Welcome to our first newsletter! We’re hoping to send you a version once a month. We’ll be using it to share updates about what we’re doing, resources which may be useful to supporting children’s rights, and things we’re proud of.
Here are five things we’re proud of this month.
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Three months. 1 new commissioner.
Here’s a round-up of Rocio’s first few months in post as Wales’ new children’s champion.
Five new resources.
To support the implementation of some new duties within Wales’ new curriculum, we’ve created some tools that will help settings embed a children’s rights approach.
Here you’ll find:
- a curriculum mapping guide to help support settings link rights to the new curriculum
- a self-assessment tool to help map and reflect on progress in embedding a children’s rights approach
- information about our free bilingual Ambassador schemes that can support children to learn about their rights
- case studies of interesting practice we’ve spotted across Wales
Three months. 155 new cases.
Our free and independent advice and support service is there for anyone who thinks a child or young person has been treated unfairly. We support with a huge range of issues, from school exclusion to access to mental health support.
You can call or email the team; here’s how.
As well as helping individual children, we also try to influence change that would have a positive effect on many more children.
This month, as a result of a case about a young person in foster placement whose life savings went missing, a local authority has agreed to change its practice for all children in care to ensure all belongings including savings, as well as relevant information is moved when the child moves to another placement.
Eleven thousand children and young people.
Listening to and reflecting on children’s experiences is a critical part of our function and purpose. Over the last three months, we’ve engaged with over eleven thousand children and young people, in an array of settings right across Wales.
We want this to be the way that all public bodies in Wales work. We want to see children involved in decisions that affect their lives, including those with additional learning needs.
This is why we’ve launched a host of new support materials this month to support decision-makers to consider the human rights impact of different ways of listening to children’s voices. Included are some great examples of this in action, with case studies about Cardiff Council’s education inclusion service and Swansea’s partnership and involvement team’s work with Ysgol Pen y Bryn.
There are also some specific resources to help local authorities and health boards fulfil their duties under the ALN Act 2018.
5 roundtable discussions. Ambitions for Wales. A plan on next steps.
Children and young people’s views and experiences shape what we do. From day one, Rocio has been listening to children and those who work and care for them about the things that concern them the most. Rocio’s also heard about people’s ambitions for Wales. Our next step is to draft our survey, to test the survey then to launch the survey on 5 October, so that we can hear from many more about what children’s Ambitions for Wales are, and to help shape a plan for the Wales we want to see. You can sign up here to receive updates on this work.
This is a new way of us sharing updates about our work. We’re aiming to send an update to you every month. If you have any suggestions about the type of things you’d like us to share in future editions, do make contact.