Mask Project
Key Partners
- Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People (SCCYP)
- The Children’s Parliament
Audience
The audience was about 100 people, all of whom are in positions to influence....practice, while supporting and encouraging those who are already campaigning against physical punishment and get new people on board.
The target group included representatives from the following;
- health
- police
- social work
- family support
- children’s rights officers
- parenting groups, including fathers’ groups
- churches - parliamentary officers for the Catholic Church
and the Scottish Churches - voluntary sector
- education
- Media
- Scottish Parliament
- Faculty of Advocates
- Law Society
- Women’s Aid
- Young people
In tandem with the conference ‘The Mask Project’ was undertaken by children from the Children’s Parliament in the same venue. The Mask project was produced for the SCCYP conference at The Hub, Edinburgh in June 2007. The Children's Parliament explored the conference theme of positive parenting through creative arts. Their team worked with groups in Midlothian , South Ayrshire, the Western Isles and with P6 & P5 pupils from Gorgie Dalry and St Mary's Primary schools in Leith.
Process/activity
The activity combined a conference in June 2007 debating positive parenting and physical punishment with ‘The Mask Project’, a creative arts experience exploring positive parenting from a children’s perspective. The creative arts component was shaped through sessions combining mask making, theatre skills and creative writing. After participating in specially designed games and drama activities intended to explore emotions and parenting the children created 'picture doodles' where they gathered their thoughts and ideas using words and pictures. This process developed the vocabulary that inspired the creation of the masks, the dramas and a final installation. The masks were used to symbolise adults with either 'good' or 'bad' parenting skills.
Context
In both 1995 and 2002, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that the physical punishment of children in families be prohibited and that the UK undertake education campaigns to help change societal attitudes and foster the acceptance of the legal prohibition of physical punishment. With regard to UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Articles 3, 19 and 37 are relevant to physical punishment:
- Article 3(2): “State Parties undertake to ensure the child such protection and care as is necessary for his or her well-being, taking into account the rights and duties of his or her parents … and, to this end, shall take all appropriate legislative and administrative measures.”
- Article 19: “1. States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.
Such protective measures should, as appropriate, include effective procedures for the:
"establishment of social programmes to provide necessary support for the child and for those who have the care of the child, as well as for other forms of prevention and for identification, reporting, referral, investigation, treatment and follow-up of instances of child maltreatment described heretofore, and, as appropriate, for judicial involvement.”
Article 37: “States Parties shall ensure that: (a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment…”
Aim
The aims of this conference were to explore barriers to legal reform, progress the public education agenda, promote the need to support parents on positive non-violent discipline and to address the fears of parents in changing the law. In addition was the promotion of positive forms of discipline (non-violent forms of discipline) and respect for children’s equal right to human dignity and physical integrity, involving children and parents and all those who work with and for them. A further aim was to dispel myths and promote the idea that children have the same rights to protection from assaults that adults have and encourage happy, healthy families, well-protected children, and a society in which the human rights of all are truly respected. ‘The Mask Project’ was created to add an inclusive dimension to the overall theme embracing the children’s perspective of some of the issues raised in the conference. The aim of project was to use creative arts to explore children's views, work with them to look for solutions and ultimately inform adults about things which affect the lives of children.
Objectives
The principal objective of the conference was to promote awareness amongst prominent groups able to influence core issues raised in the course of the conference. These issues include;
- Children should receive the same protection from assault as adults.
- The defence of ‘justifiable assault’, set out in s.51 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, should be abolished.
- Law reform should be accompanied by adequately resourced public education campaigns on positive forms of discipline and support for parents and carers.
- Police and Prosecutors should have guidance on how to deal with parents who smack their children.
- The absence of a clear message makes children less safe.
- Society needs to be less violent and the zero tolerance approach is useful for people of all ages.
Within the context of the Mask Project, the overall objective is about adults and children working together to positively support each other. All the written text came directly from the children's words, thoughts, ideas and experiences centred around the theme of non-violent parenting. The UNCRC is clear that children have the right to the same protection from assault as adults and the purpose of this project was to raise awareness of these rights and to help parents and children find a route to achieving this objective.
Outcome
The outcome of the conference was threefold. Raising awareness of corporal punishment against children was key to the project goals. Pulling influential people and groups together to talk about the issues was important to achieve consensus and direction on the issues raised. Thirdly the opportunity for SCCYP to gather information from significant stakeholders has proved to be an invaluable exercise in strategic networking.
A central aim of The Children's Parliament is that children have opportunities to talk for themselves and the physical punishment conference and Mask Project provided a united forum where children could exercise their emotions and feelings, through the medium of creative arts, and through a dialogue between children and adults work together to bring about steps towards positive change.
