Youth Advisory Panel

OCO's Youth Advisory Panel (YAP)

OCO no longer has a Youth Advisory Panel as over the past two years we have focused directly on different groups that we have identified in order to highlight their needs. These included separated children, young people who have been detained in St Patrick's Instiution prison and homeless children.

Over the four years that we worked with YAP they took part in several different projects with various members of OCO staff. They were involved in: interviewing for the post of Ombudsman for Children, OCO's website, the Big Ballot, including the national count event and bringing the results to the Oireachtas; YSI 2008 and 2009; the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children conference that the OCO hosted in Dublin; Connecting Communities as well as projects such as our transition year programme and our Children and Young People's Annual Report.

Their contributions have made an enormous difference to our Office and we would like to thank them for all their hard work.

Below is a short clip in which some members of the panel talk about why they got involved with the OCO and some of the highlights of the past couple of years.

Listen to members of YAP talk about their time on the panel

Why did you get involved in YAP?

What are you most proud of from your time on YAP?

What memories will you take with you from your time on YAP?