Our three-year strategy says what we plan to do over the next three years to help make life better for children in Wales.
Download our three-year strategy (Opens as a PDF)
Our vision
A Wales where every child and young person understands their rights, knows the children’s commissioner is there to stand up for those rights, and is able to access support for those rights to be realised.
Our mission
We listen to and speak up for children and young people in Wales so that children’s rights are protected, and we support, challenge and influence public services in Wales to make a positive impact on their lives.
Our purpose
Here for all children
We listen and make sure we’re accessible to all children in Wales to ensure we can effectively speak out on their behalf and represent them in the most impactful way.
As a small staff team, we realise we can’t work alone on building effective, trusting relationships with all children, so we’d like to work in partnership with people who do have those solid relationships with children and young people across Wales to find out what matters to them and what issues they’d like us to champion on their behalf. Making the most of information and data about children and young people is also important to us, and we’d like to make sure we’re making the most of the rich data that partners collect on children’s lives as well as gathering our own information.
A rights ‘realiser’
We support and educate children and young people to know about and understand their human rights and we support and advise public services on promoting and protecting children’s rights.
Some public bodies, including the Welsh Government, have statutory obligations to raise awareness of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in Wales and others have committed to doing so. We’d like to work with those bodies to make sure there’s a coherent children’s rights awareness raising strategy in Wales.
Public services, such as local authorities and health boards, in Wales also play a critical role in children’s lives and therefore play a critical role in realising children’s rights. We’d like to work with them to make sure children’s rights feature front and centre in decision making and that we’re enabling children in Wales to have the best possible chance of having their rights realised.
A truth teller
We will support and empower children to speak out and share their diverse experiences with decision makers. We will shine a light on specific issues and amplify unheard stories through our enhanced communications and engagement work.
Children and young people trust us with their experiences, good and bad. We need to make sure these experiences not only shape our work but play a central role in policy development and implementation in Wales. As their champion, we plan to make sure these experiences are shared effectively with public bodies in Wales to help influence change.
The Commissioner plays a key role in Welsh civic life and is in a privileged position to be able to speak first-hand to decision makers, governments and national media outlets. We want to make sure we use that position to best effect.
A challenger
We will challenge and support others to ensure children’s human rights are realised. Although we want to work in partnership, we won’t be afraid of continuing to call out poor services, poor decision-making and poor choices if they negatively affect children’s lives.
We have powers to review a range of public services and won’t be afraid of using those powers if we think it’ll benefit children’s lives. We won’t shy away from difficult decisions, difficult conversations and difficult situations if it results in better outcomes for children. We’ll challenge with evidence and with young people’s voices.