Children’s rights and school psychology: Historical perspective and implications for the profession

School psychology and children’s rights have great potential, well beyond what has been realized, for advancing the best interests of children, their communities, and societies. A child rights approach infused into school psychology can significantly contribute to the fulfillment of this potential. To respect and illuminate these factors and possibilities, a brief history of children’s rights is presented, its major components as embodied in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and their relevance for education and the school community are clarified, and the opportunities for school psychology to champion and deeply integrate children’s rights in policy and practice are explored. Employing this base, a proposal is made for a new social contract between school psychology and those it serves which moves beyond reactive problem oriented interventions to give primacy to proactive promotion of the well-being and full holistic development of the child, employing a prospective human development models emphasizing progressive achievement of self-stewardship for all children.