Access to justice for children with mental disabilities

The research conducted focused on the rights and participation in the decision making process of children with mental disabilities (mental health problems and intellectual disabilities) in judicial and non judicial procedures... [ view full abstract ]

The research conducted focused on the rights and participation in the decision making process of children with mental disabilities (mental health problems and intellectual disabilities) in judicial and non judicial procedures regarding their place of living, education and criminal justice, in ten European countries. The project has been founded by the EC and has been produced based on findings generated in conjunction with MDAC in Budapest. The main research questions were: how can children with mental disabilities choose where and with whom they live, how can they access inclusive education and get the support they need, and how are they protected by and supported in the criminal justice system as victims, witnesses and defendants. The research has been held in three phases; desk research, deeper desk research and empirical field research. The phases followed one another so we could also compare the availability of data to the general public to how much data is not accessible. The results of the research in Slovenia have shown that on the declarative level children with mental disabilities overall have a lot of rights, especially since Slovenia has ratified the Convention of children rights and the Convention of the rights of people with disabilities. But in everyday life these rights amount to very few. There has been a lot of experimentation in this area and a lot of projects conducted by NGO’s, but none of them were later integrated in legislation. The prevalent model of care and education for children with disabilities is still segregated and institutional. The most progressive judicial system in terms of protection of children rights is probably the criminal justice system, but even there it was noticed that the professionals involved in these proceedings have very little knowledge and experience working with children with disabilities in general.