This manual provides stimulation and guidance to social workers, social work students and educators, as well as colleagues in related fields, who wish to live up to the high ideals of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and to implement them in their work with children. This convention is of singular importance to all social workers. It is also the most supported convention at the United Nations with 191 signatory states; only two members have yet to sign, namely the USA and Somalia.

IFSW worked with the UN Centre for Human Rights to produce a training manual Human Rights and Social Work in 1992 (reprinted 1994). The document examines UN human rights instruments and identifies ways in which they illustrate and enhance the responsibilities of social workers. The manual has been widely used in schools of social work and by social work practitioners in their daily work.
That manual included reference to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but more detailed work was considered necessary to help social workers to understand and apply the Convention to their every day practice. The Convention covers all aspects of children’s care and treatment and should therefore be the basis for all social work intervention with children. The aim of this manual is to ensure that children’s human rights, as set out in the Convention, are fully respected and implemented within the context of social work. The manual will be useful to trainee social workers, as well as to social workers and fellow professionals working with children. It will also be valuable to groups and organisations run by children and young people, as a self-advocacy tool.