Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Children’s Rights – Youth Work Session Plan Idea

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Children's rights youth work sessionAfter an introductory session on Children’s Rights, you might like to try this case study and freeze frame session idea to explore Global Issues with your youth.

Many times youth have a hard time developing empathy for others; sympathy is easy, but empathy can be a challenge. By helping young people create personal links with global issues such as child trafficking, sexual exploitation and police brutality, they’ll be more likely to develop empathy with other youth experiencing those issues.

Sympathy causes us to feel sad and maybe make a small change, but developing empathy in our youth will help them sustain connections with these issues to effect long term change. By stepping into the shoes of these case studies through frozen pictures, youth have the chance to explore how they would feel if it were their story.

Creating Personal Links – Frozen Pictures

Timing – 10-15 minutes for preparation, up to 10 minutes per freeze frame group

Aim:

  • For group to begin to make personal links with the 42 articles

Objective:

  • For participants to read and discuss a case study, putting themselves in the other person’s situation and drawing conclusions that relate to their own lives

Resources Required:

Activity:

  • Split group into smaller groups or pairs (depending on group size)
  • Give each group a case study
  • Ask each group to create a freeze frame (a paused picture in the middle of a drama) and read out their case study
  • Other groups discuss the freeze frame and the personal impact of the children’s rights being discussed in the case study
  • Once all groups have gone, have the young people discuss a time when they did or did not experience the children’s right from each case study

Possible Questions:

  • When did you experience a time where your rights were / were not acknowledged?
  • How did these two experiences make you feel?
  • If you were friends with the person in your case study, what might you suggest to help with their situation?

Desired Outcomes:

  • A clear understanding of the personal impact children’s rights – or a lack of them – can have on young people
  • Developing empathy for others

Notes:

  • In the final case study, there are sensitive issues which may cause offense in more conservative cultures. Please use your best judgement when using this resource. The case study has two valid issues, one of sexual exploitation and one of police brutality, the latter of which may be more applicable and acceptable to discuss.

Question: How do you help your youth create personal links with global issues? Share your ideas in the comments below.

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Children’s Rights – Youth Work Session Plan Idea

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Children's rights UNCRCAs you might have begun to learn from these posts on youth participation, Children’s Rights is an area I’m extremely passionate about when it comes to youth development and programming.

Here’s a brief history on Children’s Rights:

In 1919, Eglantyne Jebb set up the charity Save the Children. This led to children’s rights receiving a public forum and provided political pressure to see children’s rights become a reality.

In 1923, the League of Nations (now the United Nations) adopted Jebb’s ‘Declaration of the Rights of the Child.’ This declaration was the inspiration for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Information provided by Save the Children Website 2008.

 

“In 1959 the UN General Assembly adopted the second Declaration of the Rights of the Child.  The Convention on the Rights of the Child was drafted over the course of 10 years between 1979 and 1989. Representatives from all societies, religions and cultures contributed, and a working group was given the task of drafting the convention. On 20th November 1989, the governments represented at the General Assembly (which included the UK) agreed to adopt the convention into international law. It came into force in September 1990.”

HM Government 2006

 

Today, the convention contains 54 articles and two option protocols. The first 42 articles are specific and active rights for children, while 43 -54 are guidance for governments to ensure all children get their rights.

Only two governments have not ratified the convention: Somalia (due to lack of an official government) and the United States. (n.b. The US did ratify the two option protocols against child soldiers and child trafficking). For more information please visit the UNICEF Website or see this leaflet.

Help your youth learn more about children’s rights by using this youth work session plan idea:

Timing – 30 minutes to 1 hour

Aim

  • For participants to be introduced to the 42 articles of the UNCRC

Objective

  • For participants to rate the nine most important rights for children and young people in the world today, based on the 42 articles. This can be done using the diamond diagram shown below. (n.b. 1 is the most important, 9 is the least important)

Resources Required

  • 42 articles on cards (in English or Native Language depending on setting), cut up and placed in sealed envelopes (if available)
  • Envelopes (Optional)
  • Flipchart (Optional)

