Rights Right Now! reports launched

Date: 9th June 2022
Category: Incorporation

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Originally known as the Interim Children and Young People’s Consortium, Rights Right Now! was a pilot project with children and young people that Together led. The project aimed to support meaningful and inclusive participation of children as Scotland moves to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Rights Right Now! worked to influence Scottish Government’s UNCRC Implementation Programme and the work of the Strategic Implementation Board. Both the child-friendly and adult versions of the report pull together learning and recommendations developed during the pilot which will help shape the future Children and Young People’s Consortium. The latter structure will be set up following a Scottish Government tendering process.

Taking on board these recommendations will help strengthen the Strategic Implementation’s Board’s capacity to involve children and young people with a broad range of experiences and backgrounds. It will also build on promising practices that can be adopted by the ultimate Children and Young People’s Consortium.

Some of the recommendations include:

• Setting out a partnership agreement across all stakeholders involved. This will identify the commitments, role, responsibilities and expectations from all groups involved.
• Build capacity to produce child-friendly communications including written information, videos etc. 
• Develop opportunities for both in-person and online meetings to be held to build relationships between children, young people and adults.
• Evaluate and review the age limit of the Consortium whilst recognising that the UNCRC defines a child as being up to the age of 18 years old and the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland has powers to promote and protect the rights of Care Experienced young people up to the age of 21 years-old.

There are many more recommendations to read in the adult version of the report here.

Accompanying this report is a child-friendly version here.

A huge thank you to the children, young people and adults supporting them from Aberlour, Carers Trust Scotland, Children in Scotland, Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities (SCLD), Scottish Youth Parliament (SYP) and Who Cares? Scotland. In addition, thank you to the 17 Together members who acted as Associates, alongside Professor Laura Lundy from Queen’s University Belfast and the Observatory for Children’s Human Rights in Scotland.