Childrens Rights (UNCRC)

On Tuesday 16^th of January 2024, Royal assent was granted for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) Bill meaning it is now officially an Act. Most of its provisions will come into force on Tuesday 16^th July 2024.

Every service within the NHS has a responsibility to uphold children’s rights, including services that don’t normally work directly with babies, children and young people and other services within NHS Boards.

Below are some useful resources which include the UNCRC eLearning module, presentations from recent UNCRC webinars and awareness sessions, along with the UNCRC newsletter.

Taking a Children’s Rights Approach to Your Work

Thursday 14th March 2024 - Webinar Hosted

In the 90-minute webinar, Children in Scotland joined to discuss the important role we all have in upholding children’s rights and how to embed a children’s rights approach in your work. We know there is already lots of good practice across the organisation, we will explore some of these examples and how we can link our work with those rights to create positive outcomes for babies, children, and young people. 

The webinar aimed to:

• Describe the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
• Identify what a children’s right approach is and help to apply the approach to your work.
• Examine the implications of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 for your area of work.

How the voice of babies, children and young people can enhance our work

Wednesday 27^th March 2024 - Webinar Hosted

In this 90-minute webinar, we were joined by the Scottish Youth Parliament, Starcatchers, and Early Years Scotland. Together to explore the importance of the voices of babies, children, and young people in the implementation of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 and how we can be effectively informed by those views.  

This webinar included:

• The voice of the baby 
• The importance of children and young people’s voices in realising their rights 
• How we can effectively and efficiently be informed by the views of babies, children, and young people to improve our services within NHS Scotland.

With the new UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024, babies, children, and young people (and their advocates) under 18 have a new ability to use the courts to enforce their rights. Therefore, as employees within a public body, we must understand those rights, particularly in the context of our own work. 

During the session, the following topics were covered:

• What the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is.
• What the Act means for you.
• How to look at your work through a child rights lens.

Who is this session for?

• This session is for everyone. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that the rights of babies, children, and young people under the age of 18 are protected, not just those working directly in children's services but across NHS Scotland.