Community Ambassadors
At the end of March, Rocio was really pleased to host her first North Wales Community Ambassadors event. The event brought groups together from across North Wales to meet the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, to learn more about children’s rights and share their thoughts and feelings about any issues their communities are presently experiencing.
The groups enjoyed activities such as a rights auction and had the opportunity to speak with the Commissioner about what they feel the biggest concerns are for children and young people from their communities. Thank you to Inclusion group (Wrexham), WCD Young Carers, Mind Our Future project Barnardos, EYST and Stand NW who all took part in the event.
Community Ambassadors is an opportunity for a wide range of community groups to get involved with the work of the Children’s Commissioner’s office. More information on how to get involved can be found here.
Mudiad Meithrin Conference
Recently two members of our Participation Team attended the South Wales Mudiad Meithrin Conference in Swansea which this year followed the theme of ‘The Voice of the Child’. It was lovely to be invited to this year’s conference following our presence in the North Wales Conference last year. The office had a stall which included information and resources for early year’s practitioners to interact, engage and discuss how they could incorporate rights learning with young children. Our staff ran two workshops during the day, one on children’s rights and another on how to introduce children’s rights within their organisations. It was also a fantastic opportunity for our staff to listen and engage with other professionals who were taking part in the conference.
If you work with young children or in the early year’s sector you can find more information and resources to incorporate children’s rights in your work on our website.
Our Young People’s Advisory Panel meeting with Western Cape (South Africa) Young Advisors
Our young people’s Advisory Panel had an exciting and interesting opportunity to meet with the Children’s Commissioner for Western Cape’s Young Advisors. The virtual meeting provided an opportunity for the young people to share how each panel works with their respective commissioners and voice their thoughts and feelings about children’s rights. Both groups asked several great questions about their work and opportunities. It was interesting to learn how the young people in Western Cape inform their Commissioner’s Office in comparison to how our Young People’s Advisory Panel inform our Office’s work. Some members of our panel prepared a presentation on Welsh culture and Wales while they also were presented with information about South Africa from their food to their culture!
You can find out more about our Young People’s Advisory Panel on our website.
Rocio meets with Dyfed Powys Police Youth Forum
The Commissioner has had another busy month of face to face and virtual meetings with children and young people from across Wales. One highlight was a virtual meeting with Dyfed Powys Police Youth Forum where she listened about their work on substance abuse. The Dyfed Powys Police and Crime Commissioner was also present.
Special Mission Responses
Our office have been receiving fantastic responses from our Ambassador Schools regarding our Spring Special Mission. It has been great to see how different schools have used different elements of the mission to start conversations about poverty and the effects of cost of living with children and young people whilst also taking action. Some schools are considering opening an uniform swap shop to support their learners and families through the cost of living crisis, while others used the story of ‘The Invisible’ to open this sensitive topic with younger children. The Special Mission aims to allow children and young people to share their experiences of poverty, to develop empathy and imagine how they would feel if they were in that situation. Thank you to all the schools who have sent their responses, the Participation and Communications Teams have enjoyed reading about your work and seeing pictures of your Special Mission activities.
If your school would like to complete our Spring Special Mission you can access the resources here.
Also, if you would like join our free and bilingual ambassador schemes for schools and community groups you can sign up on our website at any point during the school year.
Racism in Schools
We’ve been busy meeting with a wide variety of stakeholders as part of our research into this issue – including young people, educators, and others with expertise and experience in this area.
You can read more information about our research on this web page.