Understanding Children's Rights in Canada

The Importance of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child for Canadian Children

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is a significant international agreement aimed at securing fundamental rights for children worldwide. While Canada ratified the convention in 1991, many aspects of children's rights, including protection from violence and provision of basic needs, are reportedly inadequately addressed in Canada. Dr. Katherine Cavell discusses these shortcomings and shares potential solutions, emphasizing the importance of spreading awareness and urging for better implementation of children's rights in educational and governmental systems.

Highlights

Dr. Katherine Cavell is a renowned advocate for children's rights, focusing on education and awareness. 📚
Despite the UN Convention's global approval, Canadian awareness and implementation lack robustness. 🇺🇳
Dr. Cavell stresses that children should have a voice in matters affecting them, though Canada falls short here. 🗣️
Canadian Indigenous children face significant systemic neglect, highlighting a massive rights gap. 🍁
Educational reforms that include children's rights show substantial benefits, yet Canada lags in adopting them fully. 🎒

Key Takeaways

Canada ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991 but struggles with implementation, especially regarding Indigenous children. 📜
The Convention outlines children's rights in three areas: provision, protection, and participation. However, Canada faces challenges in all these areas. 🇨🇦
Many Canadian children are in poverty, and overall support systems for them are lacking compared to other OECD countries. 💧
Despite Canada’s legal obligations, there is a noticeable gap between the promise of children's rights and reality. 🚸
Active involvement and spreading awareness about children's rights can initiate change and progress in Canada. 🤝

Overview

Dr. Katherine Cavell, a professor and children's rights advocate, highlights the crucial yet overlooked importance of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) for Canadian children. Established unanimously by the United Nations in 1989, the CRC aims to provide children worldwide, up to the age of 18, with fundamental rights, such as protection, provision, and participation. Despite being one of the first signatories in 1991, Canada significantly underperforms in fulfilling these obligations, particularly in regards to Indigenous children.

The talk deeply underscores Canada's issues in meeting the Convention's mandates concerning children's protection and welfare. Cavell points out that although Canada theoretically supports the Convention, in practice, the enforcement and awareness among educators and policymakers are lacking. She presents stark statistics and real-world examples showing how Canadian Indigenous children suffer from inadequate healthcare, education, and basic needs, calling into question Canada's commitment to its international promises.

Despite these challenges, Cavell remains optimistic and encourages collective responsibility in advocating for better implementation of child rights. She shares insights from successful educational reforms elsewhere, which Canada can draw inspiration from. Her primary message is a call to action: increase awareness, advocate for systemic changes, and engage across communities to close the gap between the CRC's promises and the lived reality of children in Canada.

Chapters

00:00 - 03:30: Introduction to the Interdisciplinary Series on Childhood The chapter serves as an introductory section to a series focused on childhood from an interdisciplinary perspective. Ardra Cole, Associate Vice President of Academic and Research, welcomes attendees, acknowledging the effort made to leave their homes on a cold winter evening. The introduction sets the stage for collaborative learning and sharing within the series.
03:30 - 05:30: Introduction of Dr. Cavell and Her Work The chapter introduces the interdisciplinary series focusing on childhood, titled 'Not Just Kidding.' This is the second series following the success of last year's theme, 'Literacies as Ways of Knowing.' The series aims to create engaging spaces at The Mount.
05:30 - 06:30: Overview of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child The chapter introduces the interdisciplinary series focused on childhood, highlighting the success and collaborative effort across the campus.
06:30 - 08:30: Child Rights Violations Globally and in Canada The chapter discusses the importance of exploring childhood from various perspectives, highlighting its social significance. The focus is on child rights violations globally and specifically in Canada. The chapter is part of a series planned by graduate and undergraduate student researchers.
08:30 - 10:30: State of Aboriginal Children in Canada The chapter discusses the contributions of various individuals, including Adriana Benzaken, Beverly Deets, Susan Drain, Christa Monopar, and Cornelus Schneider, to the State of Aboriginal Children in Canada report. The chapter also mentions the involvement of children from the child study center, highlighting that they provided artwork for the report. Their reluctance to part with their artwork adds a layer of authenticity and emotional connection to the document, emphasizing the real and personal impact of the issues discussed.
10:30 - 11:30: Obligations Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child In the chapter titled 'Obligations Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child,' the discussion starts with acknowledgments to Andrew Godwin for his support and assistance in promoting a series of events. These events, which are scheduled from now until June, cover a wide range of interesting topics related to childhood. Attendees are encouraged to explore promotional materials and stay updated on upcoming topics.
11:30 - 14:30: Protection Rights and Family Violence The chapter opens with announcements and a welcoming note to the audience, emphasizing the importance of returning for the ongoing childhood series.
14:30 - 19:30: Issues Within Canada’s Child Protection System The chapter discusses the challenges and issues within Canada's Child Protection System. It begins with an introduction of Dr. Katherine Cavel, a psychology professor and executive director at Cape Breton University's Children's Rights Center. Dr. Cavel has been a strong advocate for children's rights throughout her career. Despite the UN's approval of the Convention on the Rights of the Child over two decades ago, many Canadians, including educators, remain unaware of these rights. The chapter likely explores the implications of this unawareness on the child protection system in Canada and suggests potential improvements or solutions.
19:30 - 23:00: Canada’s Juvenile Justice System Dr. Cavell has been advocating for awareness of a critical document related to children's rights in Canada. With her extensive research, writing, and presentations, she emphasizes the importance of educating children directly about their rights. Together with colleagues, she developed children's rights curricula for students in grades 6, 8, and 12, which were first piloted in Cape.
23:00 - 26:00: Provision Rights and Child Poverty The chapter discusses the efforts of Bretton schools and Brian, in collaboration with Hampshire education Authority in England, who developed a successful initiative focused on children's rights known as 'rights respect and responsibility', modeled after the Cape Breton initiative. Dr. Caval, an expert on children's rights, has represented the Canadian NGO community at the UN special session on children and reported on Canada's progress regarding children's rights, which she suggests was not very favorable.
26:00 - 27:00: Dental Care for Children in Low-Income Families The chapter titled 'Dental Care for Children in Low-Income Families' appears to focus on the advocacy and research efforts related to children's rights, particularly in the context of health care access and violence against children. The transcript introduces a key figure in this advocacy work, Dr. [Name], who has an extensive background in child rights research and holds significant positions in international councils and boards. Her work contributes to understanding and addressing the challenges faced by children in low-income families, especially around accessing basic health services such as dental care.
