Informing, Improving, Empowering

The Children and Youth Programme (CYP) is an independent collaboration between the two UNESCO Chairs in the island of Ireland at the UNESCO Centre at the University of Ulster and the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at NUI Galway.

Our Mission Statement:

Throught the UNESCO Chairs at the University of Ulster and NUI Galway, we are an academic, independent monitoring Programme, focussing on the well–being of children and youth in Ireland and Northern Ireland, using a rights–based approach.

Our Guiding Principles:

The guiding principles of the Children and Youth Programme are:

• To adopt a rights–based approach
• To retain academic independence
• To develop an all–island focus
• To ensure that the voice of children and youth is present

Key Outputs:

Key outputs from the programme will comprise a series of Special Reports and corresponding Briefing Papers to be disseminated at regular intervals during 2011 and 2012.

There will be two Foundation Reports

• A rights–based approach to monitoring children and young people’s well–being
• A framework for understanding policy development and implementation for children and young people

Subsequent Reports will deal with issues affecting children and youth, such as

• Supporting educational achievement in areas of social deprivation
• Rethinking youth justice: research, rights and reflections on practice
• Supporting the mental health of children and youth: prevention in mental health services
• Youth civic engagement: a conceptual and practice review

Through the two UNESCO Chairs we will also provide Responsive Commentary on policy implementation issues identified in the Special Report series and on critical issues that may arise in each jurisdiction. The first of these will address the constitutional referendum on children’s rights in Ireland.

Further Information:

Further information is available in the Programme Information Brochure

Visit our dedicated CYP website for a more indepth look at our Programme and to access Programme Reports and the CYP Databank and Blogs.

If you wish to speak to someone about the Programme please contact in the first instance our Secretary Barbara Rosborough (tel: +44 (0)28 7012 3593, email: ba.rosborough@ulster.ac.uk) who will be able to put you in touch with the correct academic for your query.