A Rights-Based Approach to Monitoring Children and Young People's Well-Being

The purpose of this Foundation Report is to contribute to a shared understanding of a human rights-based approach to monitoring children and young people’s well-being.

Key messages from this report:
1. Human rights and the well-being of children and young people are interconnected concepts and should not be considered in isolation.

2. A human-rights based monitoring programme on the well-being of children and young people can add value in the following ways: legitimacy through an internationally accepted child rights framework; greater accountability by a joint focus on duty bearers and rights holders; the voice of children and young people on their well-being and enjoyment of their rights; and universality through a focus on marginalised children and young people.

3. Adopting a rights-based approach to monitoring the well-being of children and young people should be systematic in its approach and can include the following steps:

identification of what is to be monitored;
ii. specification of the relevant rights;
iii. connection of the rights to stated government outcomes;
iv. identification of government actions to implement these rights;
v. measurement of progress to track improvements.

The Children and Youth Programme through the UNESCO chairs will work collaboratively to promote a rights-based approach to monitoring activity in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The Children and Youth Programme will adopt this approach in its Special Report Series focusing on: education, mental health, youth justice and civic participation over the next few months. The Special Report Series will illustrate how a rights-based approach to monitoring can be operationalised in practice.