Justice and Consumers

The Platform celebrated its 1st birthday in October during the third Advisory Board meeting – the first one with children. Over the year, the Platform had its first General Assembly, first consultation with children on what they need to feel safe and adopted its first Work Plan. You can read about it all in the Platform’s newsletter or on the website. The Platform has currently 50 member organisations from 20 EU Member States.

Documents prepared for the General Assembly of the EU Children’s Participation Platform won an award in the Winner in the External communications materials category! Big thanks to members of the Platform and all partners - we wouldn't have done this without you!

The book ‘The Girl Who Kept Her Eyes Open’ aims to raise awareness among children (7-10 years old) and adults (parents and teachers) of the problems suffered by people fleeing war and their rights. Through the story of a Ukrainian refugee child meeting a particularly observant little girl in her new school, it shows the importance of paying attention to others in order to recognize the victims of crime - in this case, the victims of war-related crimes - and offer them support. The book is available in 13 languages (English, French, Dutch, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak and Ukrainian).

Safer Internet Forum (SIF) 2023 took place on 23.11.2023 with a theme of Empowering YOUth with skills for the Digital Decade. The event was organised in a youth-led manner, with 41 young people from 22 European countries playing an active role in planning, preparing and delivering the Forum through the Safer Internet Forum Youth Advisory Group (SIF YAG) and the BIK Youth Panel. More than 150 participants joined the event in person, with an additional 700 registering to participate participating online, and jointly representing 93 countries across the globe.

The ECEC space of the European Education Area website (aka the “ECEC wiki”) offers documents and resources on children’s rights and early childhood education and care. One of the latest documents is the 3rd report related to monitoring and evaluating quality of ECEC considers the importance and ways for “Involving children, parents, staff and stakeholders in monitoring and evaluating quality of early childhood education and care”.

A new thematic report was published by the Working Group Schools – Pathways. It looks at new assessment practices and argues that in addition to standardised tests, new assessment methods are needed that capture a broader range of learning aims. This means not only assessing knowledge, but also the ability to use knowledge in various contexts – as well as learners’ personal and social development and well-being.

The European Commission together with NESET (Network of Experts on the Social Dimension of Education and Training) created a series of factsheets on on well-being and mental health in schools. The European Education Area promotes the development of a ‘whole-system, whole-school approach’ to address mental health and well-being in schools and build positive learning environments for all learners and their teachers.

To mark World Mental Health Day on 10 October 2023, the European Commission held a half-day, high-level conference in Brussels, hosted by Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety. This event brought together hundreds of representatives from the EU institutions, national governments, international organisations and other interested partners to raise awareness of the new approach, hear from experts, including on those specilising in child mental health. Those with lived experience, including young people shared their stories and recommendations. One chapter of the new communication on mental health focuses on children.

European Youth Week 2024 (12-19 April) is an event organised by the European Commission every second year to celebrate and promote youth engagement, participation and active citizenship all over Europe and beyond. Next year it is titled "Voice your vision” and will focus on democracy & European elections. See more on the European Youth Portal

The 2024 call on the rights of the child is open for applications until 26 March 2024 with a substantial increase of the budget (from 2 to 12 million EUR). The call covers four priorities: Children’s mental health: prevention, protection and support; Embedding a rights of the child perspective in actions at national and local level: mainstreaming, national strategies, data, budgeting; Children’s engagement and participation: national and local level, to complement activities of the EU Children’s Participation Platform; Understanding democratic rights, which starts in childhood: education, creative learning, civic rights

Children's voices across borders - 30 children (from 12 to 17 years old) from 10 countries (Malta, Ireland, Germany, Luxemburg, France, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic and Spain) took part in a conference organised by the Spanish presidency of the European Council , with the support of UNICEF Spain and Plataforma de infancia. For the first time, a Presidency conference was fully dedicated to child participation.

The European Union (EU) Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) is the most important student science fair in the EU, showcasing the best of student scientific achievement in the EU and beyond. Each year, the event brings together promising, talented students & bright young minds (14-20 years old) from all over Europe and beyond, to present their projects to a panel of international judges.

Six children and young people (11-24) filed filed a lawsuit against 32 governments, including all EU member states, the UK, Norway, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey. They accuse these countries of insufficient action over climate change and failing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions enough to hit the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5C. The case is the first of its kind to be filed at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.

On 4 December 2023, the CFJ-EN Child Justice Caravan made a stop at DG JUST, before visiting the EU Parliament and meeting with UNICEF and the Ombudsperson for children of the Francophone Belgian Community. The Child Justice Caravan is an initiative proposed by the CFJ-EN to children and young people to visit European institutions, meet with key representatives from these institutions, and become advocates for change in European justice systems and have their rights and needs better respected.

Eurochild’s new report “Poverty takes away the right to childhood”: Children’s perceptions of poverty in 4 EU Member States features the results of consultations with over 200 children (aged 10-18) in Bulgaria, Croatia, Malta and Estonia on child poverty. It presents how children view poverty and how they perceive its effects on their peers at home, in school, and in their community.

Steinar Sunde, specialist psychologist and cognitive therapist at the Family Counselling Centre in Molde, developed a website, e-book and anger management app with support from the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs. Littsint is a service providing free materials for parents who want to work on anger management.