Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services
Jodie Griffiths-Cook wants to help children and young people access information they can trust and understand.
ACT Children and Young People Commissioner Jodie Griffiths-Cook is on a mission to help Canberra’s children and young people understand their rights.
In her role – which is independent from government and part of the ACT Human Rights Commission – she consults and speaks with kids every day.
“My role principally involves being able to engage directly with children and young people and find out what is important to them, then using that to try to influence public policy and create change that will hopefully make Canberra a better place for children and young people generally,” Jodie said.
She does this in a variety of ways, including creating simply written resources that can be used in schools and more broadly.
She regularly updates a dedicated section of the commission’s website with targeted, trustworthy information for kids, teens and young people.
Jodie also distributes the monthly Rights in ACTion newsletter to further inform ACT children and young people about their rights and wellbeing.
From school visits to Instagram posts, finding ways to tailor sometimes complex information for different age groups is important.
“Children and young people have a right to access information they can trust and understand,” she said.
“It really humanises things when you’re able to speak in a language that is clearly understood by kids.”
The Covid lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 highlighted a particular need for this.
“We saw a lot of communications going out to adults but very little being targeted to children and young people. For us, that really started the process of thinking mindfully about what we can do to shift that, both in terms of direct communications and modelling – trying to encourage others to do the same,” she said.
“If we actually think about some of the decision-making that happens – so many of our decisions impact young people in ways that we perhaps don’t consider,” she said.
Having been Commissioner for eight years now, Jodie says the discussions she has with children and young people are most rewarding.
“Some of those conversations are just absolute gold when it comes to what young people already intrinsically understand about their rights and about those sometimes competing rights that we all grapple with,” she said.
“I can almost take off my own commissioner hat and give it to some of them!”
Particularly engaged young people can also get directly involved with the commission. This in turn provides important feedback.
“We started a new youth advisor role, pitched for young people aged 16–25 years who have left school. We bring young people in for six months where they are looking for opportunities that will help them decide and pursue their career direction. From them we get a lot of intel about the kind of language to use, and the kind of things that are of interest to young people. We also take in work experience students in years 9-12,” she said.
A range of child-friendly resources to help children and young people understand the Human Rights Act will be launched in March this year – on the Act’s 20th anniversary.
Visit actkids.act.gov.au for more information.
Jodie wants all Canberra children and young people to know her door is always open – whatever they have to say.
Get ACT news and events delivered straight to your inbox, sign up to our email newsletter: