-provoking book is a compelling invitation to rethink our attitudes to young children's rights in the light of new theories, research and practical evidence about children's daily lives. It will be of interest to anyone who works with young children.