Knowledge Exchange Platform Advancing Child-Friendly Legal Aid

Children frequently come into contact with justice systems, including as victims or witnesses, when accused of breaking the law, or as parties in civil matters, including custody, child protection, and migration. Yet many legal aid services are not adapted to their developmental needs, evolving capacities, or best interests. Legal aid is one of the most concrete entry points to access justice: without someone who can help a person understand the law, navigate institutions, and articulate a claim, the formal recognition of rights remains an abstract promise on paper. Access to justice for children means a child can understand their rights, claim them effectively, and, through that process, actively use and help shape the law that affects their life. A PCJ approach reframes legal aid around that lived experience: rather than starting with court structures and procedures, it starts with the child’s needs, voice, and best interests, asking what kind of information, support, and pathway would resolve their problem.

Common legal aid gaps include limited availability of specialized providers, barriers to access (costs, distance, language), insufficient child safeguarding, low-quality representation, and weak coordination across justice, social welfare, health, and education systems. Emerging trends (digital justice tools, climate), conflict-related displacement, and online harms are reshaping how children experience justice and how legal aid must respond. A child-friendly approach utilizes child-friendly language and requires integrated, trauma-informed, gender- and disability-inclusive services that ensure participation, protection, and timely, effective remedies.

Objectives

• Build a shared understanding of what constitutes child-friendly legal aid grounded in PCJ principles.
• Strengthen governments’ and legal aid organizations’ knowledge of practical and sustainable legal aid models by showcasing diverse approaches, providers, and financing mechanisms.
• Surface practical, context-sensitive models and tools for frontline practitioners, including low-resource and rural settings.
• Enhance practitioners’ capacity to deliver child-friendly legal aid by promoting meaningful child participation and child-sensitive communication.
• Explore contemporary issues affecting children’s access to justice and how legal aid can adapt.

Session Outcomes

• Understand the barriers and discrimination that prevent children and young people from accessing legal assistance and justice tailored to their needs.
• Identify the fundamental standards of child-friendly legal assistance, including early access to legal aid, free access, quality of services, specialized providers, appropriate communication, confidentiality, child participation, protection, and accountability mechanisms.
• Understand the challenges of financing and sustaining child-friendly legal assistance services by exploring different models of complementary legal aid in accordance with the Lilongwe Declaration and drawing lessons from promising approaches, such as socio-legal advocacy centers.
• Strengthen participants’ capacity to provide child-friendly legal assistance by ensuring their effective participation at every stage of the process. Through practical case studies, participants will be able to translate standards into concrete actions, define appropriate referral pathways, and identify the minimum safeguards needed in their intervention context.
• Leave with practical, ready-to-use tools and templates, such as a child-friendly intake form, informed consent scripts, and checklists for providing child-friendly legal assistance.
• Understand the specific approaches needed to support children in particularly vulnerable situations, including children in conflict with the law, children associated with armed groups, and children who are victims of gender-based violence.