27:00 - 31:00: The Importance of School Meal Programs The chapter begins with an introduction by Cavell, highlighting the speaker's extensive experience, leading to a reflection on the demands of such roles. The content then shifts to a discussion about the Convention on the Rights of the Child, approved by the UN General Assembly in 1989. It notes the rapid signing and ratification of the convention by nearly all countries, including Canada. The importance of international commitments in advancing children's rights forms the backdrop for exploring the significance of school meal programs.
31:00 - 32:30: Evaluation of Canada’s Childcare Provision The chapter discusses the status of the ratification of a certain convention, which Canada ratified in 1991. Currently, there are three countries that have not ratified it: South Sudan, Somalia, and the United States. South Sudan is a new nation and has not yet addressed this convention, Somalia is in a prolonged state of chaos, and the United States has ideological reservations about UN conventions.
32:30 - 33:30: Participation Rights in Education The chapter 'Participation Rights in Education' highlights the societal perception and criticism often directed at advocates for children's rights, where they're derogatorily referred to as overly protective. Despite this, there is a global consensus, at least in principle, on treating children as independent holders of fundamental human rights, covering individuals from birth up to 18 years old. However, the chapter suggests that the practical implementation of these rights varies significantly from the theoretical agreement.
33:30 - 39:00: Case Study of Rights-Based Education in the UK The chapter discusses various child rights violations occurring globally, such as child soldiers, labor, and sex trade involvement, as well as the lack of basic necessities for children. However, it shifts focus to criticize Canada's performance in upholding its commitments to improve children's lives, particularly highlighting the disadvantaged state of Aboriginal children.
39:00 - 43:30: Impact of Rights-Based Approaches on Students and Teachers The chapter discusses the various challenges faced by Aboriginal communities, particularly in the context of developmental difficulties, inadequate healthcare, and education. It highlights the high rates of poverty and suicide among these populations, which are twice the national average. Furthermore, it is noted that nearly one-third of children in the child protection system come from Aboriginal communities. The discussion also touches upon Canada's failure to fully uphold its responsibilities towards these communities.
43:30 - 47:30: Q&A: Curriculum Development and Implementation The chapter titled 'Q&A: Curriculum Development and Implementation' discusses the obligations outlined in a convention related to children's lives. It briefly touches upon the gap between the promise of the convention and the reality of its implementation. The speaker emphasizes that the convention is not merely a wish list of ideals but includes legal obligations for those countries that have ratified it. This sets the stage for further exploration of curriculum development and implementation in relation to these legal frameworks.
47:30 - 48:30: Q&A: Comparing Global Poverty Measurements The chapter discusses the obligations of provincial and federal levels of government to implement a convention on global poverty measurements. Both levels are required to progressively implement the convention over time, rather than making sudden changes to their laws. The focus is on showing effort towards implementation.
48:30 - 51:00: Q&A: Advocacy and Making a Difference The chapter discusses the process of advocacy and how countries are held accountable for their commitments to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Every five years, countries are required to submit reports to a special UN committee, which then evaluates the progress and provides recommendations for change. This committee also issues a 'report card' that the country must respond to, informing the public about areas where they have fallen short and what improvements need to be made.
51:00 - 55:00: Q&A: Legal Obligations and Government Accountability The chapter titled 'Q&A: Legal Obligations and Government Accountability' addresses the criticisms faced by Canada from a committee regarding its obligations towards improving children's lives. The committee has pointed out several issues needing attention, specifically concerning Aboriginal children and street children. Despite these issues being repeatedly raised, Canada has allegedly shown inadequate response in addressing them.
55:00 - 59:00: Q&A: Implementation of Rights-Based Education The chapter discusses the substantive rights of the convention, particularly focusing on the categorization of these rights into three main areas: rights of provision, rights of protection, and rights of participation. It highlights these rights as forming a moral and global consensus on ideal educational practices related to implementing rights-based education.
59:00 - 62:30: Q&A: Parental Reactions to Rights-Based Education The chapter explains the main focus of protection rights in the context of children's healthy development. It emphasizes the prevention of physical and psychological harm, shielding children from harmful substances, and protecting them from all forms of violence, including verbal, physical, and sexual violence. Additionally, it mentions the responsibility of governments to provide rehabilitation services to children who have experienced harm.
62:30 - 63:30: Q&A: Early Childhood Education and Rights This chapter focuses on the provision rights in the context of early childhood education, emphasizing the importance of creating conditions that support healthy physical, social, and cognitive development for children. Key elements include nutritious food, safe housing, medical care, child care, and inclusive education. Additionally, the participation rights highlight the importance of allowing children to express themselves, marking a new development in international law regarding children's rights.
63:30 - 64:30: Q&A: International Interest in Rights-Based Curriculum The chapter discusses the international interest in a rights-based curriculum, focusing on children's rights to have a say in matters affecting them. It clarifies that the convention provides children with a voice, not a choice, in the families, legal proceedings, and educational settings. The example of Canada is considered in this context to examine how well it implements the three Ps of children's rights.
64:30 - 67:00: Q&A: Research Ethics and Children's Voices This chapter focuses on research ethics and children's voices, particularly in relation to the protection rights of children from violence. The discussion highlights the involvement of a researcher with the UN study on violence against children and ongoing efforts to implement the study's recommendations. Reports from various regions, including global and North American perspectives, as well as insights from children themselves, are considered.
67:00 - 68:00: Conclusion and Final Remarks The chapter discusses the prevalence of violence within family settings as a common issue affecting children globally. It highlights the significance of the UN Global study on violence against children, noting its uniqueness in incorporating children's voices. Special mention is made of the 'Seen, Heard, and Believed' report, which was developed with input from focus groups involving children throughout Canada, exemplifying the importance of listening to children in understanding and addressing violence.

