A crucial function of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for Jersey (OCCJ) is to promote awareness among children and adults of children’s human rights.  This week, as a key part of meeting that function, the OCCJ launched its new look and feel website.    

For some, the idea of choosing to invest in a new website at a time of budget cuts may seem an unnecessary choice.  Nothing could, in fact, be further from the truth.  Two things are always in short supply in a small organisation such as the OCCJ: time and money. If you spend either unwisely, the impact will become obvious very quickly. Investing in our new website is a strategic decision that will serve children, parents, carers and professionals better, and ultimately save the office both time and money that we can invest elsewhere by providing more effective online information and resources.

Deciding to refresh and relaunch our website began with conversations with children and young people that took place in 2024.  Before shaping our 2024–2027 Strategic Plan, we asked people across Jersey what mattered most to them.  More than 1,300 islanders responded online and in person. We went into schools. We spoke directly with children and young people – not just about what was important, but what needed to change.

As always, when given the right opportunity to speak, children and young people were, refreshingly, disarmingly clear. They told us things that we couldn’t ignore.

Like how information – about rights, about support, about what to do next – isn’t always easy to find, understand or trust. They told us they want to learn about their rights. They expect to find that information online, delivered in ways that feel like it was made specifically with them in mind.  Some of the suggestions were practical, immediate and directed at the OCCJ, including “Post on social media… use young people in videos… this will spread across the island really quickly.”  “Make… an easily accessible and eye-catching website.”

This consultation told us something uncomfortable but important: awareness of children’s rights in Jersey is still too low. And when information is available, it isn’t always easy to find, or it’s not written in a way that would make sense to a 14-year-old on their phone.

So, we have tried to build something different: a website that makes rights easier to understand, that brings information into one place, that is genuinely usable for children – not just adults imagining what children might want – and that still works for families and professionals too. Simple, in theory but difficult in practice.

This work will have its critics because it is about the provision of online information, advice and participation opportunities, at a time when the debate about children’s access to and use of digital technologies and social media rages around us.  From a child rights perspective, UNICEF and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child have both emphasised that children’s rights extend fully into digital spaces, including their right to information, participation and protection. For this office to ignore the right of children to access their rights online would be unconscionable. While appreciating the breadth of views on issues such as social media access and smartphone use, it remains the case that children live large components of their lives online.  The online world is not separate from their ‘real’ lives, in other words: it is where they learn, connect, get information and, crucially, often look for help and support. 

And yet, the online environment can also be confusing, overwhelming and – at times – unsafe, which creates a clear responsibility for offices and organisations such as the OCCJ.  If we want children to understand their rights, know where to go for help and feel confident asking for it, then we must meet them where they already are – and do it properly.

As previously mentioned, in the context of current budget restraints, resources are limited and every decision has an opportunity cost. Choosing to invest in a website meant choosing not to do something else, at least for now. But here’s the thing – when information is easier to find, easier to understand, and easier to trust, it can quietly remove barriers to children accessing their rights. It means they might recognise when something isn’t right, might know who to turn to and might ask for help earlier. Those are not small outcomes. They are the difference between knowing your rights exist and being able to actually use them.

It would, in some ways, be a relief to be able to say that this project is now done.  However, that would also be untrue and unrealistic.  The new website is a step forward, not a final answer. It will change. It will improve. It will, at times, get things wrong – and we will need to fix them. It will be added to and changed as the rest of the work of the OCCJ progresses and we learn more about what information children want and how they want it presented.  

For now, though, we know that children and young people want to be heard. They want information that helps them navigate their lives – not information that looks good in a strategy document.  If this website helps even a small number of children understand their rights, find support, or feel a little more confident about what to do next, then it has already paid for itself many times over.