Pursuing Human Rights for Community-Level Resilience: The Jordan’s Principle Case, Process, and Initiative as Resilient Community Action
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How to Cite

BlackstockC., & AugerA. (2013). Pursuing Human Rights for Community-Level Resilience: The Jordan’s Principle Case, Process, and Initiative as Resilient Community Action. International Journal of Child and Adolescent Resilience, 1(1), 84-87. Retrieved from https://www.ijcar-rirea.ca/index.php/ijcar-rirea/article/view/79

Abstract

The United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a globally-adopted initiative to ensure the best interests of the child remain at the forefront of competing agendas. Calls for concrete actions to be taken by a particular CRC signatory country to ensure a child’s non-negotiable human rights. In Canada, concerns persist in the context of health disparities within First Nations communities, where the process has moved from child rights violation to planful community action. Jordan’s Principle is a child-first principle, passed in the Canadian House of Commons in 2007, to ensure that a First Nations child’s health and social services are provided commensurate with the “best interests” of the child. The principle is named in memory of Jordan River Anderson who died in hospital waiting for his needs to take precedence. His tragic death spoke to the need for jurisdictional disputes to be resolved after the needs of the child are met. Jordan’s Principle reflects the active community-level resilience within First Nations and Aboriginal communities, (King, 2012), where action has a reciprocal relationship to resilience, thereby creating a community actioncommunity resilience relationship with real, practical implications for resilience at the family and child levels.

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