‘Unlocking Children's Rights: Strengthening the capacity of professionals in the EU to fulfil the rights of vulnerable children’ JUST/2013/FRAC/AG/6393 (2015-2016) project will result in the development of a comprehensive learning system, including face-to-face training modules, e-learning packages and an online knowledge-sharing resource for professionals who work with children in residential care facilities, detention centres and justice systems across the EU.
The project will work with partners in 10 diverse EU countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia and the UK) to create an innovative system and resources for professionals that are replicable and capable of being easily adapted across all of the EU Member States. An accompanying advocacy and dissemination guide will be developed to identify how training can be integrated into existing sector training, registration and accreditation systems.
Training modules will be developed according to international and European rights standards and current understandings of good practice following a desk review and data collection in the 10 countries. It is expected that modules will be developed on the following inter-disciplinary topics: 1. Understanding child development; 2. Communication skills with children and young people; 3. Understanding rights and issues faced by children in the relevant context (residential care; detention; justice systems); 4. How to explain rights to children in an age-appropriate manner; 5. Understanding the needs of particularly vulnerable groups of children (Roma children; migrant children; children with mental health conditions; children with disabilities); and 6. Skills on how to be child-led, including how to understand a child's wishes and feelings and how to create a process that takes these views and feelings into account.
An additional module will be developed for justice professionals (police, prosecutors, counsel, judges/magistrates, probation officers, advocates and social workers) on how to make justice processes child-friendly, in accordance with the Guidelines on Child Friendly Justice.
The training modules will be developed by an inter-disciplinary team of key experts, including lawyers, sociologists, psychologists, pedagogues and social welfare specialists, and will be developed through a participatory process with groups of young people in the 10 countries.
The partnership
The partnership consists of 12 organisations, all experts in the field of child rights and representing a broad spectrum of EU countries.
In addition to the Coordinator, Coram Children’s Legal Centre (UK), the 11 co-beneficiaries are: FICE Bulgaria, Family Child Youth Association (FCYA) (Hungary), Children of Slovakia Foundation (Slovakia), Czech Helsinki Committee (Czech Republic), Social Educational Action (Greece), Estonian Centre for Human Rights (Estonia), Child Law Clinic, University College Cork (Ireland), L’Albero della Vita Cooperativa Sociale (Italy), Nobody’s Children Foundation (Poland), Coram Voice (UK), and the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) (Based Hungary, but EU-wide). Each co-beneficiary has put forward a Project Manager, with 10 organisations (including CCLC) putting forward 1-2 Expert Trainers, and the ERRC and Coram Voice putting forward Expert Trainers (and Peer Rights Trainers in the case of Coram Voice) and Key Experts.
More information about the project: http://coraminternational.org/