The Importance of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child for Canadian Children Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 good evening everyone welcome my name is ardra Cole and I'm the associate vice president academic and research here at the mount and uh I'd like to uh take this opportunity to welcome you on this very cold winter evening uh thank you for uh leaving the warmth of your home space and uh and coming here to uh to to share this space with us um this is the
00:30 - 01:00 launch of this year's interdisciplinary series um and this year series is on the theme of childhood and we're we've entitled it not just kidding this is our second interdisciplinary series uh Following last year's really successful literacies as ways of knowing and at the mount we really like to try to create spaces and
01:00 - 01:30 opportunities for people to come together to think and learn about um areas of common interest and so um we embarked on this uh interdisciplinary series idea and uh we're just delighted with uh with its success and this year we chose the topic of childhood because um you know across our campus we have so many faculty
01:30 - 02:00 graduate student researchers and undergraduate student researchers who um are really interested in exploring childhood from a whole variety of perspectives so and given that it's um a topic of such social significance we decided that um this year that would be the the theme for our series I'd like to um thank the planning
02:00 - 02:30 committee for uh for the series um Adriana benzaken Beverly Deets Susan drain Christa monopar and cornelus Schneider um and I'd like to also thank the children of the child study center for their artwork which I was told they um very reluctantly let go of so um I think that kind of adds a a bit of reality uh to um to the uh
02:30 - 03:00 discussions also like to thank uh Andrew Godwin for his um support and assistance with uh with promotion of the series we have an exciting series planned with uh monthly events uh from now until June on a wide range of really interesting topics related to Childhood so I'll invite you to explore posters around um and stay tuned for
03:00 - 03:30 announcements uh it's great to see you here and I hope to see you keep coming back again and again um for more of the um the childhood Series without further Ado I'd like to invite uh Elizabeth Church to introduce tonight's special guest Elizabeth so this is our presenter's water I promise I have not drunk from this it's be right there so welcome
03:30 - 04:00 everyone it's I'm really delighted uh to uh introduce Dr Cavell Dr Katherine caval is a professor of psychology executive director and co-founder of the children's rights Center at Cape Breton University and throughout her career Dr Kell has been a passionate advocate for children's rights although the UN approved the convention on the rights of the child more than 20 years ago in 1989 many Canadians including teachers and educators are still unaware of of the rights of children that are enshrined in
04:00 - 04:30 that document and Dr Cavell has been working for many years to help Canadians and those beyond our borders become aware of this critical document through her writing through her research and her presentations and at the same time she has understood that we need to work directly with children and educate them about their rights along with colleagues she developed children's rights curricula for children in grade 6 grade 8 and grade 12 that was piloted in Cape
04:30 - 05:00 Bretton schools and she and her colleague Brian how have also worked with the Hampshire education Authority in England who developed the very successful rights respect and responsibility initiative based on the Cape Breton model DR caval is internationally recognized as an expert on children's rights she repres represented the Canadian NGO community at the UN special session on children held in New York in 2002 and reported on Canada's progress which I don't think was very good to the UN in on the rights
05:00 - 05:30 of the uh committee on the rights of the child in Geneva in 2003 she was the lead re North American researcher on the UN Global study on violence against children and she currently serves on the board of directors of the Canadian Coalition for the rights of children and represents North America on I have this is quite a mouthful here the UN NGO advisory Council to the Secretary General on violence against children so please join me and welcoming Dr
05:30 - 06:00 [Applause] Cavell thank you for the extensive uh introduction it always makes me realize why I feel so tired all the time when somebody mentions all these things so anyway um back in 1989 the convention on the rights of the child was unanimously approved by the UN General Assembly and it was very quickly signed and ratified by almost all countries of the world incl including Canada who
06:00 - 06:30 ratified the convention in 1991 the only states that haven't ratified it so far are three there's the new country of South Sudan which hasn't got around to it yet uh Somalia which has been in a state of absolute chaos for as long as I can remember and the US um the us there are many reasons why it hasn't ratified the convention not the least of which is it has a sort of ideological abhorrence of um anything to do with un the only time I've spoken
06:30 - 07:00 there I've been accused of being a nanny in a blue Beret who should butt out in mind my own business so in principle at least um much of the world has agreed that children should be seen as independent bearers of fundamental human rights and by children um under the convention we're talking all persons from birth to the age of 18 so in principle there's agreement on this in practice things I think are very different different um it's very easy to
07:00 - 07:30 see child rights violations in much of the world some of them are so obvious we still have child soldiers we still have child labor we still have children working in the sex trade and we still have many children who lack the basic necessities but if we look closely uh Canada's not done very well living up to its commitments to improve the lives of children either the most blatantly obvious uh the state of abor children Aboriginal children are over
07:30 - 08:00 represented in in many areas of Developmental difficulties and obstacles they have inadequate Health Care inadequate schooling their rates of poverty and their rates of suicide are twice the national average and an astonishing 30% almost onethird of all children who are in the child protection system are children from Aboriginal communities but it's not just Aboriginal children Canada has not lived up to its
08:00 - 08:30 convention obligations in many areas of children's lives and obviously I'm not going to give a comprehensive assessment of that here but what I'd like to do is give you a promise of a a flavor of the promise of the convention and the reality and and highlight the gap between the promise and the reality I want to just point out though before I get into specifics that the convention's not just um a wish list there are legal obligations that come with ratification
08:30 - 09:00 and those legal obligations apply to both provincial and um Federal levels of government so both are required to implement the convention in accord with their areas of responsibility the convention is to be um implemented progressively over time nobody's expecting any State's party to go out and suddenly change all their laws and and do everything perfectly but countries should be showing that they are making an effort to implement the
09:00 - 09:30 convention over time and to make sure that they are uh they are to send reports to this special un committee on the rights of the child uh that's uh every five years and that Committee in turn assesses the progress makes recommendations for Change and they actually issue back a report card um which the country is supposed to respond to It's supposed to let the population know where it's Fallen short what needs
09:30 - 10:00 to be changed and then it's supposed to actually Implement some changes to improve the lives of children the committee has repeatedly chastised Canada on a number of issues and repeatedly Canada have done a very very poor job in responding to the issues that have been raised by the committee it's uh not responded to the issues the committee has raised about Aboriginal children about Street children and in fact about many of the
10:00 - 10:30 issues in the three substantive areas of rights of the convention so what are these rights well the substantive rights of the convention are are very often categorized into the three PS there are rights of provision rights of protection and rights of participation together in in essence what the rights describe is is a moral less Global consensus on what the best
