World Children’s Day: New Child Rights Impact Assessments Tools

Did you know that Sunday 20^th November marks World Children’s Day? This celebrates the anniversary of when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

To mark World Children’s Day 2022, we’re very pleased to present our tools for carrying out Child Rights Impact Assessments, co-designed with Together.

Together are an alliance of Scottish children's charities that works to improve the awareness, understanding and implementation of the UNCRC.

Together teamed up with BIHR as part of the “co-design a human rights solution” programme which aims to support community groups and voluntary groups to find human rights “solutions” to problems or issues they face.

Together wanted to create a tool to upskill and empower members to conduct Child Rights Impact Assessments (CRIAs). A CRIA involves “examining existing and proposed policies, legislation and changes in administrative services to determine their impact on children and whether they effectively protect and implement the rights expressed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child”.  However, Together members said they do not feel like they fully understand what CRIAs are and who is responsible for completing them.

In order to address this issue, Together and BIHR came together to develop three clear and accessible tools to support members with Child Rights Impact Assessments. These include:

• A video guide to Child Rights Impact Assessments
• A written guide with tips for performing Child Rights Impact Assessments
• A mapping tool that shows the links between the UNCRC and the Human Rights Act

All these tools are now available on BIHR’s website.

Sarah McDermott at Together said, “We are delighted to have worked with BIHR to produce a resource that supports people to consider the impact of decisions on children’s human rights. It has been so valuable to be able to bring together our respective knowledge and expertise in children's rights, human rights and how we communicate about them to support children’s rights to be respected, protected and fulfilled.”

Carlyn Miller at BIHR said, “At BIHR, we’re all about empowering people use the law to make positive change – for themselves, for their community or for the people they support. We hope this tool, co-designed with Together, will help support people to use our Human Rights Act and its position in domestic law together with the rights in international treaties such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to ensure children’s rights in Scotland are respected, protected and fulfiled. Working with Together and their expertise in children’s rights and Scottish specific context has been invaluable in making sure our final tools are practical, purposeful and effective.”