Interactive educational toolkit and online training on children’s rights for youth workers

The aftermath of COVID-19, the intensifying effects of climate change and the disastrous consequences of conflicts have caused a decline in respect for children’s rights in the last decade. According to the last KidsRights Index for 2022 there has been no significant progress in the standards of children’s rights across the world over the last decade. Unfortunately, other figures only confirm the above. About 1 in 4 children is at risk of poverty or social exclusion within the EU, whereas 357 million children are still living in extreme poverty worldwide. And the path ahead is full of challenges, as climate change poses a huge threat to the future of the world’s children, as close to 1 billion children are at extremely high risk of being seriously affected. Mobile School recognises the need for youth workers to adopt a comprehensive view of children’s rights, and to be trained in methods and tools on how to effectively apply the values in their work with children. Furthermore, we aimed to provide youth workers with online training on children’s rights on how to cooperate with professionals such as police and teachers, who have a high level of expertise in their field of work but might be unaware of the principles of youth work.

The main goal of this project was to empower youth workers and promote children’s rights by providing them with pragmatic tools on this matter. By creating an educational toolkit, freely accessible online, we aimed to provide innovative and accessible materials for non-formal education on children's rights. Additionally, we created six different self-paced online learning programmes that focus on children's rights and are in line with the toolkit categories. To share the results of the project, we created the All Children, All Right(s) toolkit webpage which hosts all created materials. Through this project, we also wanted to make these tools accessible to many youth workers. By providing professional resources, we also want to encourage young people facing youth unemployment to teach themselves and increase their potential to find a job afterwards. Finally, this project will also help partners in this partnership to train new staff and volunteers in their organisation, making it even more interesting for youth workers to explore the toolkit to train themselves. By realising the two project results, we think we achieved the original set objectives in this project.

The project implemented several activities to create the interactive educational toolkit and online trainings. First, all partners conducted extensive research on existing tools and resources that already existed on children’s rights. Some partners contacted the children’s rights department in their respective countries to identify resources already available. The resources were categorised based on the five topics we identified in the beginning of the project: children’s rights in general, the right to survival, to development, to protection and to participation. Next, moving on from the research phase, the team conceptualised posters and activities, including asking feedback from the children they work with. This was done during the regular youth work activities from the partners to make sure a variety of children would be involved in this project and relevant feedback was collected. The team then prepared and designed the animated posters with QR codes, together with a professional illustrator. Once the animated posters were finished, we created audio stories that linked to the animated posters. Those stories were created together with the partners, and are based on stories they know, and were given feedback from the children they work with. The final audio stories, including sound effects, were mixed by our internal editor and uploaded to Spotify for Podcasters, which distributes the audio stories to Spotify, Google Podcast and Apple Podcast. The stories were translated and narrated, next to English, in Spanish, Dutch, French, Greek and German. All games and activities were uploaded on StreetSmart Play and are available online for free as proposed in the initial application. StreetSmart Play also provides translations for each of the games in French, Spanish and English. Based on the feedback of our partners and to improve the user-friendliness of the toolkit, we added a new element to this project and created additional free downloadable manuals with the collections of games and activities. The manual is divided into different chapters and is available in English, Dutch, French and Spanish. In the manual you can find one chapter for each category, including two bonus chapters on activities related to the pandemic response and to early childhood development. Some of the games and activities are linked to the animated posters, with clear how-to-play descriptions and videos made by Mobile School. The other games and activities are related to the categories of children’s rights and there are activities that offer some explanation as well on how to use some of the posters with duty-bearers. Production steps for the online learning programmes included researching the topics and how they related to youth work and working as youth professionals with duty-bearers, developing good practices, creating courses with different learning materials to accommodate different learning styles, creating the graphical and interactive elements such as quizzes, interactive images, polls,… and producing videos for the courses. All materials were uploaded to a free and open online learning platform called StreetSmart Learn and evaluated by each partner. Next to this they were translated to English, French, Spanish and Dutch. Based on their feedback, adaptations were made to the programmes. In addition to the activities outlined in the project plan, there were several other steps and considerations that went into creating the educational toolkit and online learning programmes. One important aspect was ensuring that the materials were accessible and inclusive for all learners, including those with disabilities, different cultures or from marginalized communities. This involved working with experts in inclusive education and consulting with representatives from diverse groups to ensure that the content was culturally sensitive and representative. Another part of making our materials inclusive, was to provide translations of the audio stories, game manuals, games and online training. Throughout the project, the team also emphasized the importance of collaboration and sharing good practices. Monthly project meetings and 8 online work sessions were held to allow partners to share their experiences, insights and network. The team also made efforts to engage with other organisations and initiatives working in the field of children's rights education, in order to build on existing knowledge and avoid duplication of efforts. We believe the project was successful in creating a range of high-quality educational materials and programmes that can be used to promote children's rights and empower young people. By engaging with diverse communities, the team was able to create materials that are accessible, inclusive, and engaging for learners of all ages and backgrounds. Moving forward, the team plans to continue refining and improving the materials based on feedback and evaluation from learners and youth workers.

