30 January 2019
More than 150 primary and secondary school students and their teachers were yesterday presented with a copy of the Pledge to Put Children and Young People First at a workshop hosted by Jersey’s Children’s Minister.
Senator Sam Mézec and senior leaders from Children, Young People, Education and Skills (CYPES) hosted the workshop at d’Auvergne School yesterday afternoon.
Around 30 schools were invited to share their ideas on how the new Children and Young People’s plan should be designed, and they presented and discussed their ideas through artwork, words, poems, speeches and songs.
Highlands College media students filmed the event and the new Children and Young People’s plan is due to be made public next month.
Children and young people have been engaged and consulted throughout the development of the plan, which aims to improve everyday lives for all children and young people and their families.
One of the recommendations of the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry was to develop a new Children’s Plan to improve outcomes for children, young people and their families, and work has been ongoing for months to draft new ideas. During the inquiry it was also recommended that children should be part of developing that plan.
At the end of yesterday’s workshop, Senator Mézec and Mark Rogers, Director General of CYPES, presented each school with a copy of the Pledge, which was made by the Council of Ministers, many States Members and senior officials in September 2018. The Pledge, launched by Chief Minister Senator John Le Fondré and Senator Mézec, will hold the government, legislators and the public service to account for improving safeguarding and care and upholding the rights of every child in the island.
Following yesterday’s workshop, Senator Mézec said: “One of the outcomes in the Children and Young People’s Plan is to ensure that children and young people feel valued and involved so we wanted to ensure that they were included in the design of this fundamental plan for Jersey. We have also pledged to Put Children First and we spoke about what we as a government have promised and we asked children to let us know and hold us to account if they think that we are not keeping to our promises.”
Director General for Children, Young People, Education and Skills, Mark Rogers, said: “The Children’s Plan for Jersey will be a shared vision for everyone working with children and young people in Jersey in an effort to place the child and family at the centre of everything we do.
“It was a really inspiring workshop with so many creative pieces of work presented, which we will now include in the final design of our Children’s Plan. I would like to thank all of the schools, students and staff who were involved in our workshop and for all of their hard work and effort in helping to bring the Children’s Plan to life.”
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