Manchester has launched a charter which aims to put the voices of babies and young children at the heart of council policy.
For several years Manchester has been clear in its ambition to become a UNICEF Child Friendly City.
By centring children and young people the Council wants to build a city and a future for the next generation and beyond, ensuring that everyone has the right to a happy, fulfilling and prosperous life.
To achieve this, the Council has recently run and completed a pilot programme under the banner of ‘Bee Heard in Early Years’.
This charter set out a number of expectations and standards which we expect early years settings to aspire to, ensuring that the voices of children and young people are heard, that they are respected and that their hopes and ambitions can be recognised and acted upon in a meaningful and lasting way.
Those expectations are:
- To have a ‘Children’s Rights Advocates’ in each setting.
- Sign up to the charter to commit that they will embed children’s rights in the policies and procedures of the setting.
Bizzie Kidz Nursery, who took part in the trial, had this to say:
“We plan to provide clearer communication about the importance of play in early childhood development and what children are learning during their time at nursery.
“In addition, we aim to raise awareness of children’s rights as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), particularly the right to play, learn, and be supported in reaching their full potential.
“By sharing this information, we hope to strengthen our partnership with families and ensure a shared understanding of how we can work together to support every child’s development and well-being.”
So far, six early years settings have completed the process to become Early Years Children’s Rights Charter settings, embedding the principles of the charter into their work.
These settings will receive a training workshop on children’s rights, have a peer support visit to learn and reflect on how the principles of Bee Heard can be implemented and will be able to participate in a wider network to share good practices within early years settings.
Due to the success of this pilot, the Council aims to roll it out to additional settings throughout the city from the autumn of 2025.
Councillor Julie Reid, Executive Member for Early Years, Children and Young People, said: “We know that the voices of younger people can often be drowned out in the wider world. However that does not mean that they are not as equally important.
“What this charter is hoping to set out is establishing a core set of principles for early years settings to aspire to and promote, ensuring that any child which passes through its doors feels valued and given every opportunity to succeed.
“We believe we are the only Local Authority in the country to have put a charter like this in place, a fact which underlines our commitment to the principles of what makes a UNICEF Child Friendly City.”
For Information
Manchester’s ambition to become a Child Friendly City
Manchester is determined to make the city the very best place for children and young people to grow up in. A place where children’s rights are understood, respected and actioned in the everyday life of the city and in decision making. A place also where children and young people are given a voice and where their ideas and opinions matter.
In 2023 it therefore set itself the target of becoming a UNICEF recognised Child Friendly City.
The city’s bid to be recognised by UNICEF as a Child Friendly City will see the council and local partners putting children’s rights into practice over a time frame of three to five years, as they work together towards the shared goal.
As part of this the council, in consultation with children and young people, has had to identify areas of particular focus – known as ‘badges’ – that it must work towards before it can be recognised as a UNICEF Child Friendly City.
The top three badges identified by Manchester’s children and young people for the city to focus on are: Safe and Secure, Place, and Healthy. In addition to these the city must also focus on a further three core badges – Culture, Co-operation and leadership, and Communication – and has also set itself the extra challenge of including a seventh badge, Equal and Included, as a cross-cutting golden thread through all its work in each of the different badge areas.
With over 200 languages spoken in Manchester and as the only city outside London to have residents in each of the 90 listed ethnic groups in the census, city leaders agreed that the Equal and Included priority should as a necessity underpin all of the work undertaken towards becoming a Child-Friendly City.
Child Friendly Cities
Child Friendly Cities & Communities is a UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK) programme that works with councils to put children’s rights into practice. The programme aims to create cities and communities in the UK where all children – whether they are living in care, using a children’s centre, or simply visiting their local library – have a meaningful say in, and truly benefit from, the local decisions, services and spaces that shape their lives. The programme is part of Child Friendly Cities – a global UNICEF initiative launched in 1996 that reaches more than 30 million children in close to 50 countries. In the UK, UNICEF UK provide training based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and support councils, their partners, and children and young people, as they work together on an ambitious three-to-five-year journey towards international recognition as a UNICEF Child Friendly City or Community. For more information visit unicef.org.uk/cfc