10:30 - 11:00 conditions are for children's healthy development so the protection rights focus on preventing physical and psychological harm protecting the children from harmful substances protecting children from all forms of violence whether that's verbal violence physical violence or sexual violence and also requires uh the governments provide Rehabilitation for children who have
11:00 - 11:30 been exposed to violence or being exposed to abuse the provision rights aim to provide the conditions for healthy physical social and cognitive development so they include um things like nutritious food safe housing Medical Care Child Care and education for all children the participation rights which are new in international law say children should be allowed to express an
11:30 - 12:00 opinion in matters that affect them that's not a choice some people get that confused the convention has no Provisions for self-determination but a voice not a choice but a voice and children should have a voice in their families in all legal proceedings affecting them and in their schools so I want to look at examples in um each area of the three PS and we'll see how Canada is doing
12:00 - 12:30 um excuse me starting with the protection rights are children protected from violence well as was mentioned I've been involved with u research for the UN study on violence against children and with efforts ever since to try to implement the study's recommendations and whether we look at the the global report the North American report or the the report about what the children say what what comes out
12:30 - 13:00 globally and commonly is that the most common source of violence in children's lives is in their family one of the really interesting things about the the UN Global study on violence against children was it included children it's to my knowledge the only un document that's actually included children and the seen heard and believed report um that's you can see up on the screen there was based with uh focus groups with children across Canada
13:00 - 13:30 and I want to just give you um an example of some of the children's comments on violence in the family and these are from children in Nova Scotia think you can you can see from these comments that children are acutely aware of Family Violence they're also acutely aware of its effects so these are local children telling us their
13:30 - 14:00 experiences as are these I thought that was a particularly compelling statement and the children are absolutely right the more they witness violence the more they themselves become violent and one of the key problems and one of the things that children were referring to was um that under Section 43 of Canada's criminal code there was a legal defense for hitting children and
14:00 - 14:30 this is one area where the UN committee on the rights of the child has chastised Canada repeatedly we actually have really strong legislation that prevents us from hitting each other as adults it also prevents us from hitting our pets and if you are convicted of hitting your dog or your cat or your bird you're going to lose it but we continue to allow for adults to hit children as pretty embar embarassing I think when we look
14:30 - 15:00 globally uh Canada is notably absent from the list of countries with a complete ban on corporal punishment uh couple of noteworthy things there one is South Sudan um one of the first moves the new government made when South Sudan became its own country was to have a complete ban on hitting children so that's a complete ban in all settings uh another noteworthy thing there is the number of states that have um brought in a ban a
15:00 - 15:30 full ban on corporal punishment till since 2006 which was when we released the global study on violence against children and this was one of the recommendations in the study um Sweden so far ahead of us it's quite astonishing but you can see all this countryes there and where are we we're not there part of the problem is that people still seem to think it's okay to spank children as a form of discipline
15:30 - 16:00 there's a lot of problems with that which I don't have time to go into but one thing we should be aware of is that spanking often gets out of hand and it escalates into abuse these data are sorry these data are from the uh Canadian incident study of abuse and neglect this is the most recent data and consistently what's been found in that is that around 75% of subst substantiated cases of abuse
16:00 - 16:30 occurred during what we might think of as ordinary everyday physical punishment but it's not it gets out of hand because it's not effective in changing children's behavior and not only does corporal punishment sometimes escalate to the point of physical abuse it also sometimes escalates to the point of child Mal treatment deaths again um if we look internationally if we compare our rate of documented child mouth treatment
16:30 - 17:00 deaths Canada doesn't look very good you know this is one of those times when one is happy that there are countries like Mexico and the us because then we don't look quite so bad as we might otherwise raising um children in in households where they're subjected to abuse and neglect um where they're subjected to violence can set children on a developmental pathway that uh is not a very positive one um sometimes it leads them into the child protection
17:00 - 17:30 system sometimes it leads them into the juvenile justice system and either way things are not good uh again I'm just going to give you a very brief overview because of uh this is a one shot talk so um let's start by looking at what happens when children go into the child protection system when they must be removed from their families of origin at any one time in Canada the
17:30 - 18:00 estimates are that there's somewhere between 80,000 and 85,000 children um who have a history of abuse and neglect in their family who are in the so-called child protection system or the Children's Aid System A system that is fraught with problems in every Province and every territory the key problems one is that removal from the family is very slow it often means the child has suffered
18:00 - 18:30 considerable developmental difficulties before being removed it certainly uh leads to the likelihood of the charge um evidencing emotional problems behavioral problems the convention says that when children have been exposed to abuse and neglect they should be provided a stable environment in which to recover we don't do that in Canada we move children
18:30 - 19:00 multiple times among different fostter families we tend to move them in and out of faster families back home to a different faster family back home to a different faster family and so forth the average number of placements for a child is seven some youth have reported up to 11 different placements in one year and that will often be with 11 different schools and so forth um the maximum number of placements I've seen with a child of
19:00 - 19:30 being 31 Far Cry from stability that the convention says they should have and that's the ones who are lucky enough to have fostter homes we have a tremendous shortage of faster homes across our country and what happens is a lot of children end up being placed in group homes or even hotels can bad it's not the Hilton as many people have noted including these children at Province
19:30 - 20:00 house children who are abused in their families are sometimes further abused by the system rather than protected by it the other thing as I mentioned that happens sometimes when children are raised in violent households or when they're abused or neglected in their early years is that they're somehow end up in the juvenile justice system and like children in the care system children in the justice system are often
20:00 - 20:30 further abused the abuse tends to start at the time of arrest there some headlines um over one issue and that's been the use of tasers by police forces some headlines from across the country over the last few years um the tasers were used on a a teen who was drunk and passed out in the back of a car hardly a threat tasers were used on high school kids to
20:30 - 21:00 break up a brawl and the boy who was killed by tasers was 17 years old and he was being arrested for breaking into a car the youngest child we know of today that's been tasered was an 11-year-old who was living in foster care so we know this is a child who has a history of abuse and neglect uh he was tasered by RCMP offices as he emerged from a home home where it was suspected he might
21:00 - 21:30 have stabbed somebody uh once kids are in detention uh things typically get worse there we go um we are now in the second inquest into the death of Ashley Smith I'm sure everyone in this room has heard of Ashley by now Ashley was 15 when she was initially given a 90-day jail sentence in New Brunswick um what she had done that earned her that 90 days in jail was
