Publications
The Child Friendly Justice European Network intends to exchange information and expertise, further disseminate useful tools produced and gather them to make them more accessible.
You will find here all the publications of our members, resulting from collaborative projects. We generally produce two types of publications:
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Unprecedented overview reports on a series of themes related to children in conflict with the law
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Practical guides to promote and provide the keys to a better implementation of child friendly justice on the ground
CFJ-EN Handbooks
The first CFJ-EN handbook on child friendly justice includes a compilation of resources, key legal standards and case law, agendas and opportunities at European level for 2022-2023.
Advocacy Documents
Recommended Minimum Accreditation Criteria for Lawyers Defending Children in Conflict with the Law (2022)
This Brief contains a set of recommendations about what the minimum accreditation criteria should be in the key areas of education, certification or license, values, work experience, and continuous training.
The report contains a set of recommendations that aim to build stronger skills for professionals working with children in criminal proceedings, create child-centred policies and legislative frameworks, invest in robust monitoring of the situation of children in criminal proceedings, improve professionals' knowledge of the needs of children in criminal proceedings.
This policy brief focuses on children's rights in justice systems, including civil, criminal and administrative justice.
This policy brief draws on the results of the international conference A 360° view on Child Friendly Justice, to provide an overview of current issues in child friendly justice and recommendations for policy makers in Europe.
This policy brief presents a set of policy recommendations, illustrated by practical examples of rapid response actions that have been taken following the lockdown and confinement measures enacted in a number of countries around the world.
This document would like to draw the attention of the European Commission (EC) to the importance of a restorative approach in all matters that involve children, and in particular call on the EC to develop a EU Child Rights Strategy that includes the principles of a restorative child friendly justice.
Gathering child justice and LGBTI+ experts and practitioners to examine the barriers that LGBTI+ children face when in contact with justice systems, while proposing concrete actions to address these challenges.
An summary of key messages, data and facts included in the Challenge paper.
A glossary including child friendly terminology supporting the Challenge Paper.
Manuals - Guidelines - Handbooks
This Guide seeks to train lawyers about their essential role as agents of change in combatting children’s rights violations in juvenile justice proceedings.
This Manual seeks to guide Member States in ensuring that their national laws and practices comply with the relevant international standards and principles.
This guide attempts to provide guidance to lawyers regarding their role and provide information on the manner in which they might combine their legal expertise with soft skills.
This practical handbook aims to help professionals to foster children's rights in places where they are deprived of liberty thanks to approved good practices.
This Guide aims to be used by monitoring mechanisms to prepare, implement and follow up monitoring visits in places where children are deprived of liberty.
This report aims to inform on the different monitoring and complaint models. It illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of the different systems.
This guide aims to reinforce the capacity of Parliamentarians in their role as monitors of places of detention where children are detained as a result of immigration proceedings.
The research was designed to ensure that national laws transposing European directives were known and properly applied by legal practitioners thanks to interviews.
Exchanges with professionals enable to develop this practical tool for legal practitioners to give them the skills to assist foreign children suspected/ accused.
The Handbook TWELVE aims to promote meaningful child participation in the context of the juvenile penal justice system.
The below guide shows the process created by International Institute for Child Rights and Development and Films For All and facilitated by six teams in four countries in South-Eastern Europe.
The standards are a collection of cross-cutting principles and activities, core functions and institutional arrangements that enable child friendly, effective and coordinated interventions, including: best interests of the child, children’s rights to be heard and receive information, child friendly environment, Medical Examination, prevention...
This “Know your Rights” guide aims to help and provide information to minor suspected, accused or condemned for an offence. The English version of this document is a blank template available for all professionals and associations who would like to adapt it to their national context.
The present Guidelines aims to make accessible international standards, recommendations and inspiring practices to support the action of all professionals having an impact on legal aid for children in conflict with the law across Europe.
SAPI Bulgaria has created a set of handbooks, guides in Bulgarian on specialised programmes for children in conflict with the law and their assessment.
Children are full-fledged human rightsholders and this handbook aims to increase knowledge on the legal standards that protect and promote these rights in Europe.
This handbook summarises the key European legal principles in the area of access to justice, focusing on civil and criminal law.
This handbook aims to strengthen the protection of children, specifically addressing the particular needs of child victims of trafficking.
The manual provides a comprehensive picture of how to build your group into a highly functioning team.
Adequately understanding the process of reintegration and how to apply it remains a must in child justice.
Encourage personal status judges in Lebanon to adopt, throughout the proceedings and in all family litigation cases concerning children, practices, attitudes and decisions in line with the principles of child friendly justice and foster a better understanding of the role and skills of a personal status judge.
