In our society, and in societies around the world, the stewardship of a child’s rights rest primarily with family. That deeply important (and often diverse) collection of people who are a child’s support system. Those people who will put a child’s needs, a child’s potential and a child’s safety first. Always. Even above their own. A family is supposed to nourish and provide for its children. Guide them with culture, traditions, beliefs and values. Children are supposed to be raised with smiles and scolds, praise and reprimands, the love of being held close and the love of being left to discover things on their own.
When–for whatever reason–a family is unable to live up to those obligations, a child is left to a system. A system that is full of wonderful and caring people, but that is ill-equipped to handle both the volume and complexity of these cases–one every two minutes–that enter the system.
That, at the end of the day, is why we exist. So a qualified responsible adult has each child’s back at the most vulnerable and consequential time in that child’s life. So somebody will fight for that child’s rights.
Learn how you can lift up a child’s voice. A child’s life.
