Collins Tara M
School of Child & Youth Care, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada.
Child Abuse Negl. 2025 Apr;162(Pt 1):107231. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.107231. Epub 2025 Jan 10.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) affirms interdependent rights to protection and participation, but barriers continue to hinder participation in protection practices.
What can be learned from young people's participation in their own protection when it comes to harm reduction public policy efforts?
This study focused on provincial public policy in New Brunswick, Canada and involved both children and adults in research design and data collection. The provincial Youth Voice Committee was created to inform the development and implementation of the provincial harm reduction strategy. This strategy promotes children's rights to live free from harm through the reduction of physical, sexual, emotional, and sociocultural harms, not only abuse and neglect.
This study involved international and local child and youth advisory committees to support research design and implementation. Participatory qualitative data collection methods included young people and adults separately as well as collectively in intergenerational meetings.
Findings reveal a broad and unique interpretation of child protection as harm reduction, and that fear and policy processes continue to pose barriers even in contexts dedicated to children's rights. Adults should no longer exclusively influence protection policies, and children and youth are interested in effective intergenerational and relational collaborations. Greater commitment to diversity is needed in participatory efforts.
A rights-based relational approach in research and policy-making necessitates the effective involvement of children and youth to support harm reduction in policy and practice. Policy makers are urged to engage young people alongside adults in child protection and public policies.
《联合国儿童权利公约》（1989年）确认了相互依存的保护权和参与权，但障碍仍然阻碍着参与保护实践。
在减少伤害公共政策努力方面，从年轻人参与自身保护中可以学到什么？
本研究聚焦于加拿大新不伦瑞克省的省级公共政策，研究设计和数据收集涉及儿童和成人。省级青年声音委员会的设立是为了为省级减少伤害战略的制定和实施提供信息。该战略通过减少身体、性、情感和社会文化伤害，不仅是虐待和忽视，来促进儿童免受伤害地生活的权利。
本研究让国际和当地的儿童及青年咨询委员会支持研究设计和实施。参与式定性数据收集方法包括让年轻人和成年人分别参与，以及在代际会议中共同参与。
研究结果揭示了对儿童保护作为减少伤害的广泛而独特的解读，并且即使在致力于儿童权利的背景下，恐惧和政策过程仍然构成障碍。成年人不应再独家影响保护政策，儿童和青年对有效的代际和关系合作感兴趣。参与式努力需要对多样性有更大的承诺。
在研究和决策中采用基于权利的关系方法需要儿童和青年的有效参与，以支持政策和实践中的伤害减少。敦促政策制定者让年轻人与成年人一起参与儿童保护和公共政策。