IAYFJM published these guidelines which outline the basic principles of children's rights, the general elements of child-centred justice and their usefulness before, during and after court proceedings, as well as the implementation, monitoring, evaluation and amendment of the guidelines.
These operational guidelines provide practical principles of action for security forces dealing with children and young people who come into contact with the law and with the security forces (pre-trial) or who, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, have been released from detention and are in the process of reintegration (post-trial).
The purpose of these operational guidelines is to provide practical recommendations and principles of action for social workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to support children and young people in conflict with the law who: have been deprived of their liberty; as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, have been released or are in the process of being released; or were already in the process of being reintegrated through non-custodial measures and their reintegration plans need to be modified due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The operational guidelines complement the various technical notes compiled by inter-agency efforts and organisations focusing on children deprived of their liberty during COVID-19, as well as the child protection case management guidance (provided by Terre des Hommes and inter-agency efforts), where children in detention are one of the specific vulnerable groups to be considered.
This guide provides practical considerations and arguments for legal professionals responsible for advocating on behalf of detained children during the pandemic and those who may have the opportunity to decide how those children's rights are upheld.
14 Quality Standards, listing core principles (i.e., participatory, child-centred, safe and protective etc.) & a Step-by-step Guide with precise instructions for lawyers to follow on how to provide legal assistance to children.
In the framework of the CLEAR-Rights project, which aims to strengthen legal assistance to children suspected, accused or convicted of an offence and thus ensure the respect of their rights, the guide is intended to join this effort to strengthen the capacity of lawyers to carry out their work with children, translated into 5 different languages (English, French, Hungarian, Romanian and Dutch).
The Child Justice Network developed this Child-Friendly Justice Terminology Guideline to promote the wider use and proper understanding of child-friendly terms in relation to child justice, based on international and Cambodian laws and standards.
Research documents
This research contains findings and recommendations for a better respect of children's rights in migration-related procedures.
The research report points out that, notwithstanding the differences between legal systems in Albania, Greece and Romania, the three countries are developing restorative justice and children’s rights and are gradually approaching the respective European and international standards.
The information presented shows the various patterns concerning age requirements for children to acquire rights in the area of justice in the EU.
Reports
The aim of this report is to uphold children's rights and improve practices for children in conflict with the law in Europe
3 national reports: Italy, Belgium & Spain. These report presents an overview of the situation in these countries with regards to juvenile justice and the right to participate granted to children.
This document aims at raising awareness on child-friendly approaches in migration-related procedures concerning unaccompanied and accompanied foreign children applying for international protection.
This study aims to develop an understanding of issues relating to immigration detention practices, and to promote the use of alternatives to immigration detention of children (ATDs).
The objective of the current mapping is to identify potential methods and processes that can help the Promise Barnahus Network to further empower children during their journey through Barnahus in an even more meaningful way.
This paper explores ways of embedding child participation in Barnahus across Europe, drawing on the Lundy model of child participation.
This report provides a large overview of the international standards and therefore presents some essential requirements for national legal aid systems to be effectively accessible and adapted to children in conflict with the law.
National reports will provide an assessment of legal aid for children in conflict with the law in 14 European countries. These reports examine the practical implementation of European standards and national regulations on legal aid for minors in conflict with the law.
This report presents the legal aid regulations and practices in European states. It highlights the main issues of legal aid for children in conflict with the law and identifies original and inspiring practices to be promoted.
The survey collected information from UNICEF’s network of 157 country offices on disruptions in service provision as a result of the coronavirus, at the national level, across different sectors.
This note aims to provide detaining authorities with key information and steps to respond to COVID-19 including by instituting a moratorium on new children entering detention facilities; releasing all children who can be safely released; and protecting the health and well-being of any children who must remain in detention.
This document defines the core competencies needed to protect and uphold the rights of children at all times.
The document collects the results of the research activities conducted within the project "MiRI - Minor's Right to Information in EU civil actions - Improving children's right to information in cross-border civil cases".
The voices of children interacted with those of adults, and the methodological choice for this process was to develop a conversation that could have meaning and significance for all who took part in it.
The iCare methodology aims at providing orientation from a child-centred perspective to professionals involved in family mediation in international child abduction cases.
Toolkits
This tool aims to provide information about child friendly justice principles; international, regional, and national standards and strategies; court decisions, studies, research surveys, and position papers on the subject and other relevant resources.
The framework presented here is how the findings were presented in the final national reports on child victims, offenders and witnesses in relation to the relevant provisions of the UNCRC and international principles in their national law.
This Toolkit aims to provide information and give further guidance on the implementation of the provisions of the new EU Directive 2016/800/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on procedural safeguards for children who are suspects or accused persons in criminal proceedings.
This methodology aims to provide guidance to professionals involved in the individual assessment of the needs of child victims.
