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Inclusion Europe is carrying out a project to protect the rights of children with disabilities in the European Union.
The member states that are taking part in this project did a research.
They wanted to know if the rights of children with disabilities are respected in their countries.
These countries had a meeting in Brussels to talk about the result of their research.
Inclusion Europe organized this meeting.
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The results of the national reports on the rights of children with intellectual disabilities in 22 EU Member States were discussed at a two-day Symposium in Brussels held by Inclusion Europe.
The symposium took place from 3-4 March as part of the CRC project launched in December 2009. Inclusion Europe, together with Eurochild and Charles University in Prague, embarked on this two-year experience to analyze through research conducted throughout the EU Member States the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) from the perspective of children with an intellectual disability.
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During the first stage of this project, each country undertook the commitment to produce a report on the implementation of the convention at national level focusing on five areas:
- Access to education
- The family and de-institutionalization
- Health care
- Promotion and participation of children
- Abuse
During the CRC symposium, the national representatives had the opportunity to present their research findings, to share their experiences and to discuss policy recommendations at national and EU level. General findings at this stage show concretely the lack of data available on this particular group of children in reports to the CRC, as well as large differences from one country to another in data availability. Some recommendations discussed included better monitoring, collection and disaggregation of data on children with intellectual disabilities, better training for professionals working with this group of children and better access to information for children with intellectual disabilities and their parents on all important issues which affect them.
Participants were glad to welcome Dr. Dainius Puras, former member of the CRC committee and Professor Monica Dowling from the Open University and co-author of a recent UNICEF on Children and Disability, who provided invaluable input into the discussion. Input from representatives of Eurochild, Inclusion Europe and the Faculty of Education at the Charles University in Prague also stimulated intense debate on the above-mentioned issues and gave an insight into EU policy in this area.
Following this two-day symposium in Brussels, The European Comparative Report will draw together the national research. The European Comparative Report, together with the national reports will be launched at the final conference of the project from 20-21 October 2011 in Brussels. The national reports will be available in English and in the national languages, the European Comparative Report will be available in all EU languages. The reports will include policy recommendations at national and EU level on how to improve the rights of children with intellectual disabilities.
For more information about the project and final conference, please visit the project website at: www.childrights4all.eu.
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