The Team

Philip Cook holds a PhD in Cross-Cultural Psychology from Queen's University, and is the founder and current Executive Director of the International Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD).

Since 1994, Dr. Cook has overseen the Institute's growth as a leader in linking children's rights and healthy development to broad issues of human development and participatory governance across diverse cultures and situational contexts. During this time, IICRD has been working in partnership with a cross section of UN agencies, governments, and international non-governmental organisations, and children's organisations.

These partnerships have resulted in policy design, community based research initiatives, school based programs and projects with marginalised children, youth and their communities on various issues including: child participation in local governance, youth leadership and development, support for Indigenous children, child participation monitoring and evaluation, intergenerational programs, promoting the rights of sexually-exploited children and caring for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

Stuart Hart, PhD, is Deputy Director of the IICRD and Founding Director of the Office for the Study of the Psychological Rights of the Child, and Professor Emeritus of the School of Education, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.

He is the present Chairperson for the Children's Rights Committee and Past President of the International School Psychology Association, the Past President of the National Association of School Psychologists (USA), and the Past-President of the National Committee for the Rights of the Child (USA).

Stuart is co-director of CRED-PRO, IICRD's international programme of child rights education for professionals serving children and families. He has presented and published extensively on psychological maltreatment of children and on children's rights. He was a member of the NGO Advisory Panel for the UN Secretary General's Study on Violence Against Children and has been on the editorial boards of Child Abuse and Neglect - The International Journal, School Psychology International, and the Journal of Emotional Abuse. He was co-chair of the programme to develop a General Comment for Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and is co-chair of the Steering Committee for Implementation of that General Comment (GC13) and of the Secretariat for the Global Reference Group for Accountability to Child Rights and Well-Being serving the interests of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Marie has a Masters degree in Understanding and Securing Human Rights and a Graduate Certificate in Arts for Change (working with children, young people and their families through creative arts and play). She is an independent international child rights consultant specialising in policy development, training, research and evaluation. She has produced a number of training manuals, practical toolkits and participatory research reports on child protection, child participation, children in the justice system, and child rights-based approaches. She is an Associate of the International Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD). She assisted the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in the writing of General Comment no.13 (2011) on Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (the right of the child to freedom from all forms of violence) (GC13). She continues to assist the GC13 Implementation Steering Committee.