21:30 - 22:00 throw crab apples at a postal worker but she remained behind bars as she racked up multiple charges and additional sentences while she was incarcerated over an 11mon period She was transferred 17 times to different facilities where she spent the majority of her time physically restrained in isolation cells to control her behavior she was not only restrained uh she was sometimes tied down with duct tape she
22:00 - 22:30 was injected with anti-yo drugs and Reports say that she was unable to contain her feelings of Fury at being tasered gassed Shackled drugged and isolated I would think Fury is a very reasonable response to that kind of treatment it's treatment that is really antithetical to the convention at age 19 in 2007 Ashley strangled herself with a ligature around her neck while prison guards watched and
22:30 - 23:00 if you're listening to the news right now um the argument is that she was just trying to get attention well so what if she was she needed it um but she was playing a game with the guards they said so I wanted to show you this poem that Ashley wrote before her death I think that poem suggest she was planning to end her suffering I don't think she's playing games there
23:00 - 23:30 a kind of abusive treatment that led Ashley to kill herself is not rare in Canadian Youth detention facilities we uh for part of the UN study on violence against children we asked children who'd been in the system to describe their experiences and here are some comments and I just pulled out three but the same
23:30 - 24:00 kind of things were said again and again by kids who are in the system uh across the country in essence um there's very little evidence that Canada is living up to its commitment in terms of protecting children from violence or um any other of the child protection rights in general so um I was going to turn now to the second category of Rights I mentioned the rights of provision and
24:00 - 24:30 let's see how Canada does in terms of provision rights well take a look at the international graph on child poverty and the sad news is Canada which is not exactly a poor country stands 25th 24th of 35 oecd Nations and on the graph there which I think was
24:30 - 25:00 2009 I think the um poverty rate is 13 yeah 13.3% in Canada it actually the next year of 2010 which is the the last year for which I could find valid statistics um the 2010 child poverty rate in Canada was 14.5% overall the lowest was in Alberta at 11% the highest in PEI at
25:00 - 25:30 22.5 and Nova Scotia was above the national average at 16% it's a problem for children when poverty is early and when it's chronic and it it really does put the child at risk for a number of negative outcomes um children raised in poverty have less nutritious diets they have greater rates of obesity and they have greater rates of
25:30 - 26:00 injury and illness children who are raised in chronic poverty don't do as well at school they're less well prepared for school they're more likely to have some kind of learning difficulty more likely to perform poorly fail repeat grades and without appropriate interventions they're more likely to drop out early and so you feed into the intergenerational transmission of of poverty also interfering with their
26:00 - 26:30 educational success is a higher prevalence of behavior disorders and behavior problems it's really hard to sit still and focus in school if you're tired or hungry or anxious about what's going on at home I also wanted to mention um there's a very recent report from the Canadian Pediatric Society about dental care for children
26:30 - 27:00 um in many provinces children from low-income families as you can see that they receive free dental care until they're age 18 and in the territories uh there's widespread dental coverage for most children that's consistent with the convention in Nova Scotia provincial coverage ends at age 10 and what they found was that that means that a lot of children just end up in an emergency room uh with facial infections and with
27:00 - 27:30 abscesses that have been caused by inattention to preventive dental care or to cavities that the parents haven't had the money to get fixed I want to stress that these these poor outcomes um that children are at risk of when they're they're raised in families living in poverty nothing to do with um low-income parents being bad parents it's not the case at all what they are associated with are the incredible levels of stress that parents
27:30 - 28:00 experience when they're trying to raise a child without sufficient supports or sufficient resources under the convention governments are supposed to help families as much as they can to help with the rearing of their children so you have better um situation for the rearing of children but neither provincial nor Federal levels of governments are really pulling their weight so we have you know 60 20% of of families struggling and living in
28:00 - 28:30 stressful conditions Lots could be done to reduce the poor outcomes associated with poverty I mean the obvious are to um expand health and dental uh care that would make a big difference but I think two other areas that would make a huge difference which would be consistent with the convention obligations would be um first of all to provide School Meal programs have a national school meal program and also to have affordable and
28:30 - 29:00 accessible child care a lot of countries um do have free school lunches for children Andor breakfasts um Finland Sweden India which is not a rich country has free school lunches and even the US provides free school lunches for low-income children other countries um have uh pay as you can uh meal program uh and they usually set up in ways that children are not
29:00 - 29:30 stigmatized I wanted to give you a a sample from France France um children pay what they can or if they can't they get school lunch free but I think this is the most amazing model of uh school lunch here's a typical menu and this is this is for real I mean I I found many menus the only reason I picked this one not because it looked particularly appealing but because it was is a very clear one on the web and it was in English um but they actually
29:30 - 30:00 do provide children a five course lunch every day and they ensure that that is nutritious and they use this as a means of teaching children about healthy eating and not surprisingly uh we find that France has the lowest rate of child obesity in the world and my guess is they have the happiest school kids if they get stuff like this every day I don't know Canada has no National School bills
30:00 - 30:30 um no programs we we have sporadic ones we have um you know different organizations in cap Bron we have a number of areas where people are working hard to provide breakfast for kids but the convention would obligate a national meal program so that every child can get nutritious food we know if children have nutritious food at school they're healthier they miss less school they're better able to focus their achievement
30:30 - 31:00 is much better and so forth we're not doing very well on protection we're not doing very well on provision of uh basic resources we don't have the national meal programs how do we do with child care how do we measure up with the provision of accessible and affordable child care I think the best data here comes from UNICEF UNICEF um compared child care in developed Nations on 10
31:00 - 31:30 benchmarks so first of all let's see how Canada did compared with other countries that's how Canada did at 25 countries we we rank last in a tie with Ireland Sweden uh remember Sweden 1979 no more corporal punishment Sweden at the top of the list met all 10
31:30 - 32:00 benchmarks anybody want to Hazard a guess on how many benchmarks Canada met out of 10 how many would you guess none oh you're a real pessimist we actually made one so you're very close one out of 10 and you know what it was and if can you read that or is it too small yeah the only one the only one we um we got was that half of
32:00 - 32:30 our what is it half of the half of the staff are accredited whoopy half of the Child Care staff are accredited you notice there's some basic health measures on there as well that that is shameful I think um high quality Child Care is so important for children who are growing in disadvantage Ed circumstances in poverty it can
32:30 - 33:00 significantly improve their social emotional and cognitive growth their Readiness for school and it can increase the likelihood that they're going to do well in school and and we all know that educational achievement forms the basis for future health and future opportunity so we're not doing very well on provision rights we're not doing very well on protection rights let's turn to participation