The project aimed to develop an interactive educational toolkit on children's rights, with a focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The toolkit consists of five topics: children's rights in general, the right to survival, to development, to protection, and to participation. The toolkit includes various elements such as animated posters, audio stories, online training programmes and games and activities for youth workers to play with vulnerable children and adolescents, as well as other stakeholders such as schools, police, and governmental institutions. The animated posters were the primary focus of the toolkit. Originally, we mentioned the creation of ten posters. During the research we decided to create an additional poster which gives an overview on all children’s rights and is based on the visualization of UNICEF. The ten other animated posters were divided per two, so two for each topic. Each animated poster includes at least three activities with a detailed how-to play explanation in video and manual. These activities are accessible online, making them easy to access for youth workers and other stakeholders. Originally, one animated poster per topic should include a QR-code that made the poster digitally interactive and led to a website where two audio stories on the same topic were made available in multiple languages. These audio stories can be played during a youth work intervention or used to promote children's rights. We changed this a little bit as the full toolkit originates from five characters, who are also depicted on a comic poster in the category of children’s rights in general. As their stories are also relevant for the toolkit, we decided to change the division of the audio stories so now, there are 6 audio stories (5 for the storylines and 1 with an additional story) for children’s rights in general and one for each of the other topics. In total there are still 10 stories available in six languages (English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Greek and German). The format of the posters is also well thought of. We have for each of the topics a poster with a lot of illustrations on, ‘overview posters’, which offers youth workers the opportunity to discuss certain topics with their target group. This way you can find over 80 different interactions and situations where children's rights are respected or violated. The situations were defined by children and youth workers themselves. The other poster for each topic is a game board which offers more variety to the toolkit. In addition to the animated posters, the project also included at least ten supplementary games or activities that youth workers could use to work on each topic without using the posters. These supplementary activities were written out and added to the manual and made available online on StreetSmart Play (https://play.street-smart.be). In total, including the activities related to the posters, there were 119 activities in the toolkit (so 39 more than originally planned) that youth workers could use to work with vulnerable children, adolescents and other stakeholders. Besides the educational toolkit, the project also aimed to develop six self-paced online learning programmes, one for each topic on children's rights and one on COVID-19 and its impact. After the research phase, we adapted this original idea slightly as we found out the right to survival and develop, can be contained under the umbrella of the right to provision. This gave us also the opportunity to add an additional programme on an early childhood approach on children’s rights as there isn’t much available online on this topic, but the demand is quite high in youth work. Each programme consists of self-paced online courses that youth workers can follow on their smartphone, tablet or laptop. The courses include videos, quizzes, animations, tasks, reflections, discussions, and more. Each learning programme is built up in a similar way. First you have an introductory course on the Convention of the Rights of the Child about the specific topic, then a training course on how to work on this topic with children and adolescents. This is followed by a good practice or case study from partners (ARSIS, Initiative For Social Change ARSIS-NISMA, House of ARSIS, Uit De Marge, Virlanie Foundation and BAUI) in the youth work field on how to work with children and adolescents on children’s rights. The fourth course goes into more detail on how to work on this topic with duty-bearers. The final course share again a good practice or case study from partners on this topic (e.p.a., Uit De Marge, Ulita and Huis van het Kind Leuven). All training courses were made available on the online learning platform StreetSmart Learn (https://learn.street-smart.be), are translated into English, Spanish, Dutch and French, and are free to access.