Shenzhen has released guidelines for the construction of a child-friendly public service system, which summarize the city’s efforts in building a child-friendly city over the last six years.
The guidelines are also China’s first local standards for creating a child-friendly city, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported yesterday. According to Shenzhen Women’s Federation, the guidelines have summarized the city’s experience in prioritizing child care and child-friendly public services over the last six years. Based on that, the city has formulated systematic local standards covering child-friendly public services and its supporting facilities.
The guidelines are focused on children’s needs and aim to promote their healthy and happy development, while establishing a framework for a child-friendly public service system with eight subsystems namely health, education, recreation and sports, games, travel, community and family, social security, and legal protection.
The guidelines have proposed a series of requirements that aim to serve children’s best interests, taking into account children’s growth and development needs at different stages, as well as the differences between children with different physical abilities and different families.
For instance, the guidelines have proposed to provide educational support for children who need long hospitalization, dividing inpatient rooms for children over 10 years old by gender, and provide convenient recreational and sports services for disabled children.
Shenzhen took the lead in exploring and practicing building a child-friendly city in China at the end of 2015, and issued the country’s first set of construction guidelines covering nine fields, namely communities, schools, libraries, hospitals, parks, travel systems, baby care rooms, practice bases and children’s participation.
In July 2021, Shenzhen’s innovative measures and experience in building a child-friendly city were recommended by the National Development and Reform Commission to be promoted across the country.