Minister Cigler Kralj: "The goal is to reduce the number of children at risk of poverty by at least 5 million"

The international conference The Child Guarantee - Equal Opportunities for Every Child was held today in virtual format, organised by the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. Within the European Child Guarantee, EU member states will ensure free and effective access to key services for children in need.

The European Child Guarantee aims to promote equal opportunities for all children. The European Commission recommends that member states ensure that children in need have access to effective and free preschool education and care, education and school-based activities, at least one healthy meal every school day, and healthcare. It also recommends that member states ensure effective access to healthy nutrition and appropriate housing.

The aim of the conference was to call on EU member states to set up a European Child Guarantee scheme. Minister Cigler Kralj made a strong call for the preparation of action plans: "It is now up to us, the EU member states, to draw up and begin to implement national action plans to meet or even exceed the EU's 2030 target: to reduce the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion by at least 15 million, and out of them, at least 5 million should be children."

The first part of the conference was devoted to the presentation of the steps to be taken by the European Commission to effectively implement the scheme. The European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit i, stressed the importance of the child guarantee for the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights. Vice-President Šuica's Head of Cabinet Colin Scicluna stressed that the European Commission has included the scheme in the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child.

Later in the conference, some member states presented good practices for the implementation of the scheme, such as access to one-stop-shop services for families, field work (working with families in their homes), the prevention of evictions of vulnerable families, and deinstitutionalisation (removing children from institutions to foster families). Since recommendations and policies are often most effectively implemented at the local level, examples of good practices from individual municipalities and regions were presented.

Slovenia, which has had one of the lowest rates of child poverty and social exclusion in the EU, presented the possibility of using the existing databases - such as the child wellbeing index - as an example of good practice. Data allow the identification of groups of children at risk in different areas of life (schooling, children's health, social exclusion, etc.) and provide an insight into regional differences and disparities with other EU member states.

The debate highlighted that the implementation of the Child Guarantee scheme and the preparation of action plans was a challenging task for EU member states. It seems that the greatest challenge will be ensuring a safe and decent housing environment. At the end of the conference, the State Secretary at the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Cveto Uršič, called on member states to achieve the objectives: "Our job is to ensure that every child has the opportunities to succeed in life".