Minister For Children Research Articles

Ministerial churn draws criticism

Questions over commitment to sector as Johnston becomes 10th children's minister in a decade

Transitional Justice and Ireland's Legacy of Historical Abuse

Transitional Justice and Ireland's Legacy of Historical Abuse James Gallen (bio) This essay evaluates the application of transitional justice to the context of historical abuse in peaceful, consolidated democracies, in particular the Republic of Ireland.1 Examining Ireland's efforts at repairing its past from such a perspective reveals an unwillingness by state authorities and Christian churches and religious orders to embrace the necessity of fundamental social, legal, and political transformation when addressing widespread and systemic historical abuse.2 In Irish efforts to address historical abuse across a range of contexts, power remains out of the hands of victim-survivors and of those traditionally marginalized in society. Instead, in agreement with Georges Balandier, I argue that "the supreme ruse of power is to allow itself to be contested ritually in order to consolidate itself more effectively."3 Recent state responses to historical abuse contribute to such a consolidation of power. Although public inquiries, legal accountability, and redress schemes claim to serve the interests of victim-survivors of historical abuse, these mechanisms fail meaningfully to empower or support their voices, participation, and ownership in shaping how [End Page 35] Ireland addresses its historical abuses. The Irish state designs mechanisms and engages in practices that marginalize victim-survivors in the present and thereby risk creating new forms of harm and distress. As a result, Irish "transitional justice" risks claiming the legitimacy of serving survivors' needs without any meaningful transition in how they are treated by the state, churches, or society. Section one of this article introduces the framework of transitional justice and considers its application to the Irish republic. Section two assesses the Irish experience of investigating and truth-seeking regarding historical abuses and draws comparisons with the "truth commission" model in transitional justice. Section three evaluates the Irish approach to accountability for historical abuses and demonstrates its limitations despite the different expectations for accountability for historical criminal and civil offenses. Finally, section four assesses Ireland's redress schemes for victim-survivors of historical abuse, drawing on approaches to reparations in transitional justice, and briefly examines Ireland's apologies regarding historical abuse and their potential impact on reform and reconciliation. Transitional Justice and Consolidated Democracies Ireland is not unique in dealing with a national legacy of past systemic violence. Although it has deployed several mechanisms since the early 2000s to address historical abuses, it has typically not employed the language or framework of transitional justice. It was only in March 2017 that TD Katherine Zappone, the minister for children and youth affairs, announced that she would initiate a transitional-justice approach to meet the needs of survivors of mother-and-baby homes (maternity homes).4 As a result, transitional justice forms only a small part of the explicit approach used by the Irish state to address its past. But transitional justice—as a body of scholarship and comparative international best practice—can also be employed as a conceptual and legal tool to evaluate the entirety of how countries such as Ireland have addressed their legacy of past violence. Transitional justice typically addresses how societies reckon with a [End Page 36] legacy of gross violations of human rights in the specific contexts of a transition from armed conflict or authoritarian rule to stable, peaceful liberal democracy.5 It includes several discrete but linked "pillars": investigation and truth-seeking (typically through truth and reconciliation commissions), accountability, reparation, guarantees of nonrecurrence, and reconciliation.6 Though a field dominated by law and lawyers, transitional-justice discourse claims to institute an interdisciplinary practice, with several ethical commitments to how justice is to be achieved; the process matters as much as the outcome.7 To this end a number of key tenets have informed scholarship and practice in this area that must be highlighted in any application of transitional justice to Ireland. First, an approach recognizing victim-survivors as legal subjects, bearers of human rights, and key participants in any decision affecting transitional justice is central to international transitional-justice policy.8 Second, each transitional-justice mechanism is designed to complement rather than compete with the others and is designed to form part of a single holistic process.9 Transitional justice is...

