Dr Rhian Croke 

In 2022, Helen Dale and myself (both from the Observatory on Human Rights of Children) had the privilege of supporting a Committee of Experts (the ‘Committee’) made up of children (aged under 18 years) to evaluate the Cardiff Child Friendly City programme. To do this we designed a ‘UNCRC Style’ reporting process to empower children to carry out an examination in a similar fashion to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Committee came together to review the work of Cardiff City Council (Cardiff Council) and the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board (Health Board) to identify issues of concern and develop key recommendations for improvement. The child experts on the Committee were drawn from a range of different backgrounds, and forums representing children and young people from across Cardiff. The process was designed to create an opportunity for a constructive dialogue between children and senior decision-makers, empowering children with the skills and knowledge to hold public authorities to account. 

The process of examination described below embraced the principles of Children’s Rights Approach developed by the Observatory on Human Rights of Children, for the Children’s Commissioner for Wales. 

Empowering children to evaluate a public authority’s programme of work  

We first supported the child experts to understand the goals and objectives that had been set out in the Child Friendly Cardiff programme, to understand more about children’s rights and how to evaluate each area of work within the Child Friendly Cardiff programme. This involved participatory activities on children’s rights and a Children’s Rights Approach.  We supported the children to understand each area of work undertaken as part of the Child Friendly Cardiff Programme, to consider what had been done and to report on what their issues or concerns were and/or what they felt was missing and required future action.  

We collated all the thoughts and opinions from the child experts into a draft report and then from all of this evidence, we supported the children to come up with a list of questions for the key decision-makers at Cardiff Council and the Health Board.  

Empowering the children to examine senior decision-makers 

We next supported the child experts by helping them to develop the skills to participate in a formal examination, empowering them to hold senior decision-makers to account. 

This formal examination happened at the County Hall in Cardiff. The children were totally inspiring! Senior decision-makers, elected and officials attended the examination, representing education, health, social care and the corporate team, including the Chief Executive of Cardiff Council, the Chair of the Health Board, and the Lead Council Member for Children. This certainly communicated very clearly the importance that Cardiff Council and the Health Board was placing on children and their rights (consistent with the Children’s Rights Approach principle of Embedding children’s rights).  

The children congratulated the senior decision-makers where they felt progress had been made, presented on issues of concern to them, and invited answers to their list of questions. This encouraged a constructive dialogue, with the children able to hear senior decision-makers speaking openly and frankly about the barriers and challenges to successful implementation of children’s rights, and giving their agreement to future actions.  

We could tell the senior decision-makers were surprised by the children’s powerful evidence and expert questioning, and at points during the examination they were visibly moved by some of children’s personal testimony to their own lived experience.

Empowering the children to document the evidence 

The examination was recorded, which gave opportunity for us to capture the invaluable testimony of both the children and the responses and contributions from senior decision-makers. Much of this has been captured in the report that the children prepared with support from ourselves. The report includes what the children thought had been done well by the City, their issues and concerns, their key questions for senior decision-makers and the key points of discussion coming from the formal examination. We also had a further meeting with the children to agree on the key recommendations arising from this entire process for the senior decision-makers (also included in the report).    

Senior decision-maker’s accountability to children  

The recommendations were shared with the Cardiff Child Friendly Team, who led on the Cardiff Child Friendly City programme. The team took steps to ensure that they were all included in the Sustainability Plan for driving forward a Child Friendly City and a Children’s Rights Approach. Cardiff was awarded Child Friendly City status in September 2023, the first city in the UK to achieve the award.  

But it is worth reflecting on a point made clear during the City’s celebrations (i) by both senior decision-makers and one of the child experts, Arthur:  

‘This isn’t the end; it’s the beginning, the beginning of our next phase to ensure all children can access their rights’.  (i)

Final reflections  

The process described above demonstrates all the principles of a Children’s Rights Approach. It gave the opportunity for a constructive dialogue between children and senior decision-makers, sending a strong signal about how seriously the authorities involved take children’s rights (Embedding). Empowering children with the skills and knowledge to hold the public authority to account. It also created an opportunity for children from different backgrounds to have their views heard and taken into account, embracing the principles of equality and discrimination, as well the principle of participation.  

Through the process of the formal public examination senior decision-makers demonstrated accountability to children, providing open and transparent answers to a full range of questions on how successful they have been in implementing children’s rights. The evidence from senior decision-makers and the recommendations from the children, included in the report (authored by the children), is a powerful document which can now be used to continually assess whether senior decision-makers are meeting their commitment to children and their rights.  

We hope that the process of having child experts examine Cardiff Council and the Health Board on how they implement children’s rights, and carrying out the examination through the prism of a Children’s Rights Approach will become part of the ongoing work of these authorities to deliver on children’s rights – so that children’s rights are firmly in all their activities.  

The Cardiff Committee of Experts report is available on the Youth Council website. 

Endnote

(i) Image and quote on X – https://x.com/DrRhianCroke/status/1718943887736045960