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Minister for Children, Young People and the Promise: Happy World Children’s Day
November 20, 2024 by Children's Rights Team 2 Comments | Category Children & young people, Our work
Dear Children and Young People of Scotland,
Natalie Don-Innes MSP
I am writing to you on World Children’s Day to tell you about our work this year to help make Scotland the best place for children to grow up. I also want to thank you, the children and young people of Scotland, for the important contributions that you make to our work.
World Children’s Day celebrates the adoption of a document called the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The UNCRC is an important agreement between lots of countries who have made a promise to protect children’s rights. This year, the theme of World Children’s Day is “Listen to the future. Stand up for children’s rights”.
This year has been a very important year for children’s rights in Scotland. On 16 July 2024, we introduced a new law in Scotland – the UNCRC Act. This new law gives you – children in Scotland – protections for your rights that are not available in other parts of the UK.
The Scottish Government and public authorities do a lot of work that directly affects children’s daily lives. For example, this includes work connected to schools, health services, libraries and youth clubs. This Act will help to make sure that your rights are protected in these important areas. The Act also lets you, and the adults who support you, ask the courts to help if your rights are not respected.
Now that the UNCRC Act is in place, it is more important than ever that you know about and understand your rights, and we will help you with this. For example, we gave money to UNICEF UK to help more schools in Scotland to take part in their Rights Respecting Schools Award programme. This programme helps children and teachers to understand children’s rights. We are also helping the people who work in public authorities to understand how they can respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights.
Today we published a new report. This report gives you more information about what the Scottish Government has been doing to help make sure that children and young people in Scotland can understand and experience your rights. We also published a child-friendly version of this report.
The Scottish Government wants to continue to put your rights at the heart of everything that it does. This includes our policies that affect children’s daily lives, including their health and education. It also includes our other work to help children’s families and communities. In March 2024, we published a report to explain how our plans and policies are supporting children’s rights. A child-friendly version of the report was also published. The report explains how we are:
- Using special tools called ‘Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessments’. These tools help us think about children’s rights when making new laws or important decisions that might affect children.
- Supporting the physical and mental health and nutrition of all children and young people.
- Working to Keep the Promise to children and young people with experience of care. The promise is that Scotland’s children and young people will grow up loved, safe and respected.
- Working to help improve relationships and behaviour in schools. We want children and young people to feel safe and supported when they are learning.
- Ensuring that young people who commit crimes are placed in care-based, supportive environments rather than a Young Offenders Institution.
The Scottish Government’s most important priority is ending child poverty. Last year we spent almost £2.9 billion to help us achieve this. This includes giving more money to families through our Scottish Child Payment. It also includes help with the cost of the school day by offering free school meals and support to buy school clothing. Our spending will also help make sure that families get the right support, in the right way and at the right time.
Our work to respect, protect and support children’s rights relies on your help, ideas and enthusiasm. Through your annual meetings with the Scottish Cabinet and Executive Team, as well as your participation on a whole range of Scottish Government groups, you continue to provide important advice about what really matters to Scotland’s children and young people and to help us to ‘Listen to the Future and Stand up for Children’s Rights’.
Happy World Children’s Day!
Natalie Don-Innes MSP
Minister for Children, Young People and the Promise
Tags: children and young people, children's rights, guest blog
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Dear Natalie, would it be possible for The Scottish Government to commission research for children and young people with autism/ ADHD who aren’t receiving a quality education in mainstream schools. It’s clear that no one knows the actual numbers due to their not being national data collection on this. Many parents and carers would like to see smaller schools that’s are specifically designed for Autistic children who aren’t coping in mainstream. There’s no viable alternative when mainstream fails and many are left behind. Thankyou
Thank you for your comment Joanne, sharing details on how you can contact the minister should you wish to do so: https://www.gov.scot/about/contact-information/contact-a-cabinet-secretary-or-minister/#:~:text=You%20can%20contact%20a%20cabinet%20secretary%20or%20minister,St.%20Andrew%27s%20House%20Regent%20Road%20Edinburgh%20EH1%203DG