Child rights in the context of training of health professionals

 Nearly every country in the world has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In so doing they have committed to ensuring that those rights are respected for every child. If children’s rights are to be realised, it is necessary for the adults, with whom they have contact, to understand and respect those rights. For example, teachers, social workers, doctors, nurses, community and public health professionals, psychologists, lawyers, judges, police, residential staff, and early years workers all play a role in children’s lives. It is important that they are provided with training that equips them with the knowledge and capacities to fulfil their responsibilities towards children’s rights in their work, especially in their individual professional practice, in the design and delivery of services they provide, and as advocates for the promotion and protection of children’s rights in legislation, policy and resource allocation.

 For this purpose, International Children’s Center (ICC) and Child Rights Education for Professionals (CRED-PRO) have formed a partnership in order to undertake a process of development, adaptation, implementation and monitoring of the child rights and health curriculum for the South East Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States (SEE/CIS) region. The Curriculum is designed to provide paediatricians and other allied health professionals with an understanding of how to respect and promote children’s rights in their practice. The aim is to develop a curriculum which can ultimately be fully incorporated into the basic training of all health professionals in the region.        

 ICC and CRED-PRO have worked with their partners in respective countries in the region to bring this curriculum relevant for the country or regional social, cultural and economic context for the SEE/CIS region and designed a course for health professionals in the region in December 2008.