Dr. Laura Lundy is co-director of the Centre for Children’s Rights and a Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s University Belfast and co-editor in chief of the International Journal of Children’s Rights. Her expertise is in children’s right to participate in decision-making and education rights. Her 2007 paper, “’Voice’ is not enough,” is one of the most highly cited academic papers on children’s rights, proposing a model of children’s participation based on four key concepts – Space, Voice, Audience and Influence. Professor Lundy has developed and applied rights-based participatory methodologies with children of all ages in diverse social and geographical contexts.
Current research includes the experiences of digital rights of children with disabilities, and “Participation for Protection,” European Commission’s training for professionals to serve children who have experienced violence. As part of her research, Professor Lundy also facilitates public understanding of children’s rights through co-production of user- and child-friendly versions of legal documents. She acts as expert advisor on child participation to Child Rights Connect and provides advice and training on children’s rights to a wide range of other international organisations including the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Council of Europe, UNICEF, Terres des Hommes, Plan International, and Save the Children.
Dr. Michelle Templeton is a research fellow at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. Her background is in psychology and counselling and she works as a researcher within the Centre for Children’s rights, which has pioneered an innovative methodology for conducting rights-based participatory research with children and young people. She has extensive practical experience of applying this methodology with children and young people in diverse social and geographical contexts, with a particular interest in facilitating the co-production of contextually relevant health and education interventions and developing innovative public dissemination and engagement strategies. A further practical application of this methodology is the production of youth-friendly versions of human rights legal texts, research documents and reports etc. and to make information accessible so children and young people can assert their right to good health and wellbeing. Her work is interdisciplinary; she also works out of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Queen’s, focusing on relationships, sexual health, gender and parenting in adolescents’ lives, particularly in relation to prisoner health.
Dr. Byrne’s research expertise lies in international disability rights and children’s rights with a particular focus on the application of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to national policy and practice. She also has a particular interest in the rights of children and young people with disabilities, inclusive education, transitions, and disability theory.
Prior to joining the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work in 2012 she was a children’s rights research fellow in the then School of Education, and a researcher for the Centre on Human Rights for People with Disabilities at Disability Action. She is currently co-director of the Centre for Children’s Rights and co-chair of the Disability Research Network at Queen’s.
Ms. Olivia Lecoufle works with Save the Children Canada as a child protection advisor. She leads the Save the Children International task group on children and work as well as chairs the International Child Protection Network of Canada where she has been closely involved in several symposiums and conferences involving academics, child-rights organisations and government officials. Ms. Lecoufle has been working on issues related to child participation and international labour policies for the past 12 years. She holds a BSc from the University of Montreal and a MA in political science and development studies from Sorbonne University, Paris.
Mr. Moschos was the first children’s ombudsman in Greece. He served as deputy ombudsman for children’s rights at the independent authority, The Greek Ombudsman, between July 2003 and January 2018. In 2006, he was elected chairman of the European Network of Ombudsmen for Children and since then he has participated ceaselessly in the bureau of the network. He has studied law and criminology.
He has 35 years’ experience working in the fields of defence and promotion of children and youth rights, coordinating discussions and consultation meetings with children, organising activities for the support and empowerment of children in care, young offenders, refugees, school dropouts, children with disabilities, and others. He has participated in committees for the youth parliament, the rights of children on the move, the Observatory for Children’s Rights, and has extensive experience in European programmes, networks and meetings.
He collaborates with the Council of Europe as an expert in initiatives connected with children’s rights. He is a certified trainer of professionals working for and with children. He leads the Initiative for Article 12 (InArt12), an association aimed at the promotion and implementation of the right of all children to express their opinion freely, as enshrined in UNCRC.
Dr. Ziba Vaghri is the director of the GlobalChild program of research and a senior research associate at the University of New Brunswick-Saint John Department of Psychology. In 2014 she received a five-year Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar Award in recognition of her decades of work on child development and child rights. She was trained and mentored by one of the most prolific researchers of early child development, the late Dr. Clyde Hertzman (OC).
