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Passionate children’s advocate, Professor Fiona Stanley endorses The Valuing Children Initiative (VCI). Speaking via video, at the official launch of the VCI, Professor Stanley said  “We need to change the culture in terms of how we value children…there has never been a more important time for this initiative than today”

With two Royal Commissions due to report in 2017, we are at a critical juncture for children in Australia.

While indispensable to the acceptance and admission of past failure to protect children, Royal Commissions bring with them the risk of unintentionally implying that these concerns are now largely taken care of. Or that better policy and legislation and more inquiries, essential as they are, will be enough to bring about the change needed to protect children.

This mental shortcut would be a grave mistake. Getting it right for every child now, and in the future, will always depend on the attitudes of the adult world.

There is no set and forget when it comes to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of children, not your own child, nor any other child.

This submission focuses on highlighting the role that deeply embedded societal attitudes about children have played in creating a cultural context, both in institutions and in the wider community, which enabled the widespread sexual abuse of children to be concealed, and allowed perpetrators and institutions to deny any wrongdoing, and evade efforts to hold them accountable for decades.

In 2018, the national human rights institutions, such as the Australian Human Rights Commission, and civil society, can make submissions to the UN Committee to inform its deliberations. The Commission, in its role as a national human rights institution, is submitting an independent report to the UN Committee about Australia’s implementation of the CRC, OPSC […]

We all have a role to play in standing up to the forces that undermine children’s right to a safe and healthy childhood, something they deserve and have a right to expect. And I also believe that every adult who comes in contact with a child, as well as the culture and society they grow up in plays a significant part in what a child experiences. But no one plays a greater role than a parent. These are the people who most need to be empowered, and encouraged to do the job they have chosen and overwhelmingly want to get right.
‘Parenting is Forever’ provides guidance and advice about what to expect in parenting, the do’s and don’ts and what might require the assistance of experts. Yet at the same time it urges parents to take a deep breath, and believe that by and large they do have the intelligence and common sense to parent if they trust themselves, and are prepared to grow and learn alongside their child.
It is a book that provides wise counsel, encouragement to all parents and carers of children, and inspires confidence.