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Seminar on children’s rights and service design held in Belfast, Northern Ireland
The Una Children's Rights Learning Group, in conjunction with the Improving Children's Lives initiative, hosted an extremely successful one-day seminar at Queen's University Belfast on 12 March 2010. With over 100 participants, the seminar provided an important opportunity for members of the Una Learning Group to learn from and share their experiences with local early childhood experts in Northern Ireland. The focus of the event was on how a children's rights framework can be applied to the design, delivery and evaluation of early childhood programs seeking to promote ethnic diversity. More details on the seminar are provided below. Videos of all the presentations will be made available to view online from this website shortly.
SEMINAR SCHEDULE
9:30 - 10:00. Welcome and Overview
- Professor Beth Blue Swadener, Arizona State University, USA and Mrs. Mercy Musomi, Girl Child Network, Kenya, Co-Chairs, Learning Group, "Welcome"
- Professor Paul Connolly, Co-Director, Una, Queens University Belfast, "Overview of Una"
- Professor Beth Blue Swadener and Mrs. Mercy Musomi, "The Children's Rights Learning Group"
10:00 - 11:00. Opening Panel: "Children's -Rights Based Programme Development
- Ms Julie Healy, Barnardo's, Professor Laura Lundy and Ms Lesley McEvoy (QUB), "The Example of Barnardo's 'Ready to Learn' initiative"
11:00 - 11:15. Tea Break
11:15 - 12:00. Panel: Children's Rights in Program Planning and Evaluation
- Dr Kylie Smith, University of Melbourne, "Planning and evaluating children's Services in Local Government"
- Ms Roisin McCooey, Playboard NI, "Playquest: Children's Participation in Developing Play Services"
- Discussant: to be confirmed
12:00 - 13:00. Panel: Rights of Ethnic Minority Children
- Mr Chris McAfee, Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, "Minority Ethnic Young People and Their Experiences of Disadvantage, Discrimination and Racism in Education and Social Service Delivery in Northern Ireland"
- Ms Collette Murray, Pavee Centre, Dublin, title to be confirmed
- Discussant: Dr Janette Habashi, University of Oklahoma-Tulsa, USA
13:00 - 14:00. Lunch (served on site)
14:00 - 14:45. Panel: Children's Rights in Research and Programme Planning in African Contexts
- Professor Nkidi Phatudi, University of Pretoria, South Africa, "Using a rights based approach in early childhood project in South African Townships"
- Mrs Mercy Musomi, Executive Director, the Girl Child Network
- Discussant: Dr Bekisizwe S. Ndimande, University of Illinois, USA
14:45 - 15:30. Being Accountable to Children in Planning and Evaluation
- Dr Ciara Davey, National Children's Bureau, "The involvement of children as inspectors and evaluators on the Youth 4U-Young Inspectors Project"
- Dr Natasha Blanchet, "Implications of an Accountability Model to Children in Canada"
- Discussant: to be confirmed
15:30 - 16:00. Closing discussion: Issues and Challenges of Applying a Children's Rights Based Approach to the Development of Early Childhood Ethnic Diversity Programmes"
- Facilitators: Professor Beth Blue Swadener and Mrs Mercy Musomi