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Child Rights Education for Professionals, or CRED-PRO, is a global initiative managed by the International Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD) at the University of Victoria, Canada. The project educates health professionals about children’s rights to enable them to understand, respect, and apply a child rights approach in the delivery of health care services to children. The project is currently operational in the United Kingdom, the United States and a number of South American countries, and is now being initiated in South Africa, Turkey and Tanzania.
The Children’s Institute, in partnership with the IICRD, started the project in South Africa at the beginning of 2007 and since has established an advisory group to discuss the way forward for CRED-PRO in the South African context. The advisory group includes health and legal professionals, as well as other role players in the field of child rights. In May 2007 a Children’s Institute representative visited Chile to observe implementation of the project in that country, where it is more established.
South Africa’s unique contribution to CRED-PRO will be the development of methodology to gather children’s perspectives on health care services. South Africa will be the first country to incorporate children’s perceptions into the curriculum for health practitioners. Other countries that launch the CRED-PRO Project will therefore benefit from South Africa’s experiences in child participation to inform the child rights training for health professionals.
The child participation methodology will be aimed at gaining insight into:
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children’s perception of the health services;
- the relationship of children with, and their perception of, health care providers;
- children’s experiences of health services, including access to services (urban–rural divide) and attitudes and communication patterns of health providers;
- the strengths and weaknesses of the health system according to the child;
- children’s perspective and understanding of their rights in the context of their interaction with the health services;
- children’s understanding of these rights; and
- children’s experiences of being sick and their expectations of others caring for them when ill.
The methodology was piloted at the end of last year and lessons learnt will inform a national child participation process for 2008. Children’s participation will be facilitated in a number of workshops with different age groups in different provinces, with the aim of gathering their perceptions of health care services and providers. There will also be a special focus on the perceptions of children in especially difficult circumstances such as children with chronic illnesses including HIV/AIDS, children who have been abused, and children with disabilities.
The groundwork for the project is now well laid and the Children’s Institute is currently looking for a donor interested in supporting the project in the long term.
For more information on the CRED-PRO Project, contact Paula Proudlock. |
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