Tune In 2016

What was it?

Through Tune In we heard directly from children and young people how they want to hear about their rights. They also told us their ideas on the best ways for us to raise awareness of children’s rights. Tune In took place from September to December 2016.

Who took part?

In total, 2,148 children and young people in 94 groups from 71 schools, Youthreach centres and youth services in 21 counties took part in Tune In. Teachers and educators were given educational packs asking them to discuss with young people.

• WHERE they would like to get information about children and young people’s rights?
• WHO they would trust and be happy to give you information about children and young people’s rights?
• WHAT kinds of information they are interested in getting about children and young people’s rights?
• HOW they would like information about children and young people’s rights to be presented?

What we are doing about it?

Children and young people told us that…

• Websites and social media are where they would like to get information about children’s rights.
  We will continue to develop our It’s Your Right website (www.itsyourright.ie) to raise awareness of children’s rights among children and young people. We will also start using the social media platforms (e.g. Facebook and Instagram) linked to our It’s Your Right site in a planned way in order to share information about children’s rights with young people.
• Schools are one of the places where they would like to get information about children’s rights and teachers are one of the main groups of people they trust and who they would be happy to give them this information.
  We will create and share new educational materials about children and young people’s rights. We will also look at how we can develop the ‘Explore More’ part of our It’s Your Right website, which is for teachers and educators in particular.
• Parents/guardians are another group of people that they trust and who they would be happy to give them information about children’s rights.
  We will work to grow awareness of children’s rights and the OCO among parents/guardians, including through social media.
• Video is one of the ways that they would like information relating to children’s rights to be presented. They also told us that they are interested in real stories and case studies.
  We have just created two new short videos about the OCO and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These videos are available to watch on our It’s Your Right website – at www.itsyourright.ie/who-we-are/ and at www.itsyourright.ie/know-your-rights/crc/. We will develop a number of new short videos that will provide case studies of complaints made by or for children and young people, which the OCO has dealt with.
• Guest speakers (visiting their schools) is a good way to receive information about children’s rights
  The OCO has a small team, but we make every effort to go to events, visits schools and meet with youth groups across the country. This is an area we will continue to work on.
• Advertising is a good way to raise awareness of children’s rights among children and young people.
  We would like to make an ad over the next 12 months and we are going to look at the best way for us to do this so that any ad we make really works.

In addition to these steps, we are going to continue to run our workshops for groups of children and young people visiting the OCO with their schools, Youthreach centres and youth services.