City’s children and young people celebrate Child Friendly Nottingham

Children and young people from schools across the city joined partner organisations to celebrate and provide valuable insights into what Child Friendly Nottingham will be in the future.

In a broad based local partnership programme Nottingham will see children’s rights put into practice in the city over the next three-to-five-years, as part of the UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK) Child Friendly Cities and Communities programme. Partners will work towards 7 goals, four of which were decided by the city’s children and young people. The goals are represented by badges. The badges chosen after consultation with over 9,000 of the city’s children and young people are: 

• Safe and Secure

• Education and Learning

• Healthy

• Equal and Included

These priorities, or badges, are in addition to the three mandatory areas that UNICEF UK asks all partners to work towards:

• Culture

• Cooperation and Leadership

• Communication

Over the next few years, the council and its partners will use children’s rights to achieve meaningful change for children in these seven badges. 

Children and young people from the city’s schools worked with councillors and staff from the council and partner organisations to explore what the chosen badges mean to them. Representatives from the city’s football and cricket clubs provided activities for attenders. 

The Nottingham charity Small Steps Big Changes (SSBC) is supporting the initial administration and set up costs of Nottingham Child Friendly City, with financial support from the National Lottery Community Fund’s ‘A Better Start’ programme. This has provided a great opportunity to build on work already started with some of our youngest children, in some of our most diverse communities. 

Organisations are encouraged to make a child rights-based approach part of their plans and delivery of their services. By taking a strategic view, organisations can include how to be Child Friendly in their normal budgeting and planning. Any organisations wanting to explore how to implement a child’s rights-based approach can contact the programme at child.friendly@nottinghamcity.gov.uk