Date :

23 February 2012

Time :

Presenter :

12:30 – 13:30

Mr Gordon Phaneuf, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Child Welfare League of Canada (CWLC)

All nations, save two, have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet the advancement of the rights, needs and protection of children is slow, uneven and piecemeal. At the same time social development is a priority focus for virtually all nations.  The presentation will explore the need to couple national social development agendas (which focus on the goals of governance, capacity building, and institutional development) with advancing the rights, needs and protection of children.  The social development agenda and the development of child protection can and must be done in a complimentary and integrated manner.  Rather than creating child protective services, as has been witnessed in much of Europe and North America, in a reactive, fragmented, and isolated way what is needed is an evidenced-based, community-grounded, preventative focus which is supported by a continuum of social development initiatives. 

Key to advancing the child protection agenda is the on-going collection and analysis of accurate reliable national data on child abuse, neglect and sexual exploitation.  The challenge of developing of child protective services, and social support in general, is inhibited by the absence of a national knowledge bases on child and youth outcomes.  The value and importance of child maltreatment data will be examined.

Mr. Gordon Phaneuf is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Child Welfare League of Canada (CWLC). He has had long affiliation with violence prevention, with a particular focus on child abuse prevention. His work in the areas of children’s services has been varied, and it includes front-line child protection, advocacy, programme development, policy analysis, knowledge exchange, and surveillance. He has served as a technical advisor to the Governments of South Africa (Department of Social Development): Ethiopia (Ministry for Women and Children) and the United States (Health and Human Services); the World Health Organization (Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability); UNICEF; and, several Provincial/Territorial governments in Canada. Mr Phaneuf is a member of the team supporting the National Department of Social Development, South Africa with the conceptualization and development of tools in the Child Protection Surveillance study.

He has represented the Canadian Government at a number of international fora on child maltreatment, including the World Congresses against the Sexual Exploitation of Children (Stockholm, 1996) & (Yokohama, 2001). He played a leadership role in establishing the Tri-National Consultation on the Sexual Exploitation of Children (Philadelphia, 1996). He has led the development of a number of cross-disciplinary and multi-sectoral initiatives on children’s issues at the regional, national and international levels in both the public and not-for-profit sectors.

Kindly RSVP by 20 February 2012

Venues 

Cape Town : HSRC, 12th Floor, Plein Park Building (Opposite Revenue Office), Plein Street, Cape Town. Contact Jean Witten, Tel (021) 4668004, Fax (021) 461 0299, or JWitten@hsrc.ac.za

Durban :  First floor HSRC board room, 750 Francois Road, Ntuthuko Junction, Pods 5 and 6, Cato Manor, Contact Ridhwaan Khan, Tel (031) 242 5400, cell: 083 788 2786 or RKhan@hsrc.ac.za

Pretoria : HSRC Video Conference, 1st floor HSRC Library Human Sciences Research Council, 134 Pretorius Street, Pretoria. Arlene Grossberg, Tel: (012) 302 2811, e-mail: acgrossberg@hsrc.ac.za