Ministries guiding of services for children and young people in eleven countries – a comparative study

Introduction and aim: Several countries have been reforming promoting the health, welfare, growth and learning of children and young people. The national structures of guidance of the have also been transformed and there is lack of comparative knowledge about the present ministry structures across the countries. The aim of this study is to explore which ministries are guiding the organization of children and young people’s in eleven countries: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. These countries were included in the study because they have developed integrating services. The study is part of a larger study funded by Finnish Government’s analysis, assessment and research activities. Methods: The scoping review was used. Search engine and database searches were made but the majority of the literature was found by using the so-called hand search. That information was sought from the websites of governments and other authorities in selected countries. Results: The most typical structure was that the of children and young people were under the guidance of several separate ministries. In five countries, there was a Ministry of Children Denmark, Ireland, Norway and New Zealand or Ministry of Children and Families Germany. The Minister for Children and youth existed in five countries Denmark, Ireland, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden, and the Minister for Children and Family affairs in further two countries Germany and England. However, Ministry or Minister of Children or Family affairs did not have the responsibility on all the of children and young people. For example, in England, the Minister for Children and Families was not responsible for health services. In Ireland, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs has been set up in 2011, and it is responsible for reforming children and family services. They have a shared goal of a common policy on children and family, which means close cooperation between all the ministries related to children’s and young people’s issues. For example, such a body is the Children and Young People's Policy Consortium, which has actors from five different ministries. Discussion and conclusions: It is important to identify all the ministries whose responsibilities include issues of children, youth and families. Furthermore, there is a need for the harmonisation of policy and provision across Government in most countries. This includes e.g. national children’s strategy as well as novel cooperation structures to ensure the integrity of guidance on children’s and young people’s services. Limitations: One limitation of the review is a conceptual challenge: the concepts of “integration” and children's services are problematic, and the spectrum of related concepts is extensive and definitions vary from country to country. Another limitation was the fact that knowledge of children and young people’s seems to be fragmented. Suggestions for future research: Further study is needed on statutory and non-statutory guidance on the service integration in the field of children’s and young people’s in different countries.

Timpson is confident his ‘unique experience’ can help children

In an interview with CYP Now, former children's minister Edward Timpson outlines his approach to new roles at Cafcass, the children's commissioner for England, school exclusions review and safeguarding practice panel

Goodwill unfazed by big brief

Children's minister offers councils more improvement support, but warns doing more with less will continue

Labour's social work champion

Derren Hayes talks to Emma Lewell-Buck MP, shadow children's minister

Children's social care inquiry bids to influence policy and practice

In a candid interview, former children's minister Tim Loughton expresses frustration that the Munro reforms are “gathering dust” and expects leadership issues will feature prominently in the inquiry he is co-chairing

Labour unveils plans to overhaul Sure Start and child protection

Shadow children's minister Steve McCabe speaks to CYP Now about Labour's plans to boost the number of childcare places at children's centres and develop a cross-government unit to improve safeguarding systems

Children's minister: councils will be ready to deliver SEND reforms

With September seeing the introduction of the most wide-ranging reforms to support for children with SEN and disabilities for a generation, children's minster Edward Timpson answers your questions on their implementation

