Support safe environments for children and youth through policy [positiveexperience.org/blog]

By Laura Gallant, 3/4/24, https://positiveexperience.org/blog/

Safe, stable, and nurturing environments are fundamental sources of positive childhood experiences (PCEs) to all children. When children and youth feel safe, physically, and emotionally, they can grow into healthy adults. Barriers to PCEs, and the practice of lifting these barriers, are often viewed on the individual level. But barriers to PCEs are also created on the systemic level. Policy changes, even though they can feel distant from families and communities, can greatly impact children and youth and their access to PCEs. Policies have a large impact on our mental health, physical health, and safety.

Many policies and decisions created today are causing barriers for children and youth to feel safe and supported in many environments. From the individual, community, and environmental levels, children and youth are losing access to safe spaces. It can feel overwhelming, like we have no influence or control over these barriers. But we can help create and promote PCEs for all children and youth around the world on the policy level. Below are some barriers to PCEs and ways that you can help break them down.

Discrimination

Discrimination comes in many forms and can stem from policies that deny basic rights to specific groups of people. These policies create barriers to basic needs, safety, and positive childhood experiences. Policies that target specific groups of people such as denying gender-affirming care and increasing police presence in select communities show children and youth that they are not safe or welcome to be themselves. Schools and other community events can feel unsafe for them. The promotion of these discriminatory policies allows people to justify hate, and this can lead to acts of violence against children and youth of color and in the LGBTQQIA+ community.

Resources

• Defending the Freedom of our LGBTQ+ Students to be Themselves (National Education Association)
• Racial Justice for Youth: A toolkit for defenders, (Georgetown Juvenile Justice Clinic & Initiative, The Gault Center: Defenders of Youth Rights)
• Anti-racism Toolkit (Student Advocacy Center of Michigan)
• Fighting Anti-Trans Politics (Human Rights Campaign)

Gun violence

Gun violence in communities and schools has risen over the last several years, making it difficult for children and youth to feel safe in their environments. For children and youth, specifically, school shootings have risen exponentially. Schools are where they spend most of their time, and for some, school is a safer environment than their homes. By not supporting gun regulations, we allow children and youth to live in fear while in school where their lives can be taken away next. By supporting gun control laws, we show children and youth that their safety is a priority. These regulations will help restore schools as safe, stable, and nurturing environments for students to live, learn, and play.

Resources

• Why Advocacy? (Sandy Hook Promise)
• Gun Violence Prevention Advocacy Toolkit (American Academy Pediatrics)
• Gun Violence Prevention (Boston Children’s Hospital)
• Here 4 the Kids

[Click here to read the full blog post.]