What is the Alliance?

the Global Alliance for Children’s Rights and Health Equity (Alliance) was established in 2008 as a group of multidisciplinary child health and advocacy organizations committed to realising the rights, health and well-being of all children, from birth, through early years and the transition through early and late adolescence. The Alliance works with other national and international professional organizations, individuals and communities to advance this agenda.

It is a joint initiative of:

• The Society for Equity in Child Health (SECH)

• European Society for Social Pediatrics (ESSOP)

• AAP-RCPCH Equity Project (EqPro)

• Latin American
University of Social Sciences (FLACSO)

• Child Rights Education for Professionals (CRED-PRO)

• International Children’s Center

• University of Ottawa

Vision

Our vision is a world in which there is full respect for the human rights of every child and just allocation of the resources required to ensure their optimal health and well-being.

Mission

Our mission is to advance knowledge about child rights and health equity and promote the translation of these principles into child advocacy and health practices.

Goals

The overarching societal goals which the Alliance is working towards are:

• To establish the social, economic, cultural and legislative environments conducive to the optimal health, development and well-being of all children

• To ensure that the best interests of children are considered and promoted at all levels of society

• To ensure that children are listened to and taken seriously in accordance with the age and maturity

• To ensure the full rights of children as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are extended to all children

As an Alliance, our organisational objectives are to contribute towards those societal goals by working collaboratively through our interdisciplinary membership to:

• promote multi-disciplinary education and training in child rights for professionals interested in child health,

• support the implementation of  child rights based approaches into professional practice and programs,

• promote dialogue  and collaboration across the relevant professions, societies, NGOs and interested individuals to build awareness and commitment for advocacy,

• enhance understanding of the impact of social determinants on child health rights and the action necessary to challenge their detrimental impact and magnify their constructive impact, and

• promote awareness of children’s right to and capacities for active engagement  in decisions affecting their lives as individuals and as a constituency.

Key activities

The key activities which the Alliance will undertake in pursuit of our goals will be:

• To establish an electronic  platform for information sharing, dialogue and exchange between, in particular, health professionals , relevant empirical research communities, and the child rights community

• To maintain a central locus for all relevant news and information  – publications, research, conferences, debates on child health rights and equity

• To host discussion forums, conferences and webinars on issues of concern and interest relating to child rights and health

• To provide an open access training forum for health professionals

• To build partnerships at national level through which to develop and institutionalise child rights training for health professionals

• To identify, build capacity for and engage in potential areas of advocacy for child health rights

• To generate critical analysis of current research and thinking in respect of child health rights and equity

• To identify gaps in knowledge and highlight needs for further studies and research

• To provide a space for engagement with children and young people

Targets for 2010

• Raising funding to support a dedicated post to co-ordinate the work of the Alliance

• Creating an accessible and dynamic environment on the website  – user friendly and child friendly

• Identifying a set of priority areas of information and research key documents to include on the website

• Ensuring that the child health curriculum is made available on the website, expanded  with practice tools, source materials and case studies

• Managing 2/3 webinars on identified themes of current concern eg the social determinants of health and child rights

• Building a wider membership with representation from all regions of  the world

Expected outcomes

Through these activities we hope that the Alliance will eventually become:

• A recognised source of expertise and information in child rights and health equity

• The primary website providing up to date documentation on all relevant debates, research, events and analysis

• A membership organisation of  300 or more members from all regions of the world

• The lead source of child rights education materials for health  professionals

• A leading voice on child health advocacy issues

Management and governance

The overall management and governance of the Alliance is currently undertaken by a steering group comprising representation from

• SECH

• CRED-PRO

• ESSOP

• SAACRE

• AAP-RCPCH Equity project

• ICC

The steering group holds meetings by conference call on a fortnightly basis. Its remit is to:

• Establish goals and identify the action needed to achieve them

• Allocate tasks

• Monitor progress in completion of goals

• Develop policy

• Secure and allocate funding

Membership

Membership of the Alliance is based on the following:

• Organisations and individuals can become members of the Alliance

• The requirement for membership is that the person or organisation is committed to the implementation of the UN CRC and to the goals of the Alliance

• Members can enter material on to the website subject to the approval of the website moderator

Website (http://allianceforchildrensrights.org/)

The website, which is currently under construction, will be the hub for the Alliance, providing a locus for all debate and discussion, news, resources, training materials, background information of child rights and health.  It will be the primary locus for the education and training dimension of our work.

The aim is to achieve:

• Accessible design, with appeal to children and young people

• News links

• Regular updates

• Resources on key themes

• Pro-active responses to and discussion on current issues and concerns

• Spaces for dialogue and discussion

• Development of capacity for webinars and e-conferences

Advocacy

The Alliance has a clear commitment to advocacy to promote children’s right to health in the broadest possible sense. We need to identify some priorities as to where we want to focus that commitment. While some issues need to be responded to opportunistically, we also need to direct the agenda according to those issues where we feel there is greatest need, where there are no other organisations taking action, or where we have a unique expertise and experience. Some possible issues to consider might include:

• Lobbying the CRC to hold a Day of General  Discussion on the right to health in September 2010 or 2011

• Producing the analysis on social determinants of health that Jeff/Raul have developed into a published document, accessible to both health and other child rights advocates, and which can be used as a practical tool for advocacy

• Following the progress of the proposal in Chile to introduce a legal right of the child to healthy development disseminating information about the process, indicators used, methods of accountability etc

• Consideration of regular critical submissions to the CRC on government reports providing recommendations on how the right to health should be strengthened

• Promotion of thematic debates on the website

• Participating in forums, conferences, workshops etc wherever possible to raise awareness of the changes in attitudes needed to promote the right to health

• Collaborating on the development of more effective indicators against which to monitor the right to health in its broadest sense

• Collaboration with UNICEF on its child friendly cities programme to ensure a strong emphasis on the right to health

Child rights education for professionals (CRED-PRO)

CRED-PRO , a programme of the International Institute for Child Rights and Development, based in the University of Victoria, will take the lead in the development of child rights education for the Alliance. It will develop a system for ensuring that as curricula are developed in different countries and regions, these are available on the website. CRED-PRO will also invest resources into providing additional references, case studies, teaching tools and other resources to strengthen the quality of the curricula currently available. In addition, a future possible collaboration with the Open University  in East Africa will open up possibilities for development of education programmes for health, education and child protection workers, which can be promoted through the website.

Links with children and young people

Our goal is to involve young people in the work of the Alliance:

• Their perspectives on the issues facing them would enrich our understanding and subsequent work

• They have technical expertise which would help us utilise communications systems more effectively

• They would enable us to build better links and networks with a wider constituency of young people

• It would lend legitimacy to our claim to a commitment to the right of children to be heard and taken seriously

Eventually we will aim for:

• Representation of one or more youth organisations on the steering group

• Representation of young people on the editorial group for the website

• The establishment of a youth advisory group

• A wide membership of children’s and youth organisations as members of the Alliance, including those from all regions of the world

• A section of the website dedicated to children and young people

• Opportunities for open debate across the membership between youth and other members to stimulate cross generational dialogue