Health wash in Helsinki

In June 2013 the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion on Health in All Policies was held in Helsinki. The fourth plenary session featured speakers from the World Bank and World Economic Forum (WEF) and immediately reminded us of corporate ‘green wash’ whereby companies grossly exaggerate their environmental sustainability credentials to gain social credibility and consumer comfort. In Helsinki we witnessed a similar ‘health wash’, in which the private sector was portrayed as an essential and beneficent ‘partner’ in promoting health by providing its expertise and much needed resources. Jane-Llopis and Xydia-Charmanta (2013) (Director, WEF) reminded us that 44% of the world’s 100 top economies are corporations rather than countries, and argued that the private sector is flexible, innovative and more attentive to consumer convenience and satisfaction than the public sector. This portrayal of the private sector’s role in health promotion contrasted sharply with that of World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director General Dr Margaret Chan who, in her opening address, condemned the economic power and destructive health impact of large industries, including food, tobacco, soda and alcohol: ‘In the view of WHO, the formulation of health policies must be protected from distortion by commercial or vested interests’, whose tactics ‘include front groups, lobbies, promises of self-regulation, lawsuits, and industry-funded research that confuses the evidence and keeps the public in doubt’ (Chan, 2013). This theme echoed through the following five days. The Irish Minister for Children and Youth, Frances Fitzgerald, talked of the need to make the lobbying tactics of industry transparent and to ensure that health promotion advocates have the same access to politicians as industry representatives. Ilona Kickbusch spoke of the commercial determinants of health. The twitter wall at the conference was busily rinsing off this corporate ‘health wash’ with comments about the need to deal with industry’s adverse impacts. But the big question confronting the health promotion movement is how best to control corporate interests? The answer to this requires understanding why corporations have and maintain such power. Our global economic regime is structured to meet the needs of rich countries and transnational corporations. This is done through trade agreements that make the world safe for capitalism (Chang, 2008), taxation regimes that enable corporations to pay little tax (Tax Justice Network, 2013) and investment treaties that allow foreign companies to sue governments for new public health regulations that might put a dent in their profits (Khor, 2012). The fall of the Soviet Bloc has meant an ideological domination for capitalism that crowds out ideas for alternative economic regimes in dominant discourse and rich country media. Gramsci’s (1971) hegemonic capitalism has well and truly come to pass. It is this ideological climate that makes a ‘health wash’ so easy for industry to get away with. What reasonable person would oppose a public private partnership to provide more health services or gain more funds for a children’s hospital by having Ronald MacDonald Health Promotion International, Vol. 29 No. 1 doi:10.1093/heapro/dat054 # The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com Advance Access published 8 August, 2013

Review of Early Years Foundation Stage receives cautious welcome

Childcare groups have offered a cautious welcome to the news that Children's Minister Sarah Teather has appointed Dame Clare Tickell, chief executive of Action for Children, to carry out a full review of the Early Years Foundation Stage. (EYFS).

Minister outlines vision while budget starts burning bridges

The recent emergency budget has done little to persuade the early years sector that the government's commitment to the early years, as outlined recently by Children's Minister, Sarah Teather MP, will have a positive impact.

The new politics of childhood

Minister for Children and Families, Sarah Teather MP, has made her first statement outlining a vision for early years care and education with an attempt to distance the coalition from past government failures.

To the point - Get those grades up, UK

This week, the Family and Parenting Institute stages a major Westminster conference that children's minister Sarah Teather will address.

The National Behaviour and Attendance Review (NBAR) in Wales: findings on school behaviour from the professional perspective

This paper presents the methodology and some of the findings on school behaviour obtained for the National Behaviour and Attendance Review (NBAR) in Wales. This work was undertaken over two years between 2006 and 2008. The Report was widely circulated in Wales to schools, local authorities, health and social service departments, as well as a wide range of professional and voluntary organisations in the autumn of 2008. The Review was written, led and chaired by the author. The Report was presented to the Minister for Children, Lifelong Learning and Skills and the Welsh Assembly Government, who subsequently endorsed the full Report on a cross-party basis. Thereafter, an Implementation Group was established to carry forward the 92 recommendations on attendance, behaviour, parenting, multi-agency working and children and young people. The methodology included both qualitative and quantitative approaches. This paper, however, focuses upon the findings obtained from the professional focus groups located throughout Wales during both Stage One and Stage Two of the review process. The evidence is discussed in context and both the core and supporting recommendations formulated from this approach are presented in the text.

Learning and Development: Transitions - Smooth moves

Nursery World joined children's minister Beverley Hughes, in what would be one of her last official engagements in the position, on a visit to Oak Tree Children's Centre to see one of the 0-7 Partnership projects in action. Catherine Gaunt reports.

