Consulting with Children & Young People

The Children and Young People Commissioner (CYPC) is an independent statutory position that sits within the ACT Human Rights Commission. This page gives more information about the ACT Human Right Commission in regards to children and young people.

CYPC believes it is important for children and young people to be able to have their say on issues that affect them. More importantly, however, the CYPC consults with children and young people because of the strong belief that children and young people know the most about what is important to them, and that it is children and young people who frequently have the best ideas, the newest ideas, about how to change things and make things better for children and young people.

The role of the CYPC includes:

• promoting the rights of children and young people;
• consulting and talking with children and young people;
• encouraging other organisations to listen to children and young people, and seriously consider their views in decision making;
• providing advice to government and community agencies about how to improve service delivery for children and young people.

The legislation that describes what we do is:

• The Human Rights Commission Act 2005

The best thing about being the Children and Young People Commissioner is being able to:

• talk to children and young people and find out about the things that really matter for them, and what they think about issues that affect them;
• take what I hear from children and young people and use this to speak to government, law makers, community advocates, teachers and service providers about how we can make Canberra better for children and young people.