33:00 - 33:30 rights and I thought for participation rights we just talk about schools remember um participation rights mean that children should have a voice they should have some opportunity for expressing their opinions and having particip you know having the opportunity to participate in matters that affect them so what happens um most of Canada schools are very authoritarian so we start out with our kids really wanting to learn really
33:30 - 34:00 wanting to go to school right they're all very excited they can't wait to learn how to read they can't wait to go to school they're so happy and shortly after they've started things kind of change they rather quickly become bored and disengaged it doesn't have to be that way okay as was mentioned in the the introduction with my colleague Brian Hower I've had the privilege of
34:00 - 34:30 monitoring the implementation and the effects of Rights consistent schooling over a 10-year period in England these schools have been restructured so that they're consistent with the convention on the rights of the child and part of that consistency includes the right to participate there are widespread opportunities for Meaningful participation in all aspects of school functioning and the participation is particularly uh useful and meaningful
34:30 - 35:00 for their children because they're explicitly taught about their rights okay so they have that framework for assessing situations for critical thinking for the formation of opinion and so forth I just give you a few examples um the kids participate in all uh policy procedures across the school but also at the beginning of each year
35:00 - 35:30 they they set up a charter for their classrooms these kids would be seven years old so the charter is developed in collaboration with the teacher the children and the teacher decide um based on their rights uh what kind of Rights and responsibilities will they agree to that they will use to make sure everybody has a good year so they developed this chart the um plates on this one or their faces
35:30 - 36:00 which were plates plate faces are um their their signatures basically that they have all agreed that this is how they're going to to run the the classroom they do this right away in September and then they refer to it both the children and the teachers refer to it through the year if there are any issues if somebody forgets what they're supposed to be doing um one of the things we saw in one of the classrooms we we were at was um a little boy was
36:00 - 36:30 getting rather frisky and uh interfering somewhat uh with another child and and she turned to him and she said excuse me you're interfering with my right to an education I think you need a time out and he said oh okay and he went and sat in the chair in the corner never seen anything like that before but it's it's because the kids are involved in in um designing what the classroom rules are if you like the rights for the classroom are they they adhere to them they like it they're comfortable with
36:30 - 37:00 it they participate um across the school in their learning activities a lot of the um learning is done cooperatively so you have Cooperative uh small group learning a lot of Project based learning again um usually in small groups they they have um a say in how they learn things so just I'll give you a brief example um there was one class we saw and on the learning outcomes for
37:00 - 37:30 that particular year was learning about world World War II you know that can be taught didactically and the children through rote learning can memorize dates and battles and so on and so forth but what this class uh was allowed to do because of the participation rights they were allowed to determine how they would like to learn about World War II and they decided what they would do was set up a museum so um having decided Ed on that and agreed on that as a class they then broke into groups based on interest so
37:30 - 38:00 some of the the children research design Drew up got hold of clothing um that was appropriate to the era um some um did model guns and tanks and built little battle scenes and so forth um others uh role played children who had been separated from their families and wrote very poignant letters and so on so they they did all this they filmed it they set up their Museum and they invited
38:00 - 38:30 somebody in from a local Museum to assess what they' done that was how they learned about the war I mean the excitement was palpable they were so into it so that kind of involvement in learning and always the rights perspective um I just love this example I can get the right one up um this was a a small child um they had just finished learning the story of Cinderella and they were discussing it and instead of the normal they were mean uh you know
38:30 - 39:00 you can see the very specific issues here infringed her right to protection from abuse and it infringed her right to play because Cinderella had a right to play so it gives you an example of of how the children are taking what they learn and they're generalizing it and they're using it as a basis for critical thinking the children are also represented on all School committees
39:00 - 39:30 um they were represented on expenditures on budget committees um they very often were asked you know if there was some leftover money what would you like and uh they they were check with their peers and if it was something that was doable they got it one school we were at the children and asked for a fish tank and the fish tank was proudly displayed in the hallway another school that asked for something some wonderful play structure was impossible and it was denied but there was explained to them why but my favorite was um the fact that
39:30 - 40:00 children were also represented on hiring committees and in one of the infant schools there um the infants by the way infant schools in England their children are four to seven years old so at one of the infant schools they were hiring a new what they call dinner lady dinner ladies which seems like a horribly Politically Incorrect term um were local people people who would come in and help serve hot lunches to the children and
40:00 - 40:30 they needed a new dinner lady so the children were represented on all committees so this little five-year-old was on the uh hiring committee and she was told she could have three questions to ask the candidates and she asked the following three questions she said do you like children are you a good cook and do you shout and I couldn't think of any better questions to ask a perspective dinner lady so they take it very seriously so the kids are involved
40:30 - 41:00 across the school they have a voice in everything they know about their rights their rights are being respected what is it doing for the teachers um the teachers initially were kind of scared about the amount of authority they'd be losing with the children having more participation um but here are some sample responses from the teachers uh things were not horrible the school climate was was improving the respect for everybody was
41:00 - 41:30 including um and the children were behaving in a much more pro-social manner in fact bullying uh is almost unheard of in those schools now um because of the the use of rights to settle the the disputes and because the children are so engaged in school because of the meaningful participation well actually um we have 10 years of science ific if you will data on um the effect of rights-based
41:30 - 42:00 schools on children and their teachers but I think the most compelling um the best example of the changes this had on children was a statement from a child in uh this particular School uh we we had done some interviews and we were doing some focus groups with the children and one of the questions we asked was if you could change one thing about your school what would you change so my favorite example is coming up um
42:00 - 42:30 but there was something very strange about this school it was a a rural school it was fairly small there were maybe 10 staff it at this point it had been two years since they had restructured the school to be rights based and during that two years there had been 13 yes 13 pregnancies among staff so we asked the question what would you change what is the one thing
42:30 - 43:00 you would change about your school here's our favorite answer gosh darn eternity [Laughter] leaves so hard to get better than that I think where Canada is Ser seriously committed to the implementation of children's rights we'd see more children who were this happy at
