Putting Children’s Rights at the Heart of Care: Introducing the ISupport Checklist

Today, on International Children's Day, we’re excited to launch the ISupport Rights-Based Standards Checklist, an evidence-informed tool to help professionals ensure that every child’s rights and well-being are respected in practice.

In busy healthcare settings, even the most experienced professionals face time pressures and complex demands. Research from safety and quality initiatives shows that brief, structured check-ins, when teams briefly pause to agree key steps, can strengthen communication, enhance teamwork, and reduce preventable harm.

 The ISupport Checklist offers a clear, practical way for teams to translate rights-based standards into everyday practice. With its nine core statements, based on the ISupport Rights-Based Standards, this checklist aims to help professionals to deliver safe, compassionate, and child-centred care which enhances trust and communication between children, families, and professionals.

We invite professionals, teams, and organisations to get in touch and be part of the ISupport initiative helping us build a culture where every child’s rights are at the centre of care.

ISUPPORT launch a Widget symbol based version of the rights-based standards for children having tests, treatments, examinations and interventions and a prep sheet to help children get ready for their procedure and communicate their needs.

We are delighted to launch the Widget based symbol version of the rights-based standards and a prep sheet. We have learnt so much over the last year through working with children and young people with a range of additional needs, their parents and professionals to create these documents.

We have consulted with over 200 children and young people with additional needs to develop these documents to make sure the text and symbols are accessible and meet their needs. It has been great to work with ‘Children in Hospital Ireland’ and Inclusion Ireland who have helped support consultation events to seek the views of young people and parents. We would like to thank the young people who attended the Sefton Council Youth Conference 2024 and those working with Stichting Kind en Ziekenhuis who have provided very valuable feedback.

Anna Gunning from Children in Hospital Ireland said;

“Thanks to all those who gave their time and their insights to help us develop these final sheets.  We, in Children in Hospital Ireland, were delighted be a part of this project and we know that it will be a great resource for many children and their families.”

These symbol based versions are an important part of making sure that all children and young people know their rights when they are having a health test, treatment, examination or intervention.

Visit the download the standards page to use these resources.

ISUPPORT launch a comic strip version of the rights-based standards for children having tests, treatments, examinations and interventions.

We are delighted to share our new comic strip version of the standards. This helps more children learn about their rights when they have a health care procedure.

This launch marks the culmination of a year’s work with over 100 children and young people from the UK, Netherlands and New Zealand who have guided every step of the process. We would like to thank all the children and young people who have shared their views and opinions.

“We have learned so much from the children and young people who have helped develop this engaging and accessible version of the standards. Even though the comic is simple, it has been really challenging to develop images to show the principles of procedural care and which work across a wide range of contexts.” Professor Lucy Bray

We would particularly like to thank Stichting Kind en Ziekenhuis who have provided valuable guidance and have supported us in working with amazing illustrators and graphic designers. Leonie Sonneveld has done a great job creating the engaging images.

“It was a joy to work with children to transform the standards into an easy to understand visual version for children themselves. By creating this version, we are not only broadening the reach of the standards but also empowering children to understand and advocate for their rights in medical settings” Jorien Mulder

The ISupport collaboration are working hard to ensure the standards are used as widely as possible around the world. The comic strip is free to download and use from the ‘download the standards’ page of this website.