Representatives of Children Ombuds’ annual meeting in Riga

On 9-10 April representatives of the Children Ombuds’ offices of the Baltic states and Poland met in Riga to discuss the children rights’ topicalities and ways of eliminating and preventing flaws in legislation and practice, as well as share experience and get inspired from one another. These annual meetings each year take place in one of the participating countries and gather experts of the field.

Representatives of each country informed about activities during the previous year and future plans. It was rather significant that problems with school admissions are also similar in Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.

Participants of the meeting visited the new Children and Adolescents’ Mental Healthcare Centre at the Children’s Clinical University Hospital to get to know about available services for children and adolescents’ mental health care services in Latvia.

Discussions on the rights of children and adolescents regarding healthcare and social support in cases of addiction treatment, on the safety in educational institutions, as well as on children rights to receive age-appropriate sexual and reproductive education and information and other important issues regarding children and adolescent rights took place.