About this seminar
What does education look like when children's rights are genuinely at its centre?
In this reimagining of the future of education and children’s rights, we explore how a rights-based approach may augment and integrate with other approaches to foster educational success for children and youth. This session takes a forward-looking view across early childhood, primary, and secondary settings, holding together three interconnected challenges: climate justice, Indigenous perspectives, and children's mental wellbeing through a rights-based lens. Together, these challenges ask what it would truly mean to honour children's rights across every level of schooling and what needs to change to get there.
Who it is for
Teachers, students, youth advocates, professionals, and alumni
Program
Land Acknowledgments
Royal Roads University Indigenous Engagement
Introductions
Jerry Nussbaum and Kathleen Manion
Keynote Speaker
Kasari Govender, BC Human Rights Commissioner
Keynote Panel
Prof. Tara Collins, Emily Mlieczko, and Dr. Kathy Sanford
Interdisciplinary Panel
Moderated by Kathleen Manion
A 45-minute dialogue on creating educational spaces where rights are centred across digital realities, climate justice, Indigenous perspectives, mental wellbeing, and human-rights-respecting spaces.
Audience Q&A
Chaired by Kathleen Manion
Facilitated dialogue across in-person and online participants, with space deliberately made for online voices.
Speakers and participants
Kasari Govender
Keynote Speaker
B.C. Human Rights Commissioner, BC Office of the Human Rights Commissioner
Kasari Govender (she/her/hers) took office as B.C.’s first independent Human Rights Commissioner on September 3, 2019. Her role is to lead the promotion and protection of human rights in British Columbia through the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner.
Govender has devoted her life to promoting human rights, with a focus on the rights of those most marginalized. She is passionate about using her skills as a lawyer and community builder to create a more equal and just province. She has worked closely with organizations and communities promoting gender equality, Indigenous rights, children’s rights, the rights of people with disabilities and the rights of immigrant communities.
Emily Mlieczko
Panelist
Executive Director, Early Childhood Educators of BC
Emily Mlieczko is the Executive Director for the Early Childhood Educators of BC (ECEBC), where Emily leads the association to support advancement of the ECE profession.
Before starting in this position Emily worked in rural BC in a variety of early years programs in both 100 Mile House and Prince Rupert. After many rich experiences, including exposure to advocacy for the families she served, Emily decided to focus her attentions on the need to be a strong voice for the ECE sector. Her education, passion, understanding and commitment to make thing better for children, families and educators continue to guide her in work today.
Dr. Kathy Sanford
Panelist
Professor, Language & Literacy, Teacher Education, University of Victoria
Prof. Tara Collins
Panelist
Professor, School of Child and Youth Care, Toronto Metropolitan University
Tara Collins is a professor at the School of Child & Youth Care at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), where she also serves as program faculty with TMU’s graduate programs in Early Childhood Studies, Immigration & Settlement Studies, and Policy Studies PhD. She is also an honorary professor at the Children's Institute at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and the project director for the International & Canadian Child Rights Partnership (ICCRP).
She has a PhD from the University of London and her professional experience since 1996 includes universities in Canada, South Africa, Brazil, and Ireland; the Canadian federal government; Parliament; and a national non-governmental organization. She has worked with young people in volunteer and professional capacities in community and recreational contexts since 1987.
She is a member of the Child Rights Academic Network and the Advisory Council of the Landon Pearson Resource Centre for the Study of Childhood and Children’s Rights at Carleton University. She also serves on editorial boards including the Canadian Journal for Children’s Rights, Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, and the International Journal of Children’s Rights.
Prof. Kathleen Manion
Session Leader and Moderator
Professor, Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies, Royal Roads University
Kathleen Manion is a scholar-practitioner who bridges practitioner experiential knowledge, academic theory, and policy objectives. She is passionate about social justice, humanitarian issues, interdisciplinary perspectives and applied research. She is principally focused on children and young people’s wellbeing with a broad range of policy and practice experience in social work, community development, and interdisciplinary work. She strives to make complex concepts understandable and bring voice to research participants. Manion commits to student-focused experiences designed to spark curiosity and build lifelong learning.
Her projects focus on youth advocacy; early years; child and youth rights, protection, and wellbeing; inclusive education; international social work; homelessness; environmental justice; and family violence.