Canadian Child Care Federation

Canadian Child Care Federation Conference 2005

Plan-It Quality: Environments in Early Learning and Child Care
Linking the Research, Policy and Practice

Speech by the Honourable Landon Pearson,
Advisor on Children's Rights to the Minister of Foreign Affairs
June 4, 2005, in Regina, Saskatchewan

Good afternoon to you all. Thank you for the invitation to speak at the closing session of this conference. I regret that I was not able to attend more of it as the program appears to have been both rich and instructive. However for the past two days I have been engaged in the North American (Canada-USA) Regional Consultation for the United Nations (UN) Secretary Generals Study on Violence Against Children. Representatives from both Canada and the United States, including thirty young people aged 12 to 17, came together on the campus of the University of Toronto to clarify issues related to violence against children in the home, in the school and in the community, to identify gaps in knowledge and research, to share learnings and promising practices and to make recommendations that the independent expert, Dr. Paulo Pinheiro, who was with us, will be able to incorporate into his final report when he submits it to the Secretary General of the United Nations in the fall of 2006.

Among my other activities at the consultation, I facilitated a roundtable, that included senior US officials, on the overlapping (and sometimes conflicting) responsibilities of different levels of government within a federal state to guarantee child protection. This may seem an unusual theme for a consultation on violence against children but 40% of the worlds population lives in federal states and it is always a challenge to prevent vulnerable children from falling between jurisdictional cracks. To our surprise, given the topic, we were joined by five young people who had a good deal to say. A girl from New York talked about the confusion generated by the No Child Left Behind Act, an Act of the US Congress, full of good intentions, that was constructed without consulting the students who would be affected by it. Another girl, this one from Waterloo (Ontario) talked about the problems of children in the child welfare system who may be transferred across provincial borders with no opportunity to be heard. The best of intentions are often defeated by the failure to take into account the rights of the children who are supposed to benefit from them.
So what I would like to talk about this afternoon is how essential it is to look at the rights of children, as clearly defined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), when planning quality environments for early learning and child care.

Let me begin by talking about the nature of children's rights and the cross-cutting principles of the Convention and then I will discuss what a rights-based approach would require in planning quality early learning environments for very young children that truly respect their rights and development. Some of you who were present at the child care conference in Winnipeg last November will already have heard some of what I am going to say but even though I have been involved with the CRC for three decades, I still discover new things in it when I reread it as I did on the plane coming here. So I don't think I need to apologize to for repeating myself.

The rights of children like all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated. This means that there can be no hierarchy of rights as there can be of needs. No one right can trump another. A child's right to education, for example, cannot trump the same child's right to a family or to cultural identity or to protection. And a child's right to safety cannot trump the right to play or to free expression. This means that programs and policies for early learning and child care must be holistic, comprehensive, and developmentally appropriate taking into account that, according to article 29 of the CRC, the aims of education include both the development of the child's personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential, as well as the preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin. Add to that the development of respect for the natural environment and you begin to get a sense of the challenge that a rights-based approach presents for anyone who is designing an environment that both nurtures and educates children. But it is a challenge that we have to accept because my long experience has taught me that ignoring children's rights will have very serious consequences. I only need mention the lamentable history of the residential school policy for Aboriginal children, when almost all their rights were flouted, to demonstrate the truth of what I say.

Canada is one of the 191 States parties to the CRC, and every province and territory has signed on so it provides a compelling national framework for all our work with children. The Child Advocates office in Saskatchewan has been a Canadian pioneer in basing itself on the Convention. But then all the other provincial child advocates do so as well, including Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. A Canada Fit for Children (Canada's national plan of action for children as follow-up to the 2002 UN Special Session on Children) which was released in 2004 is also framed by the Convention. Currently, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights which Saskatchewan Senator Raynell Andreychuk is chairing (I am the Deputy-Chair) is studying Canada's international obligations with respect to the rights and freedoms of children, the obligations we undertook as a nation when we ratified the Convention in 1991. In November, the Committee will issue a preliminary report with recommendations as to further imbed the CRC in domestic law and policy, as well as how to promote its implementation throughout the country. It is hoped that, as a result, the legal and administrative frameworks for children's services will be increasingly informed by the CRC. There is also another much more fundamental reason for taking a child rights perspective. The Convention reminds us that every boy and girl is an individual human being with human rights and that all rights are for all children. This means that any programs and policies designed to benefit them must take the Conventions four cross-cutting principles into account. These principles are; non-discrimination, the best-interests of the child, survival and development, and child participation. It is relatively easy to ensure that the first three are respected in planning for early learning and child care. Participation is more difficult but Ill come to it later.

