1. A changing paradigm for children & families at risk
A European perspective
Jana Hainsworth, Eurochild
17th May 2017

2. Outline Underpinning values & principles driving the paradigm shift
Influence of the European Union
EU guidelines on the transition from institutional care
Investing in children Recommendation…
Experience & on-going work of Eurochild
Opening Doors campaign
Investing in children & “Childonomics”
Child participation
Overview of the talk: I will start by giving you some information about Eurochild: who we are, what we do, how we work. I will briefly explain our vision, and what we are doing to achieve our main goals.
I will then move on to give you some examples of campaigns, projects and policies that we have developed in the past or that we are currently working on, particularly focusing on how they are linked to promoting family and parenting support. The examples will revolve around Eurochild’s 4 main advocacy areas.

3. Underpinning Principles & Values
Paradigm shift : how do we see children & families & vulnerability
UNCRC – provides overall framing
Complex relationship between the role of the state – integrity of the family & parental rights
UN Guidelines on Alternative Care – principles of necessity & suitability
Acknowledges child & family as ‘actors’ not ‘passive recipients of support’ – resilience, empowerment, strengths-based approach
Acknowledges importance of breaking down professional silos – education, health, social welfare, housing – integrated approaches – need to move from ‘theory’ to practice
 Who is Eurochild? Eurochild is a European network of organisations working with and for children all over Europe. We have more than 190 members at national level, in more than 30 countries. We try to influence policies, build the capacity of our members, exchange good practice & mutual learning. As a European network, we try to build the link between what happens at a European and international level, with the work that our members do on the ground.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is the foundation to all of our work for 2 reasons:
Most important instruments to protect & promote child rights at an international level
Ratified by all Member States of the EU

4. UN Guidelines
Moving Forward: Implementing the ‘Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children' –
“Tracking Progress Initiative”
Theme 1 : Addressing the factors that may lead to the need for any forms of alternative care
Theme 2 : Discouraging the use of formal alternative care unless necessary
Theme 3 : Ensuring formal alternative care meets minimum standards
Theme 4 : Ensuring that formal alternative care settings meet the best interests of the individual child
Vision: Eurochild wants to build a society that respects the rights of children, a society where children and young people can grow up happy, healthy and confident, and where they are considered individuals in their own right.
Our values:
Integrity - We put children’s rights and well-being at the core of all our work.
Good Governance - We aim to be membership-driven. Members inform us, help us define our priorities, and enable us to achieve our goals. - We are a learning organisation. We continually monitor and evaluate what we do and strive for excellence in all our work.
Partnership & Participation - We work in partnership. We seek external alliances to enhance our impact on the lives of children and young people. - We are a listening organisation. We want the voices of children and young people to be heard, as well as those of people who are working with, and caring for, them.

5. Influence of the European Union
EU Guidelines on the transition from institutional to community-based care & the accompanying ‘EEG’ (European Expert Group)
2013 Recommendation “Investing in Children – Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage”
Structural Funds Regulations – prioritise DI - 10B€ to invest in services for children & families
Children’s rights coordinator – eg. 10 principles on child protection, Communication on the rights of children in migration
Recommendation “Pillar of Social Rights”
Pilot action for a “child guarantee” initiative
Eurochild’s activities revolve around four main working priorities
Tackling child poverty & promoting child well-being
Strengthening child protection systems, particularly by supporting transition from institutional to community-based care
Investing in children through better public spending
Mainstreaming children’s rights in EU policies
All of these 4 priorities are connected and feed into each other.

6. The Opening Doors for Europe’s Children Campaign
Strengthening Families – Ending Institutional Care
I will now introduce you to one of the Campaigs that Eurochild coordinates and it actually also runs in Poland. The Opening Doors for Europe’s Children Campaign has been running since 2013 and it advocates for the Strengthening of families and the end of institutional care. We are calling on the EU and national governments to prioritiae the transition from institutionall to family base care. The Campaign ran between between 2 international partners Eurochild and Hope and Homes for Children and in 12 mainly Central European countries. The Campaign is now entering its 2nd Phase and Eurochild and Hope and Homes for Children have partnered with 3 more international partners. SOS Children’s Villages, FICE and the International Foster Care Organisation. The updated website with updated country pages will be online by beginning of December.

7. December 2016
Campaign’s revised website is launched with new key messages highlighting the Campaign’s new partnership and our expansion in Western European countries
16 Jan & 14 Feb
Katerina & Mani from core team present the Campaign at FEDAIA’s seminars :

8. Campaign objectives
The Opening Doors for Europe’s Children campaign aims to support national efforts to develop child protection systems that strengthen families and ensure high quality family and community based alternative care for children, by leveraging EU funding and policy and building capacity of civil society organisations.
DI is retained as a priority for the EU institutions. EU officials encourage European States to use EU funding and policy coordination tools to strengthen child protection systems, in particular family- and community-based care.
National civil society partners have the knowledge, expertise & capacity to advocate for DI on national level and to leverage and monitor EU funding and influence to support national efforts to strengthen child protection systems.
The Opening Doors campaign is a reputable, well-known force for change providing a platform to promote DI reforms in Europe, based on broad international partnership & credible & respected national coordinators

9. The Opening Doors campaign approach
The unique advocacy approach of Opening Doors
The ‘boomerang approach’: seeking international allies to apply external pressure to change the behavior of nation states → we focus on the EU
At national level Opening Doors campaign partners are keeping the pulse of national developments using the influence of the campaign to apply pressure in their own countries.
Is an example of vertical norm setting –
Key elements of our joint advocacy:
National and EU-level objectives are interlinked
National-level work feeds into EU activities (and vice versa)
Key criteria for identifying partners: relevance of the issue, interest, knowledge/capacity

10. What are our key deliverables ?
Past
Working paper on deinstitutionalisation and quality alternative care for children in Europe – Lessons learned and the way forward
Deinstitutionalisation Myth Buster
Assessment on the attention for DI for children, and the involvement of children’s organisations in the use of European Structural and Investment Funds
To come
Updated OD on DI working paper and Myth Buster
Country Fact Sheets – December 2017
“Transnational guide to language & meanings in alternative care”
Implementation of the tracking tool
Country assessments on the use of EU funds and DI progress
We are envisaging this updated OD website to be a source of information, with story telling material, data and information from national and EU level.

