Advocating for children's rights as an aspect of professionalism: The role of frontline workers and children's rights commissions

This paper concerns the need for an expanded understanding of professionalism in child and youth care as incorporating child advocacy. Though the child or youth in care or at risk is often reliant upon frontline workers to play the role of rights advocate; such workers often do not perceive this as their legitimate function. Frontline workers tend to operate within the policy mandates of the institutions that employ them. However, those policies may not always adequately respect the child's rights. Professional codes of conduct generally do not include client advocacy formally or explicitly as part of the requirement for ethical practice. In this paper, advocacy is discussed as a human right for both advocate and client under the International Declaration on Human Rights Defenders (1998). The inadequacies of the current government children's advocate system in Canada are examined. The need for a system of independent children's rights commissions at the provincial level including legal counsel which can proyide independent representation for children on human rights matters is discussed. © 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.