What I would like to do first is point to some specific articles in the Convention so that you can see their relevance. In article 3.2, states that are party to the CRC (which means they have ratified it) undertake to ensure to the child such protection and care as is necessary for his or her well-being taking into account the rights and duties of his or her parents, legal guardians or other individuals legally responsible for him or her. Article 3.3 obligates States Parties to ensure that the institutions, services and facilities designed for children shall conform with the standards established by competent authorities particularly in the areas of safety, health and the number and suitability of their staff, as well as competent supervision. Article 8 refers to the child's right to identity (and for greater specificity, article 30 references the rights of indigenous children, as well as children from linguistic minorities). Article 9.3 refers to the child's right to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis (except, of course, if it is contrary to the child's best interests). Article 12 provides for the right of the child to express his or her voice freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with his or her age and maturity. Article 13 refers to the child's right to freedom of expression. Article 14 speaks to the child's right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion while respecting the rights and duties of parents to provide directions to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacity of the child. Article 16 refers to the child's right to privacy; article 18 ensures recognition of the principle that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child and expands on the importance of the family in the child's life referred to in article 9. Article 19 details the right to protection from all forms of violence. Article 23 guarantees the rights of children with disabilities. Article 24 recognizes the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, including access to health care. This article also refers to the right to good nutrition and clean water, and a pollution-free environment. Article 29 lists the aims of education to which I have already referred. Article 31 establishes to the child's right to play. And I am proud to say that Canada played a significant role in reminding the working group of forty nations that formulated the Convention how important play is for both learning and development in early childhood. With this list I hope you can see how relevant the CRC is to planning quality environments and, when these articles are carefully studied along with all the others, how many implications the Convention has for your work.

For example, compliance with the Convention would suggest that all programs for early childhood educators contain a unit on child rights training, something I suspect is not currently the case. The Canadian Child Care Federation has produced excellent materials based on the Convention so that there is no need, for the most part, to reinvent the wheel.

But having said all this, the issue of children's participation rights in early learning and child care needs further exploration. Can such a right be guaranteed to an infant or toddler, let alone a four or five year old? According to the Convention, and to those who have written about it, there is no minimum age for meaningful participation. Since it is already a challenge to support that right for a school-aged child, how can we do it for younger ones? The answer is to be creative. If we are intensively aware of each and every child in our care we can learn how to read his or her signals. After all, words are not the only means by which views can be expressed. We must make every effort to study human development in early childhood, being mindful of how much it varies, especially between little boys and girls, so that we can read the children's message and carry their voices forward. I'm not talking about general advocacy here. I am talking about being the voice of an individual child. This requires considerable interpretative skills. When a baby screams or sulks we have to try to understand and let the baby guide us. In the end we may not fully understand what is going on but at least we must make the effort. When a four-year old tells us something we know is not literally true we have to figure out what the truth is that his story is conveying and then see if there is anything we can or indeed need to do. This is not at all to suggest that the child should rule the roost, so to speak. Its not a question of giving in to what a child wants; its a question of hearing what he or she has to say and then making a decision. A child's first venture away from home to spend time in a child care facility can be traumatic for certain temperaments. The dilemma this presents for some parents can not be ignored. Some parents may decide to wait until the child is ready. Others cant. Planning quality environments for early learning and child care has to take this reality into account.

What I am saying, I think, is that the quality environments we create for children require enormous care and attention to the rights and developmental needs of the boys and girls who will enter them. The staff of a centre or the family caregiver will have to work closely with the child's parents so that they can enhance each others understanding of the child and ensure that the multiple nesting environments, in which children live and learn and grow, as Vrie Bronfenhenner described them in his ecological model of child development, do not come into more conflict than the child can manage.

I know that everyone who is in this room today believes that a child's early years are critical to the kind of person he or she will become, that not only is the child's brain being sculpted by experience but good habits, good attitudes, aesthetic tastes, capacities for empathy and respect are, hopefully, being formed and nurtured. We also know how powerful a small child's emotions are and how much of what happens to them before the age of six will set the pattern for their adult expression of love, anger and sexuality. I am also sure that many of you share my concern for the spiritual growth of children and for their moral development and ponder your responsibility to them in this regard, knowing that your example counts as much as your words.

I personally believe that nurturing small children and respecting their rights is the most important task that any of us undertakes in life. It is a task that can be daunting for parents, educators and anyone else who comes into contact with a child but, as I contemplate the advent of my twelfth grandchild, I can assure you that the rewards are enormous.

I commend all of you for your commitment to quality in early learning and child care and I urge you to remember that to a great extent that quality will depend on your recognition of the rights of the little children in your care. Once that recognition becomes habitual it will guide everything you do. You couldn't be working in this field if you didn't love children and loving children means respecting them as well. The little children, who I am so happy to see sitting here on the floor in front of me this afternoon, are the best reminder of what it is all about!

Thank you.