11. Investing in children – child budgetting
2014 Bucharest conference – “Better public spending for better outcomes for children & families”
Exploratory analysis of child-budgeting – commissioned by the Observatory on Children, Youth and Youth Assistance (OEJAJ) located in a Ministry of the Federation Wallonia-Brussels
5 country case studies: Mexico, Peru, South Africa, United Kingdom, Wales
UNCRC General Comment No.19 on Public Budgeting for the Realization of Children’s Right
Influencing the European Union multi-annual financial framework post 2020
Concept: One of the most common definitions of child poverty, is the one developed by OECD. According to such definition “A child is deemed to be living in relative poverty if he or she is growing up in a household where disposable income is less than 50% of the median disposable household income for the country concerned”. Despite this being a commonly used definition, it is not universally accepted. And this is because definitions such as this tend to identify lack of adequate income as the only cause of child poverty.
At Eurochild, we believe that child poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon: while money plays an important role, more factors have to be taken into consideration. Child poverty is about not living in decent housing or having access to good quality education or healthcare. The lack of income, paired with poor access to facilities and services means that child poverty is about not being able to participate in everyday activities. Child poverty means that children’s way of life is so much worse than the general standard of living in the country or region in which they live, that they struggle to live a normal life and participate in ordinary activities. This means that child poverty is a relative concept and the situation can vary from country to country, depending on the standard of living enjoyed by the majority.
Child poverty is still an extremely serious issue in Europe: official statistics show that, out of the 100 million people under the age of 18 currently living in the EU, 27 millions are at risk of poverty and social exclusion, this is more than 1 child out of 4.
Children are disproportionately affected by poverty  childhood is a delicate period in one’s development.
Children are one of the most vulnerable groups to poverty and social exclusion  link with socio-economic status of parents, family composition, & inter-generational transmission of poverty.

12. Childonomics
‘Measuring the long-term economic & social value of investing in children’
Aims to measure costs of different child welfare & protection systems against expected outcomes for children, families & society as a whole
Focuses on prevention, supporting reintegration & reducing reliance on institutional care
Aims to build the argument for the social and economic return of investing in children.
Romania and Malta have been selected as pilot countries to further develop, refine and test the tool
Organisation of different focus group consultations with professionals, policy makers, children and young people themselves.
To build concrete evidence, Eurochild has launched the Childonomics research project aimed at developing a tool to determine the long-term social and economic return of investing in children.
What to expect from Childonomics? 
Using economic modelling the project will measure the costs of different child welfare and protection systems against expected outcomes for children, families and society as a whole.  Particular attention is given to preventing children being separated from their families, supporting their reintegration and reducing reliance on institutional care. The project is currently being implemented in two pilot countries: Malta and Romania.
Why Romania and Malta?
Romania and Malta have been selected as partner countries for Childonomics because of recently introduced reforms and a strong political interest in child and families policies.  Malta is prioritizing foster care as an alternative to residential care and investing in community level services. They have also increased investment in child care provision, are promoting social justice and equity in the education system with a particular focus on inclusive education.  
Romania currently has an interim government which has put poverty reduction high on the political agenda.  Furthermore Romania has already gone through a significant transformation of its child protection system over the last 15 years. The child protection system is now more diversified, offering a range of family-based services to children unable to live with their parents and support services for vulnerable families. Both countries want to build a stronger evidence base to support their policy and spending choices, and have therefore expressed an interest to participate in Childonomics.

13. Child Participation Aim of the Child Participation Strategy
Eurochild works for and with children across Europe and
advocates to put children’s rights at the heart of EU policy-making
Aim of the Child Participation Strategy
Develop child participation standards, which will embed children’s participation into Eurochild’s working structures:
Influencing Policies
Developing Strategic Planning
Organising Major Events
This will provide visibility to Eurochild as a child-participatory organisation.

14. Explaining Child Participation Strategy:
1. Starting at Local Level -
2. Then to National Eurochild Forums – the NEFs: made up of individuals aged from different backgrounds and with different experiences
PILOT of NEFs in Bulgaria, Estonia and Malta
3. Eurochild Children’s Council – ECC with representatives from NEFs. They are made up of individuals aged
They will be involved in Eurochild’s influencing work ; internal strategy planning; planning and delivering the 2018 conference
ECC members are appointed for 2 years. They can then become mentors for new ECC members or for NEF members.
NEFs will feed ideas to the ECC, but the ECC will also give feedback to the NEFs
4. The Eurochild Children’s Council will cooperate with Eurochild members, Management Board and Secretariat
6. There will be on-going communication with the NEFs, the ECC and members via different tools such as google hangouts, social media, online platforms, but also physical meetings.
Eurochild will prepare training material for the NEFs, ECC and supporting adults on influencing/advocacy work on child participation and child protection. We aim to have children themselves involved in future trainings as well.
Eurochild will also support child-led initiatives, which will reinforce Eurochild’s advocacy work for children’s rights at European, national and regional level.

15. Eurochild Thank you! Follow us on Twitter! @Eurochild_org
@openingdoors_eu