43:00 - 43:30 school uh we'd see more children who are protected from violence we'd see more children with their basic needs met and we'd see more children allowed to participate in a meaningful way in their everyday lives that's the promise of children's rights My Hope Is that the promise or the gap between the promise and the reality can gradually get closed as more and more people learn about the convention on the rights of the child and how the full implementation of its
43:30 - 44:00 protection provision and participation rights really can improve the life of every child because ultimately if we have knowledge we can change the world thank [Applause] you that lead further thank you things that are leading fur further about the uh Declaration of uh of the on the
44:00 - 44:30 rights of children or um you know things that are related to that so we would like to open up the floor to you and um you can ask her questions about your own concerns or things that came up during the talk anybody wants to start I'm just U I was curious you had mentioned that um you did a pilot you
44:30 - 45:00 did a pilot project with the curriculum in Cape Britton and I'm just wondering how that went and when you tried it out in Cape Britton what the results were um we started with uh a group of grade six classes in cap Breton um it went extremely well um trying to do a short answer here the um Department of Education for Nova SC OA was was very pleased with they independently assessed
45:00 - 45:30 um within Nova Scotia what happened was they asked us to then produce further curricula which we did the grade eight and the grade 12 um and ultimately the Department of Education took those um activities uh that were part of the the resources that were produced and they Incorporated them into K through6 Health and Social Studies curricula but um in a very watered down way
45:30 - 46:00 without really restructuring the way teaching was happening or anything was happening in the school but it it is officially a learning outcome in Nova Scotia for children at some point to learn about the convention um the other thing that happened with them was that we we published the findings in an academic Journal which was picked up by the times educational supplement in England and that's what led to the adoption of the approach approach in England so it it grew in the UK and it sadly shrunk in
46:00 - 46:30 Nova Scotia um my name is Fernando Nunes I'm a faculty member in child and Youth Study here at the mount and uh in one of my courses I deal with um the UN convention on the rights of of children and actually this question comes from my students and I tried to answer it and I hope I answered it in the right way and that's why I'm asking you uh oh um the they asked me when um a country uh when we see comparative analysis such
46:30 - 47:00 such as poverty um that includes countries like for example Mexico or India with Canada um are the poverty level the the um the limits that that determine uh what the poverty line are are not going to be the same for both sets of countries so how do we how can we compare ourselves to them um what is it UNICEF does they they look at 50 50% just call on my partner
47:00 - 47:30 here I think they compare the average 50% people above %% okay yeah yeah they I think they they do it with within the country by looking at the fifth the median I think income in the country and then who's below and who's above right more or less yeah yeah so it's not it's not an absolute figure it's relative to that country yeah is
47:30 - 48:00 that what you tell your kids good perfect so now that we learned this from you as individuals what are some things we can do to help you know spread the
48:00 - 48:30 word so to speak or do something about these issues let me throw it back at you what do you think you can do well my parents are I help my parents where they have five foster children so that something I can tell them about um but part of me feels um slightly helpless because that's as far as I know I can take it I I don't know how I think that um if everybody leaves
48:30 - 49:00 this room and takes the knowledge with them that they're that Canada has legal obligations to improve the lives of children and passes that on to one person you've seen the movie pay it forward you know if if each person here told three people and if you all go out and help one child or advocate for one area like there's some um really good work going on right now in Nova Scotia is a lot of us are advocating for changes to the child protection system
49:00 - 49:30 um you could write a letter to your MLA you can write a letter to your um local newspaper you can tell your friends you know kids should not be treated the way they're being treated in the the child protection system and it's wonderful to hear your mom's fostering and you're there just being um a mentor for children yourself you know you you could be that special person that puts a different balance on between risk and resilience for a child and you
49:30 - 50:00 respecting that child rights you know if each person in this room went out and respected the rights of one child it would make such a difference so don't feel you've got to change the world I just like playing with my right Superman I don't really expect anyone to change the world one kid at a time and I really appreciate what you said thank you thank you just to follow up from that last question um if Canada is not
50:00 - 50:30 following legal obligations is there not an opportunity for some organization to take the government to court there there's no sort of international court or International police with International conventions um most ofly what you do is you try to shame the government into fulfilling its International obligations cuz no country really wants to be yeah back uple about I think one of the reasons Canada doesn't tell people about
50:30 - 51:00 the convention and what their obligations are is it because it doesn't want to be shamed internationally it's embarrassing you know um so I I think what what we can do is make it known to our politicians that we are aware that they're not living up to their obligations and there are um just the other part of your question the Canadian Coalition on the rights of children does do a shadow report to the UN committee on the rights of the child um when I um gave the report some years ago you know
51:00 - 51:30 our job was to to bring to the attention of the committee from our perspective where the lacks were because what the government does it goes to the committee on the rights of the child with pages and pages and pages of statistics and it says we put this money in here we put that money there and when I was there the head of the committee said I don't care how much money you put in things show us what difference it made don't tell me how much money you gave Aboriginal reserves why are the children
51:30 - 52:00 still in the state you know so so you can have um you can work through coalitions you can work nationally you can work provincially to make sure that those reports get to the UN committee and then the UN committee can shame Canada Canada is actually supposed to publicize the reports that gets back from the committee on the rights of the child so I think one thing it would be interesting to do would be to write to to the government and say please may I have a copy of the report you probably hide
52:00 - 52:30 it I'm just wondering your thoughts about the difference between the uptake of the curriculum that you developed uh with the Nova Scotia Department of Ed and um the British system if if you could kind of develop your model about why it went such uh desparate ways I I think um part of it is
52:30 - 53:00 leadership um in what happened um was the the results were quite compelling from Novis scoa um and it just you know Serendipity the head of this particular School District in England read that and he told us he'd been he'd been looking for um a way of having some kind of a a moral if you like framework for the
53:00 - 53:30 schools to function within in the in his area of the UK because he was concerned about the fact that you know the religious schools were operating within a sort of an ethos of Christianity but there was no real ethos for the other schools and he read this and he thought this is it the the children's rights um so it was taken very seriously right the beginning and um there there's a system in England whereby uh the particular
53:30 - 54:00 School District or area can get obtain some money from the government to study new things so they initially got some go some governmental money and brought some groups of people over to CBU and they worked with Brian and I um and they went to the schools in cap Breton who were doing it and then based on what they saw they took it back and they got money from the British government to do a fiveyear implementation so they did that um in in