Enjoy and Achieve: finding opportunities to action the Every Child Matters framework to provide opportunities for children and adults to work collaboratively on an outdoor learning project

Every Child Matters (ECM), an agenda for agencies working with children, was introduced following the tragic death of Victoria Climbie in 2001. Lord Laming produced a report that proposed a new way of working for all professionals working with children. In June 2003, under a Labour government, the first Children's minister was appointed and the ECM agenda was actioned. The agenda outlined radical change for children's services and individuals working with children. In 2003 I was employed as a science teacher in a South East London mixed comprehensive. I implemented and managed the Healthy Schools initiative. At the time I struggled to find a tangible definition of ECM and what form it could take in a school setting. Now, working with students, training to become professional educators I introduce ECM as a framework. It enables individuals within an educational setting to start to share ideas that are context specific and relate directly to those it affects. In order for the framework to be successful it needs to be focussed and recognise all successes, small and large.

The evolution of children's services in Ireland and prospects for the future: a personal perspective

Ireland is now the hub of much activity around children's services ‐ at central and local government levels, involving the primary statutory and voluntary agencies, and engaging some of the more disadvantaged communities. Previous articles in the series have looked at the origins and work of the government Office of the Minister for Children, which is overseeing the reform programme (Langford, 2007), the role of $200 million philanthropic investment in this work (Little & Abunimah, 2007) and how the new approach is translating into practice in local communities (Zappone, 2007).Here, Owen Keenan, former Chief Executive of Barnardos1, offers his personal perspective on the work. He starts by tracing how Ireland moved from having under‐developed services and limited suitable research capacity to having the potential within the next 10 years to become one of the best places in the world for children to grow up in. He highlights the roles played by international collaborations, indigenous advocacy (focused on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) and philanthropic investment in helping to usher in a new paradigm of evidence‐based, outcome‐focused services. He then outlines the main challenges as he sees them if the potential is to be realised ‐ for example, improving relationships between stakeholders and strengthening service design and evaluation capacity. Finally, he summarises what has been learnt about undertaking (and undergoing) such farreaching change processes.

Interview with Katherine Zappone: Freedom and prevention: developing effective children's services in Tallaght, Ireland

Ireland has suddenly become a hub of activity around children's services ‐ at central and local government levels, involving the primary statutory and voluntary agencies, and engaging some of the more disadvantaged communities. In the first article in the series, Sylda Langford (2007) described the origins and work of the Office of the Minister for Children (OMC), of which she is Director General. In the second article, Michael Little and Ali Abunimah (2007) considered the role of $200 million philanthropic investment in the reforms, specifically a 10‐year programme of work funded by Atlantic Philanthropies to encourage strategy development and service design to improve outcomes for children on the island of Ireland. Part of that investment is being made in what are called ‘community engagement sites’ ‐ economically disadvantaged communities with a child population of between 3,000 and 7,000. In this article, Katherine Zappone examines the reform process at local level as the leader in one of the community engagement sites. She describes the approach they took and products of the work so far and discusses problems and opportunities that have been encountered along the way. The next (and last) article in the series (by a leading figure in the voluntary sector) will put the reforms into the context of the evolution of children's services in Ireland over the last 20 years.The first section of this article draws on the Tallaght Strategy document, written by Katherine in dialogue with a research team, followed by an edited transcript of Katherine's interview.

Improving outcomes for children in the island of Ireland: the role of philanthropic investment

Ireland has suddenly become a hub of activity around children's services — at central and local government levels, involving the primary statutory and voluntary agencies, and engaging some of the more disadvantaged communities. In the previous article, Sylda Langford outlined relevant aspects of the broader context in Ireland before describing the origins and work of the Office of the Minister for Children (OMC), of which she is Director‐General.This article considers the role of philanthropic investment in the reforms. It outlines a 10‐year programme of work funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies to encourage strategy development and service design to improve outcomes for children on the island of Ireland. It assesses progress thus far and reflects on lessons learnt that might be useful for those mounting similar programmes in the future. We do not normally write for the journal that we edit but given our close involvement in the aforementioned work it was deemed necessary in this instance. Future articles in the series will examine the reform process at a local level (from the perspective of a leader in one of the community engagement sites) and put the reforms into the context of the evolution of children's services in Ireland over the last 20 years (by a leading figure in the voluntary sector).