Article 39 fights for the rights of children living in state and privately-run institutions, a population of around 80,000 in England. They use a variety of methods to promote and protect children’s rights, including:

• Awareness-raising – they run the rights4children website which gives accessible information about children’s rights generally and within specific institutional settings;
• Public policy advocacy – they try and influence laws and government policy so that children are better protected within institutional settings;
• Practice development – they have set up a national network of independent advocates to support them to give the best help to children and young people;
• Strategic litigation – they support and lead legal challenges when this is the best way of protecting children’s rights;
• Research – they make freedom of information requests and consult children and young people who live, or have lived, in institutional settings.