Children’s Rights Activity

  • Split the group into six small groups (pairs or more per group depending on overall group size)
  • Give each group an envelope containing a set of cards with the UNCRC’s 42 articles
  • Each group is to choose nine articles that they feel are the most important for children
  • Then pair up each of the groups, so that there are now three groups and a total of (up to) eighteen articles per group. Have the groups choose the most important nine
  • Each group must place their articles in order from most to least important, using the following diamond pattern

1

 

2                              3

 

4                              5                              6

 

    7                              8

 

9

  • Compare and contrast each group’s diamonds
    • Are there similarities?
    • What are the differences?
    • Call on different group members to explain the rationale/ justification for choices
    • If there is time, have the groups as a whole choose a final top 9 from their 3 diamonds and place them in diamond order

Possible Questions

  • What did you enjoy about that activity?
  • What issues or problems did your group identify or experience while trying to choose nine articles?
  • Which articles were important to you personally?
  • Which articles do you feel might not be appropriate for your country or culture?
  • Which articles do you feel are important to your country or culture which are not currently supported or implemented by your government or within your community?

Desired Outcomes

  • Participants become familiar with children’s rights and the 42 articles
  • Participants analyze and critique the 42 articles and begin to make links with the personal, local, national and global aspects of the rights

Notes

  • This activity was learned at a Participation Workers Training held by Youth Force ‘Essentials of Working with Young People’.
Question: Do you think youth participation and children’s rights are important for your youth work? Why or why not? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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Central To Our Youth Work Should Be YOUTH

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Youth Participation
Don’t have youth just sit there while you make all the decisions

Adults generally (and yes, I am making a generalization here) tend to fall into one of two camps when it comes to dealing with youth.

Those that feel that youth don’t really know what’s best for them yet because they are still young and those that feel that when a youth hits 12 or 13 and those hormones kick in, they’re best left to their own devices to figure things out and make their mistakes “because that’s what teenagers do”.

One view negates the responsibility of young people to learn, make informed decisions and follow the road, no matter where the consequences (negative or positive) may take them.

The other view abdicates the responsibility of adults in the lives of youth (parents, teachers, youth workers, youth ministers, etc). The responsibility to teach, give information and provide a safe environment for making informed decisions and supporting young people along the road with the consequences (negative or positive) that they may find themselves in.

Neither serves young people to their best advantage or helps them reach their truly highest potential.

I’ll be honest with you. Five years ago, I fell heavily into one of those two camps. Anyone who knows the maniacal control freak perfectionist (I prefer ‘high achiever’ these days) that resides within me and may occasionally surface, knows that it was not the latter.

At some point I was conditioned to believe that young people didn’t know what was best for them and that adults are excellent decision makers. As an adult, I now know that to be less true than ever! Young people have the lion’s share of enthusiasm and great ideas – all they need are supportive adults to help them channel their passion in ways that help them achieve their goals.

But there is a third camp emerging within youth work practice. A group of youth workers that aren’t afraid to release some of the control over the young people in their programs. A way of working with youth that creates engaged, informed, compassionate and fair young people.

Youth Participation is becoming a buzz word among youth work practitioners. Basically, it’s based on Article 12 of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which says that young people have the right to be heard by decision makers.

Anyone who has ever had a relationship, boss, friend or barista will know that there’s a big difference between being heard and being listened to. The key is making sure that when you’re giving young people a chance to have their say that it isn’t tokenistic.

Roger Hart created a Ladder of Participation when working with young people.  The bottom three rungs are considered ‘non-participation’ and at the top of that non-participation list is ‘tokenism’. You might be engaging in tokenism in your youth work if you have one or two young people who are your ‘go to kids’ for all decisions that are made in your organization.

Or maybe you’re just using youth for ‘decoration’ on the stage during your church’s “Youth Service”, in which the young people have no say over the music, the sermon, the dress code, etc.

It takes time to unteach social norms. It takes time for adults to stop dismissing young people simply because they’re young. Youth Participation is becoming more important to all forms of youth work and youth ministry in order to fully meet the real needs, not just the perceived needs by adults around them, of young people today.

Question: Where are you and your organization on Hart’s Ladder of Participation? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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