On May 11th to 12th, Suzanne Williams from the BHM team spoke at the Vancouver event, Access to Justice for Children: Child Rights in Action Conference organized by the Continuing Legal Education Society of BC (CLEBC) in collaboration with the Canadian Bar Association’s BC Children’s Law Section and young people.
Suzanne co-chaired the event with the Honourable Donna J. Martinson. This is the second Access to Justice for Children Conference they have co-chaired for CLEBC with the 2015 Conference being an international award winner for continuing legal education.
This event recognized the barriers that children experience in their access to justice and profiles developments in the law and practice that can better support children’s well being across a wide range of legal areas including family law, child protection, health and education. The event included legal professionals, young people and others working in justice or administrative decision-making.
Suzanne was the lead writer and consultant for the Canadian Bar Association’s Child Rights Toolkit, which was unveiled during the first portion of the 2017 Conference, and discussed throughout the two days. This work was led by the Canadian Bar Association’s Subcommittee on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of the National Children’s Law Committee over three years. It was inspired by the lack of access to justice for children, and involved the direct participation of more than 30 professionals from across Canada and many more via complementary Canadian Bar Association sections.
The Child Rights Toolkit is available to professionals and the public through the Canadian Bar Association website.