54:00 - 54:30 a very systematic way involving people and and the facts that the people who were initially involved were getting free tips to cap Braton went over very well so a lot of people were saying I want to go I want to do this I want to do this but it it it was done so systematically and very slowly and and we monitored it right and we got money from social sciences to to uh to research what was happening as they did this so so it's it's welld designed it's
54:30 - 55:00 designed uh comprehensively systematically for implementation overtime lots of supports and they're getting constant feedback from from researchers on on what's Happening which they found particularly reinforcing um that's the difference in terms of how it happened the difference in terms of the way it was is what we had in Kate Bren were individual classrooms what they have there are whole school approaches so the the
55:00 - 55:30 convention on the rights of the child becomes the operating framework for the school all the school policies and procedures and everything is convention based and rights becomes the common language the common discourse for all staff teaching and non-teaching staff and children so it it's a holistic approach which being put into place very slowly and systematically does that answer your question if not I can send you lots of material to read
55:30 - 56:00 Jamie so how did the parents react I suspect you said some that some of the parents may have been a bit disconcerted by this approach uh interesting question um we have two extremes I'll start with the worst um actually this is the only time I think we've ever had a parent complain and it was really quite quite distressing and this was in British Columbia we were working with a school in in Lower
56:00 - 56:30 Mainland of BC and things were going very well and we were asked to meet with the parents which we did and this one parent said um how dare you teach my child she has rights I'm a single mother my child is coming home demanding nutritious food and I said to her missy I'll give you nutritious food and she said you can't hit me anymore Mom I have a right to be protected from abuse you can't hit me anymore how dare you teach my child she
56:30 - 57:00 has to have nutritious food and I can't hit her it's a tough one to answer the Other Extreme um is from the UK um now let me give you one from Kate Bratton um one of the teachers who who his classroom was doing the rights um he he was laughing he phoned us and he said he had a a parent call him and he said I don't know what the heck you're doing with my kid but whatever you've started doing don't stop he's never been so
57:00 - 57:30 Cooperative um and we talked to the kid about that and it turned out that um he had decided the reason his parents were sending him to bed was because it was his right to grow up to be strong and healthy and so it was okay to get some sleep so we'd stop fighting bedtime um my favorite one comes from England uh where um actually the same school that everybody was pregnant except the guys um the the principal was telling us that
57:30 - 58:00 um he got a call from a parent saying you sent home this information telling us that you respected my child's rights and that that meant you would listen to my child and my son came home yesterday and he was really upset because um he got into trouble for something he didn't do and nobody listened to his side of the story and the principal said that you know he was absolutely right he apologized and he called the child in and he apologized to the child and in
58:00 - 58:30 fact the child hadn't done anything wrong um so everything was smoothed over but the parent had actually intervened to support the rights of the child we've had no complaints at all I mean uh it's you know it's not a Panacea it's not like you're going to go out there and tell kids they've got rights and all of a sudden they're all going to be wonderful and all the behavior disorders are going to go and that that's not reality but it it has um significantly
58:30 - 59:00 over the time we've measured it significantly improve their pro-social behavior decrease their antisocial behavior um it's improved their academic achievement their engagement and their respect for others and their promotion of the for the rights of other children and the the results have been so powerful in one area of Hampshire County where we were working the police police chief recommended rights education as a means for reducing vandalism because he
59:00 - 59:30 had seen such a difference in the kids and I've forgotten what you asked me did I answer it okay parents was it not police Chiefs I'm just wondering it seems like you've developed a wonderful program for school aged children have you considered developing curriculum for early childhood education so 3 to 5 year olds
59:30 - 60:00 we have a coloring book did I send you a color is it over there okay the coloring book which is on our website you can you can download and get it printed off um and there's a there's a teacher guide on on using it and um there was um a school in British Columbia I read about um they they had done a research article I didn't know anything about it until I tripped over the article but they had used the coloring book with their
60:00 - 60:30 kindergarten class and what I remember from that was the phrase that after the children had used the coloring book and learned about their rights it changed the um ethos of the classroom from me to we so please use it thank you thanks hi um I just wanted to find out
60:30 - 61:00 if you had had any um interest from any African countries in using a particip rights-based um schooling or education engagement yeah we've um we've had um quite a bit of international interest in the curricula um I can't recall offhand I stopped keeping track but because everything things online and um but we have given permission to a number of places to translate it um I think um
61:00 - 61:30 South Africa has done some working with with school children I can't remember wouldn't it be nice if Mary was doing that I can't remember but yeah yeah um having done having done a lot of research with children uh myself interviewing children and so forth so the what you said about giving
61:30 - 62:00 children voice um has a lot of meaning to me and I have seen the effect of you know doing interviews with children and actually asking them themselves about their experiences and what they think about certain things um the issue I have encountered with that and that this question might go a little bit towards um you know research ethics and research methods is that parents are not necessarily happy all the time to have their children interviewed and but ethically you need
62:00 - 62:30 you need this you need the signature of the parent to give the consent for the children the kid children can only give the ascent yeah in terms of um you know participating on a research project so um and I have had cases where the child wanted to participate but the parents said no so what have you encountered those those moments and how how would I mean it's it's there's no final answer to this of course you know but how would you negotiate those kinds of situations it it is really difficult I mean it's
62:30 - 63:00 particularly difficult if you're dealing with sensitive issues if you want to ask children their thoughts about corporate punishment for example and you have to ask the parent chances are the ones who are using it are not going to allow you to talk to the children um we we haven't had that directly as a problem because um thank God in England we haven't needed to go to the parents the the um administrators and principal um have been okay um to like their own Ethics
63:00 - 63:30 Committee have okayed everything without going through the parents the other thing I can think of with the um the the UN the kid report that I mentioned the seen heard and believed um we did focus groups with children which are less threatening to parents because your your child's you know the children are talking in groups but the other thing we did was we um we worked with another group of children a local group in Cape Braton to do a Content analysis on what
63:30 - 64:00 the other children had told us so that was a way of of bringing out what was most Salient to all the children without there being any individual that could possibly be identified but I mean the issues I I have in other research I um I've also had issues where I've come across a child who was being sexually abused and you were legally reir required to report it so it it's it can be terribly difficult you have to be really careful I sympathize with what you're trying to
64:00 - 64:30 do okay well um thank you so much maybe another round of applause for Dr [Applause] kovell thank you