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Child-friendly Justice

The goal of this project is to improve criminal justice systems by making them more child-friendly to child victims and children suspected or accused of committing a crime, particularly for those who are in vulnerable situations.

Child-Friendly Justice Project Leaflet

Research Findings

Individual Assessment of Children in vulnerable situation in criminal proceedings

CHILD-FRIENDLY JUSTICE: DEVELOPING THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL COURT PRACTICES

878552 – CFJ-DCSCP

There is a lack of understanding on how children should be assessed by criminal justice professionals to identify their social, educational, protection and/or restoration/reintegration needs within criminal justice processes. This project focuses on improving individual assessments of children in vulnerable situations in Bulgaria, Italy and Romania, in particular for children with disabilities, children deprived of parental care and unaccompanied minors. The project will develop a set of specialist tools which will contribute to ensuring access to justice, a child-centred approach and ensuring that appropriate measures are taken to enhance their participation and to protect them from harm throughout the criminal justice process.  

The two-year project is implemented between July 2020 and June 2022 in 3 EU countries: Bulgaria, Italy and Romania. The project consortium includes:

Numerous testimonies suggesting a dramatic increase in gender-based violence against women and girls with disabilities, including rape, sexual assault, and harassment at the hands of law enforcement authorities and family members.

COVID-19 Disability Rights Monitor

Project Objectives

  • Research promising practices in each jurisdiction on how to conduct individual assessments, which will give information to professionals on how to support and accommodate children in vulnerable situations; 
  • Develop models on promoting child-friendly justice and individual assessments focused on children with disabilities, unaccompanied minors and children deprived of parental care;  
  • Enhance the capacities of multidisciplinary teams of judges, lawyers, social workers, and allied professionals;  
  • Pilot the ‘social court’ model in Bulgaria. 

Implementation Methods

  • Research and data collection on existing promising practices in conducting multidisciplinary individualised assessments for children with enhanced vulnerabilities. This will bring together existing practices, highlighting specific gaps in the skills, knowledge and competences of judges, lawyers and other professionals involved in the administration of justice in guaranteeing the procedural rights of children with disabilities, unaccompanied minors and children deprived of parental care.   
  • Development of a suite of models and tools to aid professionals in conducting multidisciplinary individualised needs assessments for children with enhanced vulnerabilities. These will aim to promote communication, participation in court proceedings and individual assessment of the social and environmental elements of children’s lives.  
  • Training and capacity-building of lawyers, judges and other professionals involved in the administration of justice to adopt a child-friendly approach to conducting individual assessments. These will take the form of training events, webinar Labs and an international symposium to enhance and exchange knowledge between relevant professionals in the project countries.  
  • Piloting the model of ‘social courts’ in two regional courts in Bulgaria. This pilot phase will be focused on testing the methods and tools developed under this project.  
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Project Outcomes

Our guide and report Pathways for Inclusive Individual Assessment builds upon the experiences, recommendations and solutions of individual assessments, taking an intersectional perspective in Bulgaria, Italy and Romania. More juvenile justice and child protection professionals learned how to work in a multidisciplinary manner so that children can have a say in their case and participate to the extent they wish to. It sets important standards as well on how to make justice more inclusive depending on the children’s family situation, nationality and disability. 

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This project is co-funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020). 

Full Name of the Project

Child-Friendly Justice: Developing the concept of social court practices (878552 – CFJ-DCSCP), REC-AG-2019/REC-RCHI-PROF-AG-2019-878552. 

This project is co-funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020). The contents of this project represent the views of the